The Pain and Beauty of Service

The Pain and Beauty of Service

By linda linklink   3:54 AM   No comments:

Recently I have been working with a number of very different organisations and an emotive theme has emerged for me – the pain and beauty of service.

I do the training I do in organisations to serve - not in some glib “customer service and shareholder value” BS way, but from the heart. I have chosen to do what I do as it is the best way I know to support my own development, the world I want to bring into being and the spirit permeating it all. I don’t want this to sound grand as to me this is a necessity and no more noble than eating when I am hungry or sleeping when I am tired. I don’t think I could go back to a “normal” job without this now to be honest...I ‘m utterly ruined.

I jest, I am fortunate to be able to live this way, and grateful for an opportunity not afforded to thousands of generations before. I am frequently astounded by the beauty of midwifing learning and individual’s development. When the inner-light-bulbs go off that it is possible to be a human being at work in stress, leadership or emotional intelligence trainings for example, it is hard for me not to burst with emotion like an overripe tomato in a goddess’ lips. For me it is beautiful and it is not a metaphor when I say I regularly fall in love with groups of delegates.

Note that I don't say my job is to please*. Many days I do not please myself and sometimes I do not please my clients...but I serve them. For me there is a great pain in service, and a loneliness of working within organisations that can exhibit painfully low levels of development (e.g. emotionally) and therefore need support. To be another Einstein appropriator- a problem cannot be solved from the level of thinking that created it – so effective consultants and coaches will always be isolated no matter how empathic. It is literally psychically painful for me to work in some of the organisations that need what I do the most, and at the end of a day of dancing in and out of resonance (as it serves) I have to be held in the arms of my woman for a long time to feel again.

Happily I have been a part of building a mutually supportive community in the last few years (Integration Training) and have been welcomed into others such as Newfield that help ease this strain and loneliness. For me this is no small thing and again it is no exaggeration to say that I love them. Without this small evolving way-faring sangha I would not be able to bear it. Thank we, thank we, thank we.

I’d also like to note a couple of traps for me around these themes that I regularly jump into - playing the martyr and arrogance. An overemphasis on serving others (as opposed to self AND other) can lead me to some “woe is me, bearing the cross” BS at times, this is not beautiful or what this piece is about. Another danger is the “consultant/magician/ parent knows best” superiority complex. It is a delicate balancing of having another perspective that can be of use with accepting the basic equality of all people. I also reject that false humility and non developmentally informed new-age crap prevalent in the coaching and counselling world that believes (and it is a belief) that people are beautiful unique snow-flakes who can solve all their own problems. If you disagree come round and ask me to put you in an aikido hold and see if you can figure out the counter – without adequate training you will not.

How then do I proceed and hold both a profound belief in acceptance and equality with a desire to lead and support growth? How also to lick the plates of pain and beauty equally? Like many things these days I suspect an answer would remove the point. It is in staying with the beauty and pain of the contradiction and question that is worthwhile. The meta-joke is of course that this is itself is “taking sides” so I’ll also be acting with full conviction one way or another in the meantime...The pain is frankly hilarious and beauty is full of bloody awe.

*thank you Aboodi Shabi for the distinction

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What is Followership?

What is Followership?

By linda linklink   4:30 AM   No comments:

If you Google "leadership" you get 122,000,000 results, but a mere 145,000 for followership. That would be nearly 1000 leaders per follower if representative! Do we all want to be chiefs and not Indians? Is it that people already know how to follow and be of service? And what is this followership thing anyway!?

I'm often asked to write about leadership and love doing so, however I've been wanting to discuss followership and service for some time as it seems to be the other side of the coin. Let's start with why it's not discussed as much?

Egoic Leadership?

In the modern meritocratic Western world leaders are often seen as "better" than followers- that's why they're leading right? The emphasis on achievement in modern Western culture backs this up - anyone can be a follower but winners are leaders right? Mmmmmmmm, I'm not so sure...

Note that this viewpoint hasn't always been common. From Confucius to the Greeks - ancient cultures emphasised the characteristics of good citizens with service at the heart. The "everyone's a leader" ego gone mad of the modern Western world would have struck almost every culture the world has ever produced as bizarre. Communal cultures in the East still value traditional followership virtues such as loyalty - see for example how business is done in Japan - and this is the case in much of Africa too (it was when I lived in Ethiopia).

For me the idea of egoic leadership is a fundamental error as true leaders are in service to something beyond themselves. In other words leadership is a form of followership. This idea finds expression in the notion of Servant Leadership.

So What is Followership?

One could focus on the characteristics of "good followers", and there are some lists out there (see resources). The problem with such lists however is the same problem for list on leadership attributes - they get bigger and bigger with discussion and seem to describe the perfect human. Often it is balancing seemingly opposing qualities such as loyalty and challenging where followership lies. So how do the lists help? They say "be of service and here's what it might look like...though it might look like the opposite.In this example the integration between being loyal (more of a subjective external judgement than a description of behaviour) and challenging a leader when you think it will help - is service. Perhaps the essence of followership is just being of service.

The lack of ego in emphasising service and followership instead of "leadership" (often misconstrued as egoic) is sorely needed in the world today. What would it be like if the training for leadership positions in organisations first involved followership? Could we broaden customer service courses (which are often just customer manipulation courses) to simply "service" courses - I'd like to see that as a HSE mandatory requirement for doing business.

I hope this article has been of service anyway :-)

"I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?"

-- Benjamin Disraeli

Followership Resources

While resources on followership aren't as widespread as those on leadership, there are some out there:

Changing Minds have some good resources on followership. For example their list of reasons to follow (which reminds me of levels of development):

- Fear of retribution
- Blind hope
- Faith in leader
- Intellectual agreement
- Buying the vision

This US Air Force Colonel has some "Rules of Good Followership" that I enjoyed. If anyone knows about good followership it's the armed forces who in my experience have a culture of followership and don't see it as a ego blow to admit it. They are "The Services" after all.

This article on managing/leading upwards is worth a read. The idea is that leadership is not just something that happens down a hierarchy, and can be done by anyone irrespective of position.

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