Leadership
is Global
Co-Creating a More Humane and Sustainable
World
Edited by Walter Link, Thais Corral, and Mark Gerzon
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Executive Summary
PREFACE
With the following twenty-one chapters, we invite you
to join us on a journey through diverse perspectives of
the world’s greatest challenges and opportunities,
as well as the inner and outer dimensions of leadership,
which are crucial to our common work towards a more humane
and sustainable civilization.
1. BEFORE THE STORM: Facing Our Global Challenges
by Peter Goldmark (USA)
Through the lens of deep personal reflection, Peter Goldmark
evokes the ultimate challenges that humanity faces and
demonstrates why they require a historically new form of
leadership. The former president of a global foundation
(the Rockefeller Foundation) and former publisher of a “global” newspaper
(the International Herald Tribune), he has committed himself
during the past several years to addressing the critical
issue of global warming. Through reflections on this issue,
and on the twin issues of poverty and weapons of mass destruction,
he makes a dramatic and powerful case for focusing our
attention on the pivotal issue of planetary leadership.
I — FRAMEWORKS
In this section, diverse voices provide their unique overviews
of the global challenges and opportunities we now face.
As we read these authors’ perspectives, please notice
how they converge as well as diverge. Precisely because
of their diversity, they can help us become more aware
of the lenses or “mental models” through which
we interpret the world — an awareness that is absolutely
critical to leading globally.
2. INSPIRED PRAGMATISM: Personal Experiences and Reflections
About Leadership in the Emerging Wisdom Civilization
by Walter Link (Europe)
Having lived and worked across many countries of Western
and Eastern Europe, South East Asia, Latin and North America,
Walter is a global citizen, with an acute sense of local
culture. As a partner in an intercontinental industrial
group, a co-founder of corporate responsibility networks
and civil society organizations, as well as a coach and
educator of Presence-based leadership work, he is able
to observe society and its evolution on many levels. From
this multi-faceted perspective, he invites us to recognize
and participate in the emergence of a new civilization
that transforms our economies and healthcare, our private
lives and global governance. The author argues that this
emerging civilization also necessitates new approaches
to leadership, which are both pragmatic and inspired in
the depth of our humanity.
3. Leaders forging Change: Partnership Power for the 21st
Century
by Riane Eisler and Thais Corral (USA and
Brazil)
Riane Eisler, best-selling author of The Chalice and
the Blade, and Thais Corral, a senior leader in the
global women’s and sustainability movements offer
a new analytical lens that goes beyond conventional categories
such as capitalism vs. communism, right vs. left, religious
vs. secular, East vs. West, etc. This lens consists of
looking at two basic models of social and cultural organization:
the domination model and the partnership model.
The authors begin by looking at how these two models affect
all aspects of society, from its quality of life to its
leadership styles. They then show that the shift to partnership
leadership is part of a larger shift in beliefs, institutions,
and relationships in all spheres of life — from the
personal to the global. They call for leaders who understand
that in our time real leadership must empower rather than
disempower, and that we need the creativity and participation
of men and women. They conclude that, by working
together within a partnership model, we can build
a more sustainable, equitable and peaceful world culture.
4. LEADING BEYOND “US” AND “THEM”:
Developing Third Side, Cross-Border Leadership
by Mark Gerzon and William Ury (USA)
In their essay, William Ury, best selling author and co-founder
of Harvard University’s Program on Negotiation, and
Mark Gerzon, global leadership and facilitation expert,
approach the challenging question of humanity’s universal
tendency to divide the world into opposing sides. The pronouns “us” and “them,” which
appear in some form in every language on Earth, symbolize
this human inclination to create an “other.” Drawing
on experiences from many of the nations where they have
engaged in mediation work, the authors make a compelling
case for a new set of “third-side” or “boundary-crossing” leadership
skills. Without minimizing the power of the human urge
to see the world as opposites, the authors propose a framework
for becoming leaders who build bridges rather than walls.
