Joe Gerstandt | keynote speaker, freedom fighter, freak-flag flier

Considering the warrior concept…

I believe that the defining issue of our time is that we suffer greatly from an absence of leadership.  We have bookstores full of books about leadership.  We have plenty of people who consider themselves to be leaders.  We have plenty of people writing, speaking and shouting about leadership.  What we do not have, in my humble opinion, is a way of leadership that produces the results we are deserving of. 

I am not talking about having the wrong people as leaders.  I have come to believe that within our current framework “who is in charge” is increasingly irrelevant and part of an increasingly dishonest, high-stakes shell game.  I am talking here about our way of leadership…something very different than who our “leaders” are.

I believe that we need new language, new archetypes and new expectations of leadership.  I believe that we need to embrace leadership as a shared behavior rather than an individual title…and maybe we need to go so far as to replace the word leadership. 

I was scanning through an old journal and came across a phrase from Chogyam Trungpa that I like a lot:

“Warriorship…does not refer to making war on others.  Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution.  Warriorship is the tradition of human bravery…the tradition of fearlessness.”

The tradition of human bravery.

I very much like this definition of warriorship as I think that bravery is part of what is missing from leadership today.  I think that real bravery is a fairly rare commodity…especially in the workplace.  Most of us know what is wrong.  Most of us know what is dishonest and wasteful and shady.  But we often do not do anything about it.  We complain and point fingers and we know who should do something about it, but we do nothing.

So maybe we stop talking about leadership and start talking about warriorship?

I think that it might be bravery that will save our organizations and communities.  ROI is not going to save business, nor is picking the right consultant or the perfect metric, or the wiz, bang and flash of web 2.0…or web 3.0.

That stuff does not even matter if the foundation is not real.

It does not require any bravery to make decisions based on numbers, projections or profits…in fact profit, ROI and market expectations too often provide a safe alibi for not being brave.

I am not talking about the proud, boastful, self promotional desperation that we too often confuse for bravery or leadership.

I am talking about something very different, something that does not lead to personal celebrity, but rather a way of being that supports groups of people (organizations and communities) in consistently delivering on the promises that they make and functioning in a sustainable way.

This has nothing to do with title or being “in charge” of anything.  I would actually suggest that the bigger your title, the greater the repercussions for actually exhibiting any bravery are.

I am going to spend some more time considering the concept of warriorship, but here are some things that come to mind as I think about what human bravery looks like at work.

Choosing Ecology rather than Ideology

It takes bravery (and I think some emotional and social intelligence) to embrace equifinality and appreciate the fact that there can be many different ways to get to a specific outcome.  I think that when we understand this we can invest our efforts in ecology rather than the support, promotion and defense of our own personal ideology.  We can invest in relationships, dialogue and organizational culture…nurturing networks of value that are capable of generating rich questions and new ideas, with the capacity to functionally consider a robust field of options.

Choosing Inquiry rather than Advocacy

It takes bravery to embrace curiosity and to be willing to let go of what we know for the opportunity to learn something new.  It takes bravery to admit we do not have all the answers (how absurd up is that?).  It takes bravery to participate in collective inquiry rather than being the one with the answer.  If we are able to assume the stance of pursuing the right questions rather than having the right answers we can open up entire new possibilities.  Questions are to groups of people much like sunlight is to plants…they can determine the direction of our growth.  If we are not asking some big questions we are probably not growing.

Choosing Power With rather than Power Over

It takes bravery to share power.  Power comes in a lot of different shapes, sizes and colors…but regardless of where our power comes from it is easier to keep it all to ourselves than it is to share it.  Regardless of our role in the world, I would suggest that we are doing very little if we are not diffusing power…putting more decision making in the hands of more individuals.  We have to kick the habit of assuming that we know best and are capable of making decisions for other people. 

Choosing to be an Architect of the Future rather than a Critic of the Present

It takes bravery to take responsibility.  It is so much easier and safer to find fault elsewhere.  It is so natural for us to look at those in privileged positions and expect them to fix what needs fixing.  Every second we spend doing this is a second wasted in denial of our own power and of the choices that we have before us.  We cannot control outcomes.  In our relationships and in the culture of our organizations, there are many variables in play which we have not control over.  What we can control is our contribution to those relationships and cultures.

And in closing…

I think that this topic is resonating with me because of the nature of my work.  Most of the consulting, speaking and writing that I do is related to issues of Diversity and Inclusion.  My Diversity and Inclusion work is not about being tolerant or compliant…it is about having whole and generative relationships with other human beings, and I think that this work is woven through with the tradition of human bravery.

If you take it down to its roots, my work is about being who you truly are, leaning into who you truly aspire to be and truly knowing other human beings.  Each of these things requires bravery.  It requires that we choose to be warriors.  We have been developing, promoting and celebrating pirates for far too long. 

Our time may just be the time for warriors…for the return of human bravery to the workplace.

Be good to each other.