Practice on a Cloudy Day

The last two weeks Arizona has been treated to cool weather and a cloudy sky.  White, ashy, soft looking swirly clouds letting the ever present blue sky peek through.  Driving to my morning meeting, I decide on a route through Papago Park, a desert park with large brownish-red boulders surrounded by creosote and other desert greens.  It is one of my favorite spots in this Valley of the Sun.  I breathe deeply and take in the cool air rolling in through the open windows. I look for my favorite saguaro cactus growing two baby buds that form a heart from a certain angle.  It is quiet and I am happy.  Leaving my meeting I take the same route and see the heart peeking up over the creosote bushes.  I am aware of how thankful I am for my morning mediation practice.  I wonder what the fifteen minutes I took to sit quietly allowed me to experience or not experience during the meeting.  I marvel at those I know who have an “enduring practice” and the lightness, insight, and love they express freely in their whole being.  I think how much more I, and others, would benefit if I exercised more consistency in sitting quietly.  What I know for sure is that for today I gifted myself this equanimity-seeking time and for that I am grateful.

When Too Much Rigor Leads to Rigor Mortis: Valuing Experience, Judgment and Intuition in Nonprofit Management

This article was originally published  on July 12, 2010 on the website of The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University. I read it via the Nonprofit Quarterly 02/17/11 edition.

Several powerful donors have concluded that nonprofits make inadequate use of impact assessment tools.  They are backing up their arguments with an implicit threat: measure in particular ways or you don’t get the money.  Wise nonprofit leaders know that the problems they work on are not susceptible to simple measurement.  They know that the kind of formal impact measures some donors expect and management consulting firms prescribe are hard to come by honestly.  They collect various data all the time to inform their judgment and decision-making and to spur learning. Now, data collection (to donor-specified standards) is increasingly used for accountability purposes.

This may have the effect of reducing the degrees of freedom nonprofit leaders have to innovate and to pursue promising but risky ideas (without the fear that failure to prove one idea will poison their chances to learn from that failure and try something else another day).   As former Ford Foundation President Susan Berresford argues, insisting that grantees demonstrate measurable, short-term impact can have the effect of “miniaturizing ambition” for doing risky but potentially break-through work.

People who impose these restrictions confuse use of prescribed tools or achievement of certain outcomes as evidence of good management.  Sometimes they are. But, in and of themselves, they hardly constitute an impressive tool kit of good management practice.

The good judgment of experienced managers, deeply immersed in the complex social dynamics of the communities in which they work, is a formidable and essential resource in assessing impacts.  Experience and tested judgment also come into play in shaping a picture of the complex variety of social factors that might explain, for instance, why some poor children and not others attend school, or what mix of interventions are most likely to keep kids out of trouble with the police.

Effective nonprofit managers get information from a variety of sources: formal studies, observation of trends in behavior, feedback from partners and clients. They also draw on deep reserves of knowledge of the local social context, of cultural norms and values, and on the ability to empathize, to look at the world through the eyes of others.

These sources of knowledge are particularly important in shaping untested but potentially innovative, breakthrough approaches to social change. Effective leaders first and foremost seek to explain how a given problem is responding to a given set of interventions.  Data help describe what is happening, but the interpretative powers of managers are essential to meaningful explanation.

One of my favorite examples (see working paper here ) of the kinds of insights that arise from observation, judgment and experience is the particular knowledge that Muhammad Yunus gained from walking through poor communities around Chittagong University in Bangladesh on his daily walk to work.  His knowledge of rural Bangladeshi society, combined with his advanced training and powers of intuition, spawned his ideas on social lending, or what became known as micro-finance.

The invention of micro-finance demonstrates that breakthrough innovations, and even simple adjustments to well-established programs, are spawned by a variety of sources and intellectual attributes:  data, data intelligently interpreted, knowledge of the local and comparative contexts, and good judgment.  All four of these factors are essential to shaping development breakthroughs.  Donors should give greater weight to the latter three over the first in considering funding proposals.

A recently published book on the use of applied mathematics to help understand messy, hard-to-measure problems speaks to the importance of experience and judgment in making sense of limited data.  The book is “Street-Fighting Mathematics: the Art of Educated Guessing and Opportunistic Problem Solving,” by Dr. Sanjoy Mahajan.  Dr. Mahajan is associate director of MIT’s Teaching and Learning Laboratory and the book grew out of a course by the same name that Dr. Mahajan taught for several years at MIT.

The basic premise of his approach, set out in the books first sentence, is that “Too much rigor teaches rigor mortis: the fear of making an unjustified leap even when it lands on the correct result.”  Many real-world problems are not easily described with the kind of precision that professional mathematicians insist upon. This is due to the limitations of data, the costs of collecting and analyzing data, and the inherent difficulties of giving mathematical expression to the complexity of human behavior. In the face of these obstacles, mathematicians tend to do one of two things: insist on finding the true proof, even in the face of huge methodological constraints (rigor mortis) or give up.

Mahajan counsels a third-way: using mathematical reasoning to find a good-enough, approximate and usually valid and useful answer; or as Dr. Mahajan so adeptly puts it, “When the going gets tough, the tough lower their standards.” His book describes six tools for better understanding complex problems with limited data, including picture proofs, lumping, and reasoning by analogy.

There is wisdom in Dr. Mahajan’s core argument that is relevant to current debates about the place of impact assessment in program management.  Many problems, especially problems of social analysis, present huge problems of description and accurate measurement.  We can learn much of what we need to know by tracking a few data points, but knowledge of the underlying social forces and personal motivations that frame the decisions people make is essential to specifying what should be measured and interpreting findings wisely.

My concerns about the emphasis some donors give to evaluation and impact assessment lie not in their lack of value, but in a skewing of perspective.  I want to sum up with a few thoughts on getting the perspective in better balance.

• Knowledge of the local context and the insights spawned by that knowledge are hard won and accumulated over many years. External donors and many of their staff too often don’t possess such knowledge.  For large Western donors, reliance on data and impact measures can be a crutch, a substitute for the knowledge of local context they don’t have. 

• Lack of knowledge of context contributes to an over reliance on one-size-fits-all interventions based on experience from elsewhere, resulting in poorly-adapted local project design.   An obvious remedy is to place greater trust in the leadership and judgment of people who live and work close to the problems; local educators, entrepreneurs, civil society leaders. 

• Evaluation is first and foremost a learning tool, of greatest value as an aid to the judgment of program leaders and managers. The work of donors also stands to benefit from the knowledge that grantees gain in assessing changes within the communities they work and progress in pursuing particular goals.

