I am more and more conscious these days of greeting people on my planet, especially those I don’t know, with some form of eye and voice contact.

I am often rewarded with a reply. In any case, I know I have an obligation to spread my light to as many beings as I touch along the way. This means my prime responsibility is to keep this light bright and pure enough to be available to anyone at any time.

Granted, there are always people whose light receptors are non-existent or temporarily out of commision. No matter, I will pass light to those who have the capacity to receive.

Culture is shared meaning, shared purpose. A community’s sense of shared meaning is rooted in its beliefs and values. Beliefs are what we can imagine as possible; values are the reaons why we think what we imagine matters.

Leaders who are effective help communities realize their shared meaning. They are leaders because their imagine more widely and value more deeply. Their ultimate goal is to make leaders non-distinct from the community because the community takes on wider beliefs and deeper values.

We work from the mantra that we are smarter together. This is true in some groups, whether we look at the corporate or civic sectors. In other cases, groups actually act with less wisdom together than they would exercise individually. It’s a curious phenomenon.

It’s interesting that celebrated Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hahn uses the term interbeing to describe what is usually called interdependence - that too easily can be mistranslated into “mutual dependence.”

Being, from a Zen perspective, connotes freedom as the root of responsibility - no dependence implied.

We talk about leaders needing “tools” to make them effective. We need to stop talking about these tools as things outside the scope of people’s existing strengths - skills, knowledge, qualities, and connections. There is no end to the ways we can use our strengths; to look outside ourselves as if we were deficient is to forget this.

In the original Greek practice of democracy, people participated directly in civic decisions. We need to get back to this, especially as we become a more connected society.

Spring calls forth
an intimacy
ego cannot even imagine.

I’ve joined friends, colleagues, and international social network gurus, June Holley and Valdis Krebs in a new blog: www.NetworkWeaving.com/blog.

It will be dedicated to the art and science of connecting people in ways that more fully realize the potential of innovation and well-being in communities.

Very appropriate to launch this today on Buddha’s birthday since interdependency is the theme of the blog and one of the cornerstones of Buddhist enlightenment!

My buddy Rob Searson and I who’ve collectively clocked over 60 years of coaching have been recently coming to the conclusion that we need to totally reinvent the whole notion of “training” for leaders, whether in the corporate or civic space.

We have literally thousands of “leaders” just in this region who have had all the requisite “training” which, as Rob suggests, has been nothing more than very expensive exercises in personal networking.

If the most impactful and sustainable learning happens in relationship - not with heads stuck in powerpoints and binders - then coaching and mentoring will be the key to leadership development that actually makes a difference in organization and community building. Interestingly enough, the whole coaching and mentoring route has not been the core of developmental processes and programs to date. And the ones that have, have not been assessment-based, appreciative-focused, and context-specific.

It is definitely time to reinvent development … and we are only too happy to bring decades of “secrets” to the table.

There are two kinds of truth — actionable and non-actionable. Think about examples of each in your world. Guess which is more empowering and which takes away our power?