Notes:

I moved to the university to teach educators how to be change agents!    It's appropriate in thinking about collective leadership that we talk about this concept of place, grounded in communities.  Certain images come to mind when we think about place.  I am going to present several concepts and then we will move the conversation to our tables.

 

I will build off of 1968.  It was the last year that my family came across the border. I was 5 years old, coming to a different world.  My brothers and I have written about this.  Something very interesting was happening in Texas, young people were organizing around education.  We wrote an article about the impact of Brown vs. The Board of Education.  Through my own experience and background I have developed several axioms:

 

o    All politics are local

o    Everything is political

o    Collective Leadership is an ontological issue, it is the nature of our reality. 

 

I was born into collective leadership because it is how we practiced leadership in our house, neighborhood and streets.  It's not how we practiced leadership at our schools.  It's within us because we are raised in places where collective leadership is valued, but it's not in the nature of organizations.  We have swallowed the story that we can make it alone by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.  We need to unlearn what we are learning in our institutions.

 

I work in schools because that’s where the kids are and where the future is.  It is easier to help young people learn than helping older people unlearn.  But, can we inform institutions? And we need to think about how they can change.

 

What are the dimensions of “Place”?

 

Place: There are a botanist and biological psychologist who wrote a book called the Tree of Knowledge.  They looked at the cell and said that the cell is not really alive until it engages with its environment. Leadership is not alive until it is engaged in neighborhoods.  Places like this.  We need to ask the question who am I historically? Millions of years of human existence can help us to explore 'who am I'. We need to think about place from a historical context, from a biological context (who lives with me and who doesn’t live with me).  For example, within several blocks there is a Latino Catholic Church, a Black Catholic Church and a Black Methodist Church.

 

Culture: Culturally what does our place look like?  What are the rituals of our neighborhood and why?

 

Political Power: Politically how do these neighborhoods define identity?  Where is the power?  Is the power shared?  It is relational?  Power is at the center of politics, and in the middle of neighborhoods.  Where are the conflicts and how are they negotiated?  Is it collaborative leadership or a stumbling block? Are we looking outside of the neighborhood for answers or are we becoming the creators of knowledge? Knowledge is a power source.  Does power corrupt?  It goes back to the relationships.  Can’t we have relationships where we hold one another accountable for the decisions being made?  Much of the work we have done in South Texas is in spite of the institutions.  Young people are in the middle of it, claiming their space and knowledge. 

 

Social Technologies:  We need to develop a strong understanding of who we are as individuals? We go knock on doors and talk to people who have been there a long time.  We ask people to talk about the 1968 walkouts.  We do oral histories and put camcorders in front of community members.  The knowledge is already there but no one has asked those who live in communities for it. As a social technology, conversation is a powerful vehicle.  Use oral histories and engage community as teachable moments. How do we infiltrate the systems that are already in place?  You would be amazed what you learn about a community and leadership when you put a video in front of old people talking and laughing for 10 minutes. Celebrate the shoulders on which we stand. If kids are not taught how to respect and what to do with power, they will abuse it when its their turn. We see kids on the street being irresponsible and that is our fault. We didn't model for them/show them about power.

 

We bring people together to nurture a sense of identity based on who has come before.  People have struggled for us and in a collaborative leadership model you celebrate that and own it.  Working intergenerationally is a powerful process.  I remember being 8 years old and translating for my parents at the doctors.  Guess who had the power.  We have to teach young people about power.  How do we hold people in the traditional power accountable? How do we frame issues? How do we unlearn the one single style of leadership model and create hope on an institutional level?

 

How do we break the isolation of economics, culture and distance?  It took a generation to challenge the system and then another 30 years to create a new system. How do we unlearn and re-form an educational institution, rethink, reimagine and create hope?  The analysis has to be done within each neighborhood.

 

Some people think they can not make change because of the power of existing institutions.  The institutions do exist, but we also have our own healthy institutions in every community, the family. We need to build on our strengths and identify potential allies.  The change we are supporting and our activities are not a program.  It is a way of life. 

 

Three questions:

• What are the beliefs, assets and values that give your work identity, direction and hope?
• What are the systems or technologies that you have used effectively in your organizing?
• What are the processes that are accessible to you for connecting the micro and the macro?

 

Comments and Questions that emerged during the small group discussions:

o    What is the relationship between identity and collective leadership, and identity and place?

*    What is the difference between team/interpersonal; what is the balance?

8    What is the relationship between identity/collective leadership; place and identity?

o    What is the relationship between the power of 'one' and collective leadership?

o    Is there hierarchy in collective leadership? What is its role?

o    When does the social technology overpower or drive the result you are seeking? When does it get in the way?

o    What is the impact of the context of culture for a community, state or country?

o    What about collective trauma, if collective wounds need to be healed collectively how do you engage in collective healing?

o    How do you organize the self-organizing principles of a community that may be invisible under mainstream leaderhship models?

o    What is the relationship between collective leadership and teaching and learning?

o    What are the sources of hope, and are there times when it gets in the way?

o    Is collective leadership based on power as finite different than collective leadership that is based on the model that leadership is infinite?

o    What is the role of current reward systems as it relates to collective leadership?

 

COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP - WHO'S IN; WHO'S OUT?

- Group identiy vs individual identity

- Values as us vs values as me

- What are the benefits? Why?

  * living in to experience

  * emotional intelligence

  * willingness to work together for the greater good

- Some people who want to be part of it may not want to lead

 

MORE COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS:

- Group sharing gifts as they rise and ebb to get work done

- Shared power; design and implementation

- Better decisions, skill building, solving complex issues

- Do what you can do which includes stepping out

- State of mind - let go of self; bring in service, consensus, boundary crossing

- Hierarchy/accountability - are we really doing it?

- Collaboration vs collective - actively working across boundaries

- What do you need? Listening

- Everyone has a valuable contribution; diversity is a plus

- Individual development while working in collective leadership

- Collective leadership is magical - something arising

- Spawns new ideas, conversations

- Individuals coming together; intentionality, shared ownership

- Having a purpose and goal

- Building relationships

 

SOME MORE REFLECTIONS/COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS - CONDITIONS THAT OPEN OUR LEARNING

- Discomfort

- Be a student as well

- Honor/appreciate the unexpected

- Trust group instinct (listen, be still)

- Reaching beyond boundaries

- Making connection

- Pre-conceived notion vs internal knowing

- Diverse perspective

- Ask clarifying questions

- Finding unexpected ways to belong

- Opening up to others (model this)

- Aha moment!!! Growth as leaders

- Having our perspective re-shaped

- ID blockage - mitigate - overcome

- Self processing and reflection

- Appreciation of metaphors

- Honoring leadership from different culture and perspectives

- Making the space to grieve and honor leadership transitions

- Humility

- Giving up judgment to open up to learning

- Staying open to your pain and that of others

- Listening to young people

- Recognizing difference between intellect and wisdom

 

We are not a historical, we cannot dis-embed identity from culture.  We disempower people.  We put people out and substitute structures.  Do I know enough about both collective and collaborative leadership to know when to use it?  Don’t get stuck on the technical part?  Most of the resources are pumped into the technical and not the social relationships.

 

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