Home › Commons › Conversations-Forums › Archived conversations, 2005-2007 › Evolutionary Nexus Community › Nexus Lounge ›

Evolutionary leadership to scale

Submitted by Jennifer Atlee on January 20, 2006 - 09:32.

I stumbled upon a number of discussions at the Salon about the kind & form of leadership roles in the Salon & this emerging work including the (positive/negative) role of hierarchy or other leadership structures. My question coming out of these discussions is what scale demands what kind of leaders AND how do we design into processes an ability to facilitate the growth of quality leadership, whatever that is…To me, right now, it means the ability to operate from a place of humility & recognizing the gifts of others while making full use of one's gifts and owning one's responsibilities. I suspect this interpretation is scalable, but that how that manifests depends somewhat on the scale of the project/ event.

At different scales (8-80-800 people):
* to what extent should leaders step aside, or take 'charge' and on what does the answer depend?
* what kinds of leadership are appropriate at different scales of group activity?
* how can we recognize/utilize the gifts that everyone brings & the importance of cross-pollination & also recognize/facilitate the ability of small groups of like-minded like-skilled people to make significant speedy progress. (is this a process question or a leadership question? or both?)
* how do we facilitate/encourage development of effective leadership/leaders?
* what is the positive/negative role of ego?
* to what extent should leaders operate from a position of knowing or not-knowing & on what does the answer depend?
* how can not-knowing be a form of leadership?

scale in evolution

Submitted by Dana Lynne Andersen on January 21, 2006 - 08:26.
At the Salon Connie Barlow spoke about how, in evolution, there are 'nested heirarchies' -each level having its own scale and stemming from that its own distinct modes of communication. For instance, the scale, and hence communication modes, of cellular levels would be different from the scale and communication mode of the body systems such as nueral or lympathic. I'd love Connnie to speak about this, as I am a poor interpreter. The idea seemed so intriguing and perhaps generative for your questions.