• Of greatest relevance to predicting the merits and eventual success of a proposed grantee initiative are the wisdom, experience, judgment and reputation of the grantee organization and its leadership and staff.   These are the important qualities that should be considered when contemplating a grant.  (William Duggan’s book, “Strategic Intuition,” examines the qualities of leadership and management that spawn systemic impacts.)

• Donors who insist on short-term measurable impact should stay away from funding work that seeks breakthroughs on complex, long-intractable problems.

My Response to this Article

Thank you for lifting up an issue that is often only talked about behind the closed doors of social change professionals on the front lines.  Many of the clients I work with express frustration about the desire for and assumed capacity of their organizations to engage in the level of evaluation/measurement being asked of them by multiple funders who are often all asking for different data.  This is particularly debilitating for small and medium size organizations who understand this is part of the funding reality in the nonprofit sector. 

Social change investors/funders would benefit by understanding that the value of "knowledge of the local and comparative contexts, and good judgment" of social change professionals is more than just about a trend, or being respectful, or being politically correct to the organizations (and thus the communities) they support.  Understanding the value of these hard-earned skills of social change professionals begins to change the conversation.  If one is being really radical, it could shift the power dynamics between social change professionals and funders all together and establish a new “normal” between all of us who want to support inclusive and sustainable social transformation.  In my imagined new norm, the understanding that these skills are essential to social change processes would be be reflected in the practices, requests, expectations, and attitudes by all parties.

Measurement and evaluation is necessary and insufficient if the elements of continuous learning, feedback loops, opportunity for adaptive leadership and adaptive management (by all parties) are separate from the entire conversation of how people will work together.  Yes, I am advocating that social change professionals in nonprofits and investors/funders develop partnerships not an out-dated patronage relationship.

Investors/funders and social change works alike would benefit from a deeper understanding about the nature and iterative process of social change and human development reflected in practices and requests of one another.

Thanks again for a thought-provoking article.

Transforming or Transformational Leadership: Does It Matter Which Phrase We Use?

The difference between TRANSFORMING LEADERSHIP (via Burns) and TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP (via Bass) is significant.  Richard Couto’s chapter, “The transformation of transforming leadership” in the Leadership companion:  Insights on leadership through the ages (Wren1995), details these distinctions and is the most accessible text I have found on the matter.  This entry provides a summary of Couto’s chapter.  I want to be clear that I am not proposing that one of these is better than the other; what I am proposing is that we be thoughtful about which one of these we are actually doing or talking about. Each of these approaches, "transforming" or "transformational", provides different possibilities for action and reflects a values base depending upon the setting and purpose for which they are used.  In my own work I lean more towards transforming leadership because I believe its meaning closely aligns to my values and the purpose of my work.  

Why does making a distinction between these two words matter? Maybe it does not to the “average Joe” but for those of us who engage in leadership development directly or indirectly, I think we are beholden to understand the distinction between the concepts communicated in the words we use.  Clearly, I believe language is generative; it carries the energy of the historical discourse from where it derives and unconsciously has influence over our thoughts and actions.  As social change workers it is beneficial to know that we are promoting a certain type of leadership that can only be understood when we ask, “leadership for the purpose of what, for whom, and by whom?” This level of intentionality is fundamental to our work.

Most importantly, for me, is that transforming leadership is focused on changing conditions, culture, and larger social systems change.  Transformational leadership is intent on changing the conditions and culture alone.  The differences between these two terms, as Couto remarks, are in part due to the context in which leadership is studied.  For Burns, his context is leadership within social movements and politics.   For Bass, his context is about leadership within formal organizations. (105)  I am more predisposed to Burns, because Bass’s work has changed the “test of radical transformation from social change to the achievement of institutional goals, including preservation” (105) and for me this is a lot of what is wrong in the nonprofit sector – we measure success by institutional goals and not necessarily meaningful social change. 

All of the references, except where noted, are directly from the chapter “The transformation of transforming leadership” by Richard Couto; page numbers follow in parenthesis. 

Transforming Leadership (via Burns)

Leadership is a process in which one participates. (103)

Transforming Leadership is a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents(p.1). (103)

Transforming leadership occurs when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality(103).  

Transforming leadership changes some of those who follow into people whom others may follow in time (103).  

Transforming leadership assists a group of people to move from one stage of development to a higher one and in doing so to address and fulfill better a higher human need (103).  

The transforming leader shapes, alters, and elevates the motives and values and goals of the followers (103).  

Transformational Leadership (via Bass)

Leadership is a condition or state of being that one holds (103).

Transformational leaders transform followers.  The direction of influence is one way—from leader to follower.  This is unlike transforming leadership where a follower could transform leaders by the interaction (which is a process) of leaders and followers (104).  

Transformational leaders may expand a follower’s portfolio of needs; may transform a followers’’ self-interest; and may elevate a follower’s need to a higher Maslow level.  (106)

Transformational leaders may elevate followers’ expectation of success for the purpose of enabling followers to recognize and realize an organization  goal that exceeds past accomplishments.(106)

In transformational leadership, followers remain subordinates of the transformational leader, regardless of whatever else might be transformed. (106)

Author’s Note:

This entry is an extension of my ongoing commitment to be precise with language in social change work. One of my longest standing critiques of leadership literature derives from my experience that there are many words within the leadership development, organizational development, and social movement literature that, when applied in the framework of social justice work, take on different meaning because they are used for different ends.  The difference of leadership "for what end or purpose" often reveals theoretical, moral, economic, political, and social conflict between how words and concepts are applied in the field. Throughout my professional career, I have consistently felt uncomfortable that context and end purpose are not more readily referenced, or are often ignored altogether when applying words and concepts originating in different fields (e.g., education, business, or public service). As such, I have developed a commitment to raising awareness about the distinctions that "break the chain of inference--from conjunction to categorization to commonality--[as] the norm" (Lakoff, 1987, p. 5). 

(1) Burns defines morality in terms of human development and of a hierarchy of human needs.

The Leadership Development Paradigm is Changing - Yippie!

A new paradigm for leading social change is emerging; a worldview acknowledging the importance of leadership that is life-affirming, inclusive, and sustainable. The transformation of social change leadership culture is a response to beliefs, practices, and teachings that are passed on from one generation of social change workers to the next; beliefs which ultimately determine the quality of life, leadership practices, organizational practices, and efforts of professionals working for social change. Leadership paradigms and approaches by nonprofit leaders often reflect the lack of possibilities for action that are bound by old ways of thinking and being in the sector. (1) Today, practitioners and scholars have a better understanding that “leadership development is not about filling a gap but about igniting a field of inspired connection and action.” (2)

Leadership development opportunities for nonprofit leaders are an increasing phenomenon and have been successfully able to (3):

· Impart specific skills and provide learning experiences;
· Provide opportunities for respite;
· Encourage leaders to reflect on practice;
· Increase the visibility and prestige of nonprofit leaders; and,
· Create a network of contacts.

In the last five years professionals who fund, run, and study leadership development opportunities for nonprofit professionals have conducted groundbreaking research. Their research has explored the possibilities and limitations created by different types of leadership programs. The majority of leadership development opportunities focus on individuals, supporting them to “develop critical skills that make them more effective leaders in their organizations." (4) While this theory of change has had success, it is limited in terms of large systems change because the emphasis remains on individual leadership development. In 2010, the socio-political and economic climate requires a new approach that necessitates leaders thinking differently about how change occurs and how nonprofit professionals develop themselves and work with each other.(5) Leadership practitioners, funders, and scholars now advocate that networks of nonprofit leaders are better positioned to affect systems and social change when using a paradigm that understands the value and benefits of leadership development that focuses on teams, organizations, communities.(6)

Increasingly, there is an understanding that leadership is a process grounded in relationships that are fluid dynamics, non-directive, and non-unilateral. This is a fundamental shift away from a paradigm only advocating leadership as the skills, qualities and behavior of an individual who exerts influence over others to take action or achieves a goal using their position and authority. (7) According to Leadership for a New Era, a consortium of individuals invested in the leadership development field and who have specific experience with nonprofit leaders, three fundamental shifts must occur to broaden and sustain the effectiveness of leadership development opportunities. (8) From:

Individuals to Communities	Organizations to Networks	Silos to Partnerships
Leadership is a relational process that occurs in groups, communities, and networks.	Leadership in networks is relational, collective, bottom-up, and emergent.	Leadership recognizes that multi-stakeholder approach that cut across sectors and disciplines in required.

The work that has been cultivated over the last ten years on leadership development has played a significant role in the paradigm change that is occurring in this field. What is important to note is that the approach used to study leadership development has modeled the very change that is occurring, making the work, for me, have more legitimacy because of its coherency between theory, general ideas, and action.
__________________

(1) Gutierrez, R. (2008). Life-Affirming Leadership: An inquiry into the culture of social justice.

(2) Scharmer, O. (2009).Ten propositions transforming the current leadership development paradigm.

(3) Ford Foundation. (2007). Grant Craft: Practical wisdom for grantmakers.

(4) Meehan, D., Reinelt, C. (2010). Leadership for a New Era Series: A new leadership mindset for scaling social change. (www.leadershipforanewera.org)

(5) Meehan, D., Reinelt, C. (2010).

(6) Meehan, D., Reinelt, C. (2010).

(7) Meehan, D., Reinelt, C. (2010).

(8) Reinelt, C. (2010). Leadership for a New Era: The future of leadership groups, networks, and partnerships. (www.leadershipforanewera.org)

Taking My Own Medicine

The one year anniversary of my first vipassana is quickly approaching and I find myself with a deep desire to sit and be silent.  I actually spend most of my days in silence, working from home with just me and my pets...but the silence and sitting, of course, is not the same. When my husband has time, he comes home for a lunch visit and that is always a welcomed break.

In Arizona the weather is still blistery hot.  The monsoons have appeared to offer our leathered skin some moisture; a different type of reprieve than air conditioning.  I have been spending a few afternoons a week in my cousin's pool, laying on my back, water slowly filling up my ear canal while I look at the blue sky with puffy gray and white clouds rolling in from the east.  The cool water provides a gentle way to regain full range of motion from my rotator cuff surgery.  It is my water therapy.  These afternoons have temporarily replaced my swimming practice, which for all intent and purpose, was my most cherished contemplative practice which has been gone for months.  I suspect that the intentionality of getting in my car, changing into a bathing suit, slowly entering the water, and gently reclining on my back while observing the pain in my shoulder has re-ignited an inner calling for engaging in more intentional, and regular, contemplative  practice and has me thinking about that first vipassana, my work in encouraging social justice workers to practice, the concept of "taking your own medicine", and the ability to hold compassion for self.

  

Last year on October 23, 2009, I flew to North Carolina to be picked up by a total stranger who over the next few days I would speak to once or twice. Most of our interaction was carried out by glancing down towards the ground watching each others feet shuffle by.  Although once I passed by him and could not help but look at him in his face because he had a smile from ear-to-ear, with the look of an innocent child who had just experienced the mystery of unequivocal joy.

When I made the choice to go to my first vipassana I had no idea what I was getting into.  I had been wanting to go to this type of retreat for some time and was happy to find a dear friend, Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey, co-lead one with his teacher, Michele McDonald.  Jesse is a gentle soul whose rough human edges, that we all have, soften as each year passes.  His commitment to his practice shows through his eyes which are clear and sparkle with light.  Over the years, I have come to know Jesse better and knew I could trust him in co-creating this space for me to be.  I have learned that trusting people to create the space for learning is as important as is trusting one's self in being able to handle whatever learning will come in that space.

Since those first ten days of honorable silence, spider webs hold a completely different significance for me.  The vipassana was held at the Stone House, a place I consider my home away from home.  This refuge for activists has a large pasture surrounded by a tree-lined path.  Each day I would take walks on the path wet with moisture.  I would return to my cabin with wet pants and blades of grass stuck to my ankles.  For the first few days I seemed to run into long silky threads made from spiders trying to get from one place to another.  One time I saw a spider who held the illusion of being suspended in the air because I could not see the thread which he occupied.  I had seen that once before in when I had lived in Mexico.  Like then, I just stood and stared; except this time I laughed really loud at how beautiful it was.  Each time after that when I would aimlessly run into these long sticky and seemingly invisible threads I would shutter and let out a little "eek!".  I could not get the thread off my hair, hands, and shirt fast enough...on some level my wonder of the natural beauty of the spider's work turned to disgust of having this sticky substance on me.  At some point, I held up my hands to the sky and said aloud, "Okay! I surrender to whatever the hell you are trying to teach me with these damn webs!"

The next day, I recline on a dock jetting out into the small pond; hands behind my head, not thinking, knees bent, lower back comfortable, and eyes closed**.  I felt the air blow across my face, lift my hair gently around my forehead and cheek.  My breath came and went gentle and natural.  The sun light felt soft on my whole being.  As the wind picked up and I opened my eyes to see a completely in tact spider web floating across the sky.  I could hardly believe I was seeing something so extraordinary while doing something so seemingly mundane.  In truth, the only reason I even saw the web was because the way the sun was gleaming on its threads.  I laughed to myself thinking about how insight is like this...at first it can be overwhelming, it is often fleeting, only available when there is sacred illumination simultaneously with one's eyes are "fully open".  Even now, I think of how incredibly, incredibly captivating the complexity and simplicity of that spider web was.  I think about how it is easy to allow insight to enchant us instead of inform us...the idea that being enchanted takes less discipline that allowing ourselves to be informed.