II — LEARNING ABOUT GLOBAL LEADERSHIP
For all human beings, our first images about “leadership” are
personal and familial, not “global.” After
all, we are born in families, not on spaceships, and grow
up in local communities, not the United Nations. Naturally,
our identities are strongly based on personal faith traditions
and the culture of our home countries. Consequently, as
the essays in this section underscore, as we learn about
global citizenship and leadership, we are in fact co-creating
it together.
5. ENDING WARS: Ten Things Leaders Ought to Know — and
Do — About
Conflicts and Wars
by Mari Fitzduff (Ireland)
Beginning with the powerful premise that today “all
wars are global,” Mari Fitzduff, a key figure in
the Irish peace process, and director of a Master’s
program in coexistence and conflict at Brandeis University,
provides a powerful set of commandments for leaders who
are dealing with conflict and war. She argues that our
diverse and interdependent world needs new kinds of local,
national and global leaders who can welcome and plan for
the increasing diversity of all our countries, ensure that
inequities are not allied with social or ethnic identities,
and resist the temptation to use group politics to gain
exclusionary power. Such leaders also need to recognize
that war is neither natural nor inevitable in today’s
world, and that “peacefare” requires just as
much investment as warfare.
6. DEVELOPING AN INTEGRAL VISION: How Leaders Can Learn
to Hold the Whole
by Mark Gerzon (USA)
Mark Gerzon, expanding on themes developed in his book Leading
Through Conflict, explores the capacity within each
of us to “see” or “hold” the
whole. Using a wide range of examples — personal,
national and international — he demonstrates how
this capacity is central to preventing or resolving conflict.
From his perspective, the impact of all leadership “skills” depends
on the higher purpose to which a particular leader has
pledged his or her allegiance. The author argues that,
in the world today, leaders who are serving the whole
(rather than just their “part”) are far more
likely to contribute to the emergence of genuine global
leadership.
7. HARNESSING THE POWER OF LANGUAGE: Understanding How
Language Shapes Leadership
by Kimani Njogu (Kenya)
Through the combined lenses of language and culture, Kimani
Njogu, an award-winning educational writer who chairs the
National Kiswahili Committee, raises fundamental issues
about the nature of global leadership. Based in Nairobi,
but with extensive experience in other regions of the world,
the author challenges the notion that “global” is
superior to local or regional, and calls for a quality
of leadership that honors the particular — not just
the “universal.” Njogu concludes that leaders
who cross borders cannot take language for granted, but
must learn to traverse languages as well as cultures and
belief systems.
8. A Quest for Profound Leadership
Experiences: Supporting
the Emergence of Visionary Business Leaders
by Sue Cheshire (United Kingdom)
It is widely recognized that our interconnected global
economy poses unprecedented challenges to CEOs and business
leaders. In this moving chapter, which combines pragmatism
and optimism, Sue Cheshire, founder of the Academy for
Chief Executives in the UK, reflects on her own learning
journey to integrate global awareness, and on the nature
of inspirational leadership in a tenuous and turbulent
world. She fosters an understanding of the key attributes
required for inspirational leadership and an awareness
of how to develop the necessary global capabilities by
creating deep experiences for transformation and growth.
Her belief is that personal transformation is the prerequisite
for organizational, community and whole system change.
9. Cultural Perceptions of Leadership: Notes from a Personal
Journey
by Julia Marton-Lefèvre (Hungary)
In this personal account of an international leadership
journey, Julia Marton-Lefèvre, Rector of the UN’s
University for Peace in Costa Rica, traces her evolution
from her student days to becoming the head of various international
organizations headquartered in different countries and
cultures. These multicultural experiences point to a leadership
model centered both on the intellectual pursuit of a specific
goal, as well as on the full engagement of the heart and
soul. While the journey she describes deals mostly with
global issues, she shows how local experiences and a network
of remarkable individuals have played key roles in helping
her understand some of the complex dynamics of global leadership.
10. SERVING THE COMMON GOOD: Reflecting on the Dark and
Light of Leadership
by Ceri Oliver-Evans (South Africa)
As this book demonstrates, the scale of the challenges
facing humanity are immