1 A New Leadership Story
On October 17, 1989, the workday in San Francisco was just coming to a close. South of the city in Candlestick Park, thousands had gathered to watch game three of the World Series. At 5:04 p.m., the Loma Prieta earthquake struck, shaking the earth, shattering windows, knocking down buildings and overpasses, and kicking up huge clouds of dust. Electricity was out throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, and it was difficult to find out what had really happened. People flooded out of the downtown Financial District, intending to walk home or make their way through a tangle of automobiles and cable cars, as all the traffic lights were out.
At Kearny and Pine, however, traffic was flowing freely. A homeless man, well known for his presence on one of the corners of this particular intersection, was directing traffic. He had placed himself in the center of the intersection and was managing the flow with great care and panache. He stood tall as he waved cars forward from one direction and held his hand up firmly as he instructed others to stop and wait. Attorneys, stockbrokers, and other highly paid executives all followed his direction without question. People who just the day before had walked by the homeless man without a second glance now honked, waved, and blew him kisses.
No one had told the homeless fellow that he was the one to step up and lead. He didn’t need to wait for the authorities to arrive and give him a title. He just saw the need and decided that he was the man for the job. Those who were following his directions did not need to see a résumé to determine whether he had the requisite training. They immediately became dedicated co-leaders, eager to serve and support in whatever way they could.
Amid the chaos and disruption of the earthquake, at the intersection of Kearny and Pine, leadership was flowing freely. There were no fancy titles and no one was elected. People did not give a great deal of thought to what was in it for them or if they were interested in being responsible. They just acted from their own humanity and heart, providing whatever was needed in the moment in a variety of different ways.
Our current view of leadership tends to be one-dimensional, with leadership being the responsibility of one or two people at the top. As the story above demonstrates, this viewpoint is not particularly accurate.
In reality, leadership is multidimensional. In any project or community there are many different leaders, each leading in different ways, with people changing roles fluidly. In any given day, each of us moves through a range of different leadership dimensions. We are all leaders in one way or another, and when we choose to be responsible for what is happening around us, we are able to work together in a way that includes and utilizes the unique talents of everyone.
Take our friend John, who is on his way to work as a legal secretary at a widely respected law firm. John is grateful for his life. While he understands that he is not perfect by a long shot, he does his best to live with integrity. He began the day as he does most others, with a short meditation and some reading to connect to his purpose and values. He leaves his apartment feeling present, alive, and ready to meet the day.
As John walks along, he sees a small child totter out into a busy roadway. Without a moment’s hesitation, he leaps forward and snatches the child back to safety, taking a few extra moments to ensure that the child is returned to the care of his grateful parents.
Enjoying the spring sunshine, John mulls over a project that has become stalled. What’s the big picture? he wonders. What is bogging things down? He senses that there are some things that are unspoken among the team members and badly need to be said. He makes a mental note to encourage a deeper conversation at the next team meeting.
Once at work, John leaves a sticky note on his boss’s desk. His boss is up for a big promotion, and John wants to let her know that he’s rooting for her and believes in her 100 percent.
In the kitchen, John runs into his co-worker Shayna. They are co-leading a game night for the staff the following evening, and they take a moment to work out a few of the details.
John has just been a leader in five different ways, and his workday hasn’t even officially begun!
The purpose of this book is to offer a simple model of multidimensional leadership that can by accessed by anyone to generate more aliveness and ownership of one’s world and one’s life.
In this more accurate multidimensional view of leadership, everyone has the capacity to be a leader by moving fluidly through five different dimensions of leadership as the circumstances and the situation require. These dimensions are Leader Within, Leader in Front, Leader Behind, Leader Beside, and Leader in the Field.
For each dimension, the key to success is balancing our essence and our action, our being and our doing. This is the foundation of Co-Active Leadership.