This year I cannot go to the vipassana held by Jesse and Michele because of a work commitment.  I am disappointed.  I am looking around for other opportunities that are closer to home.  My hope is to find a community who understand (and practice) that the full value of insight meditation takes place through actions off the cushion.  If I cannot find such a community, I will just have to co-create one with others.


**This is a drawing my friend Cassandra created while she was listening to me tell her my experience.

Inclusive Social Change for Social Justice Comes in All Shapes

For many years I was constrained about who I considered to be a social change worker*. I, like many others, felt that social change workers only took the form of the first line folks, such as community organizers. So this meant people who were working for social justice through other means were not potential partners or allies, including people who worked for social justice through business were out. Today, I think across the board, there is a more sophisticated understanding of who is a social change worker. We acknowledge that there are many previously unrecognized components (e.g. advocacy, scholarship, spiritual) and levels (e.g. personal, organizational) to social change. To be effective we are required to learn about each other, to build authentic relationships with one another, to figure out how to leverage being allies, and respect each other's contributions to social change working for social justice.

I am grateful to all my colleagues and peers over the years who lovingly pushed me to cultivate a more expansive view of what working for social justice can, not should, look like. It is in this spirit that I present a video celebrating the Hitachi Foundation's work for social justice over the last 25 years. As a consultant, I have worked with the Hitachi Foundation for nine year's with two of their key programs. It was through them that I learned a lot about thinking bigger about social change for social justice.

*In my dissertation, Life-Affirming Leadership: An Inquiry into Social Justice (2008), I defined social justice worker as:

People whose work actively and intentionally seeks social justice; social justice activists, social justice change agents, and social justice organizers are examples. The term social justice worker reflects a shift in my awareness and acceptance of modern activist culture and social change work, acknowledging that social justice workers hold a variety of positions and take various approaches (advocacy, organizing, fundraising, philanthropy, etc…) towards actualizing transformation that result in social justice. Unlike the words “activist”, “organizer”, and “change agent”, the term social justice worker is less likely to be misappropriated by individuals and organizations promoting change who do not work towards social justice based in human and civil rights.

Insight Connections: Ana Marie Argilagos: Framing the Work

Insight Connections Link

Check out the latest video interview with social justice worker Ana Marie Argilagos.   In the first of this six part series, Ana Marie describes how she came to work in the nonprofit sector and how she framed the work during her tenure as a program officer for a large national foundation working with people from the Southwest Border and Native communities.  This interview was  filmed during her transition from the foundation to working for the Obama administration. Updated February 2, 2010.  

Enlighten Up! Can yoga transform your life?

Enlighten Up is a film by Kate, a professional film documentarien, who is also a yoga practitioner. She selects a man, Nick, who has never practiced yoga and follows him on a 6 month trek across the world as he, and she, search out the answers to the questions: Can yoga transform your life? Can you reach enlightenment through yoga? As you can imagine, the experience is as powerful for Nick as it is for Kate. I highly recommend viewing Enlighten Up. http://enlightenupthefilm.com/

Why is this movie relevant for social change workers?

This movie is relevant to social change workers for a number of reasons but one particular element of the movie stood out for me; the relationship between Kate, the film maker, and Nick, the "subject" of the film. For me, their relationship was similar to the one that can be found between a social change worker/activist and the community with which they work.

Early on in the film it becomes apparent that the questions about yoga and enlightenment / yoga and transformation are questions that Kate, more than Nick, needs answered for herself. Nick is adventurous and good spirited about genuinely trying to answer the question for himself...but he wants to do it in his own way, which is about "facts", really his own way of "knowing".

Kate, on the other hand, seemed to want the questions answered in a certain way--this way was different from Nick's way. Kate's impatience towards Nick's approach increasingly shows itself as the film progresses. At some point, Kate tells Nick that she does not think he is "taking this serious" and it made me wonder...

• When we work with community do we develop impatience or become disappointed when they 'don't come to' answers/actions like we want, but instead, how they want, and how does that impact our relationship with community?
• How and how often are we listening for the questions that the community wants answered instead of the questions we want answered?
• How might we rely on community to do "the work" to find answers to the enduring questions in life that we want answered, instead of doing the work ourselves?

At some point, Nick reveals, to one of the many gurus he meets, an utterly common quandary..."sometimes, I don't trust myself to find my true self"...I was so endeared when he made this statement because he showed such vulnerability and courage in his admission. At that moment, for me, his revelation about not trusting himself surpassed the question about if yoga could transform ones life and landed on a more enduring phenomenon about what it means to be human. At the end of the film, Kate talks about her own revelations about pursuing her initial questions and sharing some of her own lessons and this made me want to see more of her work.

Take a gander, I thought it was well worth the time.

Award Winning Dissertation: Dr. Gutierrez extends the life and mission of her scholarship by offering her work through her dissertation blogs.

Earlier this year, Raquel was awarded the Innovative ETD Award from the National Networked Digital library of Theses and Dissertations Award for media-enhanced dissertation and the Outstanding Scholarship Award, from the Ohio Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Association.

Excerpts from her Award Statement
I confess. I am a practitioner at heart. As such, it is makes perfect sense that my dissertation be a product that is practical, usable, and timely. In part, the long-standing disconnect between practitioners and academics motivated me to pursue a PhD. I firmly believe that academics and practitioners of social change can equally benefit from each other’s life-experience and knowledge. More importantly, I think there is a unique and exciting opportunity to create valuable and useful ideas for realizing inclusive social change through the cross fertilization between these two groups.

Critical Social Moments Require Innovation
In an effort to make my dissertation align with key changes occurring in contemporary social change work, I wanted to promote the concept of open source technology and take advantage of it ability share knowledge and connect people. In addition, previous scholars in my PhD program had developed innovative means of using their dissertations and I too wanted to be part of that legacy. The approach I finally chose is what the Founder of the Fiscal Policy Institute, Mark Friedman, calls a “low cost or no cost” solution; in this case, the free technology known as “blogger”. Initially, I intended to use a blog site, www.22ndCenturyLeadership.blogspot.com, I had started before my dissertation research. The goal of this initial blog site shares information that demonstrates it is possible to practice alignment between the values of social justice and the acts that realize social justice by exploring the transformation of language, ways of thinking, and individual and organizational practices.

