#1273 - Leading means convening
I just read Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block. Definitely a must-read for everyone. Whatever your work, role, position or mission in life, I'm pretty sure this book will prove extremely useful.
The book is full of eye-opening ideas, and I'm sure they will keep surfacing in future morning apples.
One of these breakthrough ideas is about leadership.
I'm always cautious when I approach this subject. There are so many books and programmes to help people become great leaders. Yet, I can't help but feel that there is a lack of leadership everywhere. But is it? Do we lack leaders, or am I looking at leadership the wrong way?
In communal transformation, leadership is about intention, convening, valuing relatedness, and presenting choices. It is not a personality characteristic or a matter of style, and therefore it requires nothing more than what all of us already have.
Leading means convening.
What a powerful message from Block.
I am not a leader because I know where to go and can inspire and persuade people to go there.
I lead when, wherever I am, and in whatever role I am, I invite people to explore a possibility, a future that I don't know yet but that we can discover together. And people will choose freely how to respond to the invitation. They won't follow me; they will join a vision.
The world changes through invitation rather than obligation.