Feeling our way forward in an uncertain world. Marion C.E. Briggs, BScPT, MA.
Practice Consultant. Interprofessional Practice, Education and Research.
The Spirit of Leadership
Feeling our way forward in an uncertain world Marion C.E. Briggs, BScPT, MA Practice Consultant Interprofessional Practice, Education and Research Providence Health Care Vancouver, BC
Spiritus … breath …the animating, vital principle …
Leader and led are two parts of the same process in which each is forming and being formed by the other … and the local and global arise together …
Abraham Lincoln: 1862 “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present ... we must rise with the occasion ... we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country.”
Aristotle (382 BC – 322 BC) Intellectual Traditions Episteme
Techne Phronesis Metis Metis: James C. Scott, “Domination and the Arts of Resistance”; Stephen Toulmin, “Return to Reason Detienne, Marcel and Jean-Pierre Vernant. Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society. Trans. Janet Lloyd. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991; http://www.shkaminski.com/Classes/MNGT5590/dv.htm Phronesis: Bent Flyvbjerg, “Making Social Science Matter” for a discussion of phronesis
Rene Descarte 1596 - 1650
Stacey, R. (2010). Complexity and Organizational Reality. Routledge.
“There is a dominant discourse in which it is assumed, without much question, that small groups of powerful executives are able to choose the „direction‟ their organization will move in, realize a „vision‟ for it, create the conditions in which its members will be innovative and entrepreneurial, and select the „structures‟ which will ensure success … no matter what actually happens, [we] continue to talk in these terms.”
Brian Andreas
Stacey, R. (2010). Complexity and Organizational Reality. Routledge.
“Alternative ways of thinking … avoid omnipotent fantasies about what leaders … do … and instead reflect carefully on what we all do together in the ordinary, daily course of doing our work as we live creatively in uncertainty …”
“… life is neither the notes nor the silence between the notes, but the music that arises out of sound and silence felt as a living whole …” Rilke
“Stop choosing between chaos and order, and live at the boundary between them, where rest and action move together.” Whyte
Leadership is to be found in webs of significance that we spin together …
Max Weber (adapted by Clifford Geetz and then again by Marion Briggs
A Mattie Moment …
“I don‟t agree with your interpretation!”
"Truly, we live with mysteries too marvellous to be understood ... Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say "Look!" and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads." Mary Oliver
“Perhaps real wisdom lies in not seeking answers at all. Any answer we find will not be true for long. An answer is a place where we can fall asleep as life moves past us to its next question. After all these years, I have begun to wonder if the secret of living well is not in having all the answers, but in pursing unanswerable questions in good company.” Rachel Naomi Remen, My Grandfather’s Blessings
The San Andreas Fault in the modern psyche:
…. the personality’s wish to have power over experience, to control all events and consequences, and the soul’s wish to have power through experience, no matter what that may be. David Whyte
Judith Viorst
Sisters
Food Group: Vegetable
“You can add up the parts but you won’t have the sum. Forget your perfect offering There is, a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in”
Leonard Cohen (1993) “Anthem:”