Somewhere in the process of planning my dissertation research, I realized the advantage of a blog site solely dedicated to sharing the interviews, overall findings of my dissertation, and to generate dialogue between readers on the topic of life-affirming leadership. I conveniently blocked out the fact that I had only made one or two entries on my initial blog site due to the stress associated with maintaining a quality blog site, which requires constant attention. Thus, my commitment to making my dissertation a conduit for an ongoing opportunity for discussion lead me to overlook the anxiety that came with the stewardship of my first blog site and the “Voices” blog site was created. While on the Voices blog site, www.22ndCenturyLeadershipVoices.blogspot.com, readers can watch videos of social justice workers discussing their experiences with transforming the culture of social justice work and what they have learned as social change leader. In an effort to develop a relationship between the two blog sites, when a reader clicks into one blog site they are able to easily access the sister blog through a designated link.

When I made the decision to make the blog sites part of my dissertation, I can honestly say I did not know what I was getting into. Not only did I lack experience on how to video, which I naively thought would be “easy enough to learn”, I had no idea how to transfer videos and sound clips; nor did I know if there was even enough storage space to store numerous interviews on the blog site. In order to finish my dissertation by the set deadline, I had to quickly overcome the learning curve, which I was able to do.

A Breath of Fresh Air: Voices Informing the Future of Nonprofits

Article Review: Next Shift: Beyond the Nonprofit Leadership Crisis

Reference: Kunreuther, F. and Corvington, P.A.. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation 2007)

Context: Yes, a breath of fresh air is what this reading offers. Of course, I recognize that this gratitude all depends on the quality of air you are breathing. In my 20+ year career as a nonprofit professional, I have grown increasingly disappointed with conversations about how the sector could and is developing. My criticism stems from my interpretation that these conversations (passed on at conferences sessions, foundation monographs, scholarly journals, and main stream publicist) often lack holistic and long-term thinking. In addition, the discourse is insular. There is little cross sector material and well, let's not even get into the topic of inclusion. This is why I am so thrilled with this monograph because it addresses all of these issues and more. Furthermore, being familiar with the work of at least one of the authors and the networks with which she interacts, I am confident that these issues are coming to the forefront in a healthy way. What gives me hope is my fortune to have a network of colleagues who not only lift up these issues but are directly addressing them in their own work and organizations…in that sense I know there is a growing subculture in the nonprofit sector who is already reframing the work and leadership can be transformed (see http://22ndcenturyleadershipvoices.blogspot.com/).

Summary: The ideas presented in this monograph offers both seasoned and nascent social change workers a perspective that is finally gaining ground among progressive nonprofit leaders and philanthropic stakeholders. This monograph, one of a two edition series, offers findings from The Building Movement Project. This project “advocates for US nonprofit organizations to build strong social justice ethos into their vision and activities and to strengthen the role of nonprofit groups as sites of democratic practice." In other words, to be places where "the talk is walked" in all aspects of the work.

Kunreuther and Corvington clearly articulate how the frame of "crisis" limits how people think about and thus shape the future of nonprofits. The "crisis" to which they refer is the shift in nonprofit leadership. Engaging nonprofit workers in their 20'3, 30's, and early 40's, the authors uncover that nonprofit workers in this cohort advocate addressing "structural rather than organizational responses" (p. 6); more specifically "organizational structure, the executive position, and leadership recognition" (p. 6). In presenting the feedback from participants the author’s aptly present issues rarely spoken about across generations of nonprofit workers, such as, the rejection of younger leaders rejecting the idea of moving into nonprofit leadership positions (p.7). They fittingly describe how emergent leaders recognize the limitations of executive director positions due to demand on need for funding, the growing pressure to employ business ethics and practices within social change work, and increasing competition (p. 7). These examples are just two from the article.

As all good monographs do, we are treated to recommendations for action that are framed in a powerful and reality-check way:

Change is coming. We can call it leadership crisis or deficit. Alternatively, we can seek it as an opportunity to rethink our assumptions about leadership and structure in nonprofit organizations. The recommendations address both the broader issues and some specific ways to get started. (p.10)

Why This Article is Important: This article lifts up the possibility that in a time when there is increasing anxiety, seasoned and emergent nonprofit leaders can engage conversations that are intergenerational, inclusive, keep future generations in mind, and that welcome innovative approaches that may not have worked at other times in history or are not found to be “realistic” because they have never been tried. There are nonprofit workers at all ages that are ready and willing to step into messy conversations and practices that can restructure our sector’s organizations, broaden and deepen our impact, and welcome transformative approaches to leadership. We all know change is not easy. To transform our society we have to be willing to transform ourselves and our organizations in ways that reflect the inclusive and just society we spend our lives trying to create.

Reading Day: Four Futures of Nonprofits

I have committed myself to spend one day a week to reading articles, research, and other manuscripts that offer insight about the culture of nonprofit literature. Below is a summary and comments about one such piece.

Four Futures
by Paul Light

Summary:
This article, posted on the Nonprofit Quarterly website, offers four possible scenarios of the future of nonprofits. At the heart of this article is a topic that is rarely talked about openly among the rank and file of nonprofit workers. Who determines the fate of the nonprofit sector's approaches to social change, use of resources, and sector culture about how to approach the work. The author states:

During these troubled times, what lies in store for the nonprofit sector, and what do we need to do about it? Along with every family in America, the nonprofit sector is wondering about its future. Will we miraculously survive as we largely do today? Will we starve our organizations to the core or emerge from the current economic calamity mostly intact? Will we fight the prevailing downturn on behalf of our individual institutions and leave others to defend themselves, or instead will we join forces to shore up the sector as a whole? In the aftermath of this financial crisis, will we have real options and choices?

The answers are not yet clear, but it appears that an intensifying struggle for ownership of the sector and how it is structured, governed, and deployed is under way. When boiled down to its fundamentals, the question is whether nonprofits are “owned” by their institutional funders (governmental and philanthropic) or whether a broader community of stakeholders should make the choice about the future nonprofits pursue. The search for an answer may yet produce a struggle for the identity and soul of the sector. Traditionally the sector belongs to this country’s citizens who have exercised their right to associate through civil society, but there is, of course, pressure from those who have the resources on which the sector depends.

The author offers the four possible future scenarios as a way to answer questions he poses above. Each future scenario outlines probability, who in the nonprofit sector would benefit and who would not. The last scenario "Transformation" offers suggestions about steps that can be take to authentically transform, not just change (Bridges, 1980; Gardner, 1981, Wheatley, 2005) how the sector serves the community and the role it holds in the country. The author understands that this is a long-term process that must be inclusive, innovative, and wider in scope than just survival of a nonprofit organization.

