Servant
Leadership:
Creating The New Paradigm
Consciousness is stirring. New thoughts and feelings are in the land. Many of us
want to understand how to live in peace, how to create a just and humane world.
We want to understand how to build a civil society, how to participate in a more
peaceful union. We understand that no matter how appealing our material and
success-oriented culture might be, without the glue of human kindness and
compassion it can ultimately bankrupt us.
True community informs peace and justice. It supports joy
and creativity. It funds moral, ethical and spiritual consciousness. Community
breeds generosity. It stands on its own in the center of loving relationships.
We yearn and hunger for want of it; and while there is more than enough; it is
becoming less available.
At a time when it would seem that our best days are in
front of us, at the height of our prosperity, we feel impoverished. We are
neighbors to strangers. Our families are more fragmented. Our children more
disturbed. Our government seems unresponsive. Many of our public spaces are
dangerous and unpredictable. We feel alone, alienated and distrustful. And
though there are churches on almost every corner, we are often spiritually
deprived. We spend fifty to sixty hours a week working to earn dollars to lay at
the alter of rampant materialism. There is little time for family, community,
relating and connecting: those things that bring joy and meaning to life. Has
the great society become a toxic one?
And how do we explain our participation in a society, founded on the principles
of equality and justice that fails to extend to many of its citizens the simple
dignity and respect due any human being? What kind of legacy are we creating?
Some say that it is simply the nature of humanity. It is about survival of the
fittest and is as old as human kind. Some say it is integrated into the web of
reality. Rugged individualism and rampant competition require that strength,
competence, and ultimate success be measured in the ability to lift up self at
the expense of the other. Is this true? Is this the nature of human existence?
Are we doomed to live with each other in this way?
Ask yourself – for what do I compliantly allow myself to be bound and held?
What makes up the cement around my ankles? What keeps me fearful, vigilant,
cautious, resistant and frustrated? What feeds the gnawing inside, leaving me
empty and my very essence eaten away; what is this disease that will not be
still…no matter how much I drink, eat, buy, have sex, work? What subverts the
full expression of my love, joy, and excitement? If you can identify your
captors, congratulations! Perhaps escape is close at hand.
Servant Leaders: Weaving A New Paradigm
New leadership is emerging – committed, responsive, and conscious. It is
called Servant leadership and I consider it key to the process of peacemaking in
an emerging civil society. Servant Leaders are effective agents of change. They
are realistically ideal. They understand the challenges and are willing to face
the difficulties. They hold an unshakable belief that humanity can do much
better. They assert that each human being is part of the sum total of the
best hope and the biggest dream the universe can offer. The buck stops with
us. Servant leadership informs a willingness to extend ourselves for the good of
fellow human beings. We believe that our destinies are linked. We sink, we swim,
and we meet our fate together.
The Native tradition, not just in
America
, but around the world, tells us that each individual possesses original
medicine, a unique gift that is of use to the world. Servant leaders believe
that each person is powerful. The expression of these gifts depends upon our
ability to care for self as well as others. Therefore, servant leaders believe
that the key to healing the planet, the key to personal power rests in our
ability to spiritually and emotionally heal ourselves. They recognize that
individuals, who live whole, joyous, and peaceful lives are a benefit to our
society and to the world.
It is said that the new millennium will usher in a new
world. What kind of world it will be is up to us. We are creating, either
consciously or unconsciously, at this very moment.
And we are not alone. There have been others before us who passionately pursued
the same dream. Great people have paved the way for the great work. Many have
walked the paths of the visionary, the warrior, the teacher, and the healer.
Gandhi, Dr. King, Mother Theresa, Jesus Christ dreamed that, which by all
accounts, seemed impossible. They took up the challenge and gave their lives to
the realization of their vision. They have left their wisdom for us. If we are
to heal our land, we must learn from them.
Servant Leaders honor the wisdom of the Natives and those who left big
footprints for us. They believe that global change and spiritual transformation
are possible. And as big as that might sound for us finite human beings, servant
leaders require that the challenge be engaged. They believe that reality is the
stuff of dreams.
You are invited to join us; to explore a possibility; one that belies much of
what we see and experience today – a possibility that most would tell us is
impossible. But remember the Natives. Indigenous people around the globe know
something that our society must come to understand. They have medicine that we
need. They know that it is possible to honor the land and the people who occupy
it. They know that we are all one and that we belong to the earth.
Together we can create a "How To" manual for Servant Leaders who want
to change the world. The Foundation for Community Encouragement begins its
mission statement with the sentence "There is a yearning in the heart for
peace." It goes on to say that as humans we have come to distrust each
other and have lost faith in the promise of peace. FCE promotes a set of
principles and behaviors that they believe enable us to be more connected in our
relationships with each other. It believes there are ways in which people can
learn to live together in peace. Perhaps we can discover in our journey together
how to live that community.
The late Virginia Satir, an internationally known pioneer
in the field of family therapy said, ”We come together from our sameness and
grow from our differences.”
The New Millennium Paradigm suggests that there are essential relationships to
self, other and context that prevent the development of systemic oppression. The
model proposes that there is an essential balance that encourages respect that
is essential to the promotion of human dignity. The balancing of respect between
self and other promotes equality and freedom. The New Millennium Paradigm
theorizes that this essential respect for the experience and being of another
can be achieved regardless of race, class, gender, and ability. It offers a
model for neutralizing, eliminating, and minimizing oppression and intolerance.
Consider this an invitation to dream, to care enough to explore a new ways of
being, to chart new paths for those who come after us. Of course the map is not
the territory. There are pitfalls and rough edges along the way. There are no
easy answers or quick solutions to the challenges we face. Maybe the best hope
is self-awareness; the best approach is to notice whether in our behavior, we
give support to attitudes and practices that prevent any one of us from
experiencing the full potential of our existence. We begin the transformation
one human being at a time, one act and one attitude at a time. We are all
needed. We can be of use. We do not have a human being to waste. We are all
original medicine.
| 
The Leadership and Empowerment Institute, Inc. 