I really appreciate the author's inclusion of how smaller nonprofits could be affected in each scenario. The realities of smaller nonprofits, though they make up the majority of the nonprofit sector, are often left out of theoretical frameworks/discussions offering solutions to how nonprofits can be more effective as agents of social change.

What This Means to Me:
As a nonprofit community we have a tremendous opportunity to transform the future of our sector; I just want to make sure that from the get go the conversation (and subsequent actions taken) include the voices of smaller nonprofits who often tend to a very specific need or part of the larger community. The inclusion of the rank and file (read as people out in the field, not just the formal leadership of an organization) in the conversation about what the transformation looks like and how it is accomplished is critical. I, for one, am reflecting how I can be an active part of the transformation scenario and how old ways of being may be prohibiting me from being part of us as a sector moving forward.

Questions:
In my own work, how am I manifesting the transformation scenario? How am I stopping it?

How can I support smaller nonprofits to be part of the larger NP sector conversation that will impact their ability to do social change work inclusively, effectively, and with integrity?

Who is having the conversation about why and how nonprofit workers need to be actively
taking care of their mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual self in order to engage in the work
in a way that demonstrates/reflects/is the social change we are working to create?

Leadership Vocabulary: 2 - What is a Social Justice Worker?

A "social justice worker" is a person who actively and intentionally works for social justice; social justice activists, social justice change agents, and social justice organizers are examples. The term social justice worker reflects a shift in my awareness and acceptance of modern activist culture and social change work, acknowledging that social justice workers hold a variety of positions and take various approaches (advocacy, organizing, fundraising, philanthropy, etc…) towards actualizing transformation that result in social justice. Unlike the words “activist”, “organizer”, and “change agent”, the term social justice worker is less likely to be misappropriated by individuals and organizations promoting change who do not work towards social justice based in human and civil rights. The concept of misappropriation of concepts between the fields that develop leadership in the for-profit and nonprofit sector is fascinating and deserves a whole dissertation on its own. In my experience, the resistance to acknowledge and address how terms are misappropriated is a challenge held by professionals from all sectors.

Leadership Vocabulary 1: What is life-affirming leadership?

Life-Affirming Leadership is a values-based approach (affirming) to leadership that respects, honors, and nurtures life. The Life-Affirming Leadership frame demonstrates the integrity between beliefs, values, and actions of individuals working for inclusive social change. Life-Affirming Leadership reflects a decision making process that takes into account the impact of those decisions on the future seven generations. Life-Affirming Leadership in social change processes reflects the aspirations for justice, peace, and healthy communities.

Defining Leadership: The Use of Modifiers

Leadership literature demonstrates that there is something important about using a modifier for the word leadership. Perhaps this is because the term leadership is boundless and has no one clear definition in any field to which it is applied (Northouse, 2007). The reality is that leadership is more often described by the multitude of approaches and skills necessary to do leadership than by the essences with which it is characterized. If a definition asserts the meaning of a term, then characterizing how to do leadership does not really bring to light its essence-its full meaning. What is required to get at the essence of leadership is to also reveal the context in which leadership exists. In this context, this includes the spirit and values of people, organizations, field/discipline, time in history, and many other variables and their relationship to one another so that one begins to understand the fuller meaning of leadership. The forces driving the transformation of social justice leadership are central to the context in which this research exists.

One common way to share a fuller meaning of the word leadership is to put a modifier in front of it. The modifier is what gives the generic term leadership flavor and hints that there is something more to the word than meets the eye. Simply put, the modifier sets apart one way of talking about leadership from another. Popular examples of this are as follows

1. Servant leadership: "The servant-leader is servant first. . . It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. . . after leadership is established" (Greenleaf, 2002, p. 27).

2. Management leadership: "Managerial Leadership by its very nature is not an applied science. . . [it] is very down-to-earth and situational, and yet has to be understood in terms of timeless themes of power and friendship and choice and responsibility and community. . . it forces us to rethink the boundary between the secular and the sacred, between the natural and the transcendental" (Vaill, 1998, pp. 4-5).

3. Sustainable leadership: "Sustainable educational leadership and improvement preserves and develops deep learning for all that spreads and lasts, in ways that do no harm to and indeed create positive benefit for others around us, now and in the future" (Hargreaves & Fink, 2006, p. 17).

4. Transforming leadership: Transforming leadership "occurs when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality" (Burns, 1978, p. 20).

5. Transformational leadership: "Transformational leadership involved inspiring followers to commit to a shared vision and goals for an organization or unit, challenging them to be innovative problem solvers, and developing followers' leadership capacity via coaching mentoring, and provision of both challenge and support" (Bass & Riggio, 2006, p. 4).

6. Toxic leadership: "Toxic leadership is a process in which leaders, by dint of their destructive behavior and/or dysfunctional personal characteristics, inflict serious and enduring harm on their followers, their organizations, and nonfollowers" (Lipman-Blumen, 2005, p. 1).

At their crux, these examples modifying leadership show the spectrum of direction, values, and boundaries of the various concepts of leadership. What is missing for me in these examples, and in much of leadership development literature, is an analysis of transformation as it relates to social justice, power, and the status quo regardless of field or discipline. Another element that is often omitted is the role and legitimacy of aesthetic leadership in all the literature reviewed.

Aesthetic leadership is a way of considering leadership as being subjectively felt by sensory perceptions and tacit knowledge rooted in feelings and emotions (Hansen, Ropo, & Sauer, 2007); from this perspective the concept of "aesthetics involves sensory assessment of how we feel about anything" (p. 546). In the landmark book, Working with Emotional Intelligence, Goleman (2000) speaks to this when he writes, "intuition and gut feeling [this is the actual feeling received in the gut] bespeak the capacity to sense messages from internal stores of emotional memory--our own reservoir of wisdom and judgment" (p. 54).

For a leader, the complimentary concepts of aesthetic leadership and emotional intelligence are critical because they invite a leader to be present and aware of the relationship between their mind, their emotions, their body, and the situation. Aesthetic leadership and emotional intelligence are embodied wisdom of any leader, but are easily ignored or taken for granted. As a self-subscribed life-affirming leader, I believe that creating spaces for learning, which is a large part of how I think of my work, is a sacred act, and therefore requires heartfelt attention to my own emotional intelligence, the informal and formal environment, as well as to the elements in a situation that are seen/unseen and spoken/unspoken.

Life-Affirming Leadership: Three Contributing World-Views

My interest in Life-Affirming Leadership is grounded in the following three worldviews: Seventh Generation Thinking, environmental sustainability, and the Seventh Fire Prophesy. Today, my work continues to be influenced by other paradigms that deepen, support, and even challenge the initial foundation of this work. It is an intentional decision to remain open to how other ways of experiencing the world of leadership might influence my work.
____________________

There are three world views that are prominent in this inquiry and were really a guide for how I approached interpretation of the inquiry data. These world views are woven into my being through the many people who have come before and those who currently stand beside me in working for social justice.

The first worldview is the concept of Seventh Generation Thinking shared by the Iroquois people. Simply put, Seventh Generation Thinking advocates making decisions through considering the impact of those decisions for seven generations. Seventh Generation Thinking recognizes that there is an interconnectedness between all things and that decisions made today have an impact on future generations. In this line of thinking, environmental sustainability is the second contributing worldview.

Within my work environmental sustainability refers to the connection between leadership decisions and the environment in which those decisions are acted upon. I mean environments to be nature and also include environments such as environments of organizations.

The Seventh Fire Prophesy comes from the Ojibwa people and is one part of a larger set of prophesies that informs the Ojibwa about their nation’s past, future, and present. The Seventh Fire Prophesy specifically states that the young people who will create the needed social changes are in the communities, right now. They are already present. This belief that leadership for positive social change is already being present in communities is a keystone.

Leadership Vocabulary Overview: Why Offer a Leadership Vocabulary?

One of my longest standing critiques of leadership literature derives from my experience that there are many words within the leadership development, organizational development, and social movement literature that, when applied in the framework of social justice work, take on different meaning because they are used for different ends. The difference of leadership "for what end or purpose" often reveals theoretical, moral, economic, political, and social conflict between how words and concepts are applied in the field. Throughout my professional career and work as a scholar, I have consistently felt uncomfortable that context and end purpose are not more readily referenced, or are often ignored altogether when applying words and concepts originating in different fields (e.g., education, business, or public service). As such, I have developed a commitment to raising awareness about the distinctions that "break the chain of inference—from conjunction to categorization to commonality--[as] the norm" (Lakoff, 1987, p. 5). The vocabulary that I offer in this blog is based on my intentional work of breaking apart the chain of inferences and reveals my insights, biases, and shortcomings about how I interpret, develop, and apply the concepts that each word or phrase embodies.

The vocabulary that I will offer regularly in this blog relate directly to expanding the understanding of Life-Affirming Leadership practices as they relate to individuals working for social justice. I believe that these definitions have applicability to a broader audience interested in leadership from various perspectives and with diverse settings of application. Through sharing the concepts my work will be better understood from the context in which I apply these ideas providing utility for those interested in the subject.

Reflections on Living the Principles of Peace and Dignity

May 19, 2008, Tempe, Arizona

The purpose of this blog posting is to provoke questions and deeper thinking about what we say and what we do. The points I bring up in this writing seeks to promote a deeper thinking about one's levels of participation in the Peace and Dignity Journeys' run, not to judge or ask a person to justify their participation.

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As I wait for videos of my interviews to be analyzed I am surfing the web. I do my regular look in to see what comes up when I type in "Peace and Dignity Journeys". Multiple sites invite me to view their experience of the run. Looking at the photos I am moved by the images…a grandmother being held by others as she walks, a close-up of a man in prayer with a wide grin-eyes closed, chin facing towards the sky, a group of women in traditional dress walking strong and holding the prayers of others swinging from the main prayer staff. The soulful voice and heart-beating drum music chosen by one site only adds to the intensity of the images passing before me. It makes me wonder about the concepts of romanticization, suffering, sacrifice, and commitment.

Suffering. Sacrifice. Commitment. What do these things mean? What is the role they play in someones life? What does it mean when they come up during the run in private/internal or in public/external settings? Are these things a demonstration of a virtuous life? What is the relationship between suffering, sacrifice, commitment and the run? Why do folks engage in the Peace and Dignity Journeys run?

Suffering

Technically, suffering is defined as an experience that is physically or psychologically distressing. One of my teachers talked about suffering as a mental state – a condition that one can choose to change. This is true not only for a person who is suffering but also for the person who observes suffering outside of themselves in the lives of others.

Example: One time I was having a conversation with a youth organizer who I highly respect her work. She was telling me a story about how she took some young people to Tijuana in Mexico to walk around and see what life was like on the border. As they were walking she noticed some of the youth becoming distraught and worrisome about the young children approaching them to buy gum. My friend asked them what was going on and they said that they were sad that these children had to suffer so much, that their lives were unhappy and that they wished they could take the kids home with them...

OK, I realize there is a lot to unpack here but I will focus on what my friend replied...

She first asked these visiting youth what made them think these kids were suffering, unhappy, or would even want to go home with them? She then engaged them in a conversation about the distinctions between suffering, empathy, patronization/mothering, and true intentions about serving and advocacy versus making oneself feel better or worse by what actions they could or could not take in a situation like this. For me this is a great example of questioning one's interpretation of suffering and creating honesty with oneself about what may look like or feel like "right action".

In my experience I realize that I often create much of my own anguish by the way I have been taught and have unconsciously adopted to see, and thus, experience the world. I have also experienced being fulfilled and liberated in the most dire of situations when I have taken a step back from my automatic responses and have re-interpreted the situation, for that moment anyway, experiencing a full range of what it means to be fully alive. This is not always pretty and is sometimes downright ugly—but a full life includes all of that. For me it is not the suffering that makes me feel alive—it is my attempt to liberate myself from that which holds me down in an anguished state of being, thinking, feeling, speaking, and inter-relating. I have slowly come to realize that my ability to acknowledge the complexities of imposed suffering from the outside world must begin with myself.

When I think about the idea of suffering as it relates to people who are engaged in social change work or social change experiences, like the Peace and Dignity Journeys spiritual run, I wonder why I am so fixated on digging deeper into the role suffering plays in such an experience. I return again and again to the notion that the end must reflect the means for authentic transformation. During the run, can "peace" and "dignity" exists along side suffering, not to mention sacrifice and commitment? I believe it can. I believe that there is something called grace-full suffering.

My experience with Peace and Dignity Journeys leaves me wondering about the attention given to the larger idea of "walking the talk" - in this case, building integrity between the principles of Peace and Dignity and the practice of them. In many ways I see the Peace and Dignity Journeys as a container for an experience that can allow people to strengthen their coherency between the principles of Peace and Dignity and how they are practiced/lived out/realized. Like any integrity building experience I think it takes an enormous amount of personal truth and effort from individuals to stay aware of how one is making that happen; not to mention how that personal effort is purposefully and expected to be lived out within the Peace and Dignity community of runners and supporters.

Sacrifice

Sacrifice is the notion of giving up of something valuable or important for somebody or something else considered more valuable or importance. If the actions perceived as a sacrifice are actually fulfilling one's own desires (conscious or unconscious) then is it actually a sacrifice?

For example, if a person gives up ice cream (the sacrifice) because of the principle that since others can not afford to eat ice cream, but in actuality the same person does not even really like ice cream, is the sacrifice of not eating ice cream truly a sacrifice? Or is it instead a "nice" way to look like he/she supports something good and noble?

If a person's spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical well being is sacrificed to participate in the Peace and Dignity run are the Principles of the Peace and Dignity Journeys being realized? Meaning, can the run ever be of more value and important then the mental, physical, and spiritual wellness of an individual or of a family? Of course, only each person involved with the run can be answer that question for themselves.

For me there are vital questions relating to the concepts of suffering and its role in the run. The questions fall into the categories of sacrifice of what, sacrifice for what, sacrifice of whom, and sacrifice for what purpose(s). More easily stated:

• What or who is being sacrificed?


• Is the experience of the run more important than the thing being sacrificed?


• Who will benefit as a result of the sacrifice? How will they benefit? Who that the sacrifice is beneficial or meaningful?


• What purpose does the sacrificial experience have for the thing or person being sacrificed and for the person doing the sacrificing?

Commitment

Commitment is the act of carrying out a responsibility. Granted authentic commitments are made with the full knowledge and belief that the person doing the committing actually has the capacity and/or resources to respond to what they are committing. In relationship to the Peace and Dignity Journeys, I wonder what commitments need to be honored first to demonstrate that a person is living the Principles of Peace and Dignity before they make a commitment to support the run in whatever capacity? Similarly to the notion of sacrifice are the questions of commitment to what, to whom, and for what purpose:

• What is being committed to?


• Who is doing the committing?


• Who will benefit from the commitment?


• What will be gained from the commitment?


• Who determines if the benefit from the commitment is valuable?


• What purpose does this commitment serve?


• Who does this commitment serve?

Commitment to the Peace and Dignity Journeys can happen in many ways. I wonder sometimes how that full range of participation is communicated and authenticated. Meaning some people interpret that running and/or being with the core runners for weeks on end is the fullest way of showing one's commitment to Peace and Dignity; but if those actions conflicts with the principles of Peace and Dignity then is it actually a false or unwise commitment? Of course, this depends on who you are, your circumstance, your other worldly and familial responsibilities, the well being of yourself and those that you care for, and your ability to be honest about why you are actually involved with the run.

Romanticization

My thoughts on this will no doubt be controversial, but hey, they are just my thoughts, my assessments developed from my own life-experience. As I have written many times before the concept of romanticization has shaped the way social change leaders live their life, carry out the work, and create expectations for certain attitudes, behaviors, and commitments from others and themselves. My wonderings are around how romanticization of social change experiences influences the experience itself.

In the case of Peace and Dignity Journeys, the images and sounds I mentioned in the opening paragraph of this reflection present a major paradox for me. Meaning the photos and music do indeed truly reflect a beauty and strength that is alive and well in the run—together they are an accurate reflection of the spirit of the run.

What is not visible and what is less often publicly discussed are the negative impacts of the levels of involvement and stress placed on individuals, families, and whole communities (this is where a conversation on sacrifice could provide insight) who are engaged in the role. Nor do these images and sound address the issues of power, authority, and recognition (this is where a conversation on suffering could provide insight) that arise during the run. Promoting a romanticized view of sacrifice and suffering harms the integrity of the run if they are not offered up for discussion and right action.

Basically, I believe that the beauty of the run can not exists authentically unless the shadows of the run are brought out into the light to be directly, consistently, and rigorously addressed to reflect the Principles of the Peace and Dignity Journeys.

Liberation's Relationship to Internalized Oppression

The ability for any experience to address individual and collective liberation and internalized oppression is an enormous and sacred act. It would be too much to go into it in this reflection, but I believe, delving deeper into our individual and collective cultural understanding and historical discourse of suffering and sacrifice would be a way to address the inherent energy of victimization (a.k.a. internalized oppression) that often accompanies attempts towards liberation. Of course, it is in the freeing of oneself from a victimization frame where liberation is experienced.

Why I Do This Work

My quest to explore Life-Affirming Leadership as it relates to social change efforts grounded in social justice is deeply rooted in the personal. As a third generation activist, I have been surrounded my whole life by people working for social justice who have perpetuated a culture leading to behaviors, attitudes, and systems that impose physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional costs on leaders. The negative toll this has on the people who surround them has inspired others to transform the culture and practices of social justice work.

Over the last twenty-five years, I have experienced activist colleagues who suffer from post traumatic shock syndrome, clinical depression, suicide, and other health issues related to the demands of the current model of social justice work to which they are committed. The toll for two of these bright and formidable leaders has been death. Some allow the state of their leadership exhaustion to be the downfall of their organizations or to severely diminish organizational capacity (Kofodimos, 1993; Hormann, 2007). While others, thankfully, take radically different approaches to establishing a leadership approach and life style that will serve them and their life-long commitment to social justice.

Transforming one’s own way of being, let alone that of an organization or a whole social movement culture, must be entered into with an intentionality that strengthens one’s commitment to and sustains their leadership within social justice change work. The death of two people, one who I knew personally and one I knew distantly, was a turning point for me and many colleagues in my social activist community. This is one more reason to engage in a sincere effort, seeking how we can sustain ourselves in a more healthy and holistic way as human beings, as social justice workers, as leaders.

The work of these two leaders was shaped by the historical discourse of social justice work. A history that is rich in detail about the sacrifices made to foster progress in human and civil rights. The highly acclaimed documentary “Eyes on the Prize” details how during the Civil Rights Movement people of all ages demonstrated their commitment to the Movement by jeopardizing their livelihood, education, and physical well being (Hampton, 1999). Stories about the role of collective song, prayer, marches, sit-down demonstrations, and other non-violent actions ending in mass arrests are popular, often motivating, and accurately reflect the spirit of that time.

What is not reflected in this particular example and is less often discussed, especially in public, are the negative impacts this necessary level of involvement and stress placed on individuals, families, and whole communities. The level of gender discrimination regarding power, credit for initiating successful actions, and the burden associated with low financial compensation are other critical factors rarely discussed. To this day the legacy of similar issues permeates activist culture shaping one generation of activists to the next. The persistent romanticization of the Civil Rights era has defined the approach to domestic social justice leadership for the last 50 years, shaping how emerging generations of nascent activists are “schooled” in realizing or forwarding social justice; but this is changing. My work will tell the story of those who are leading the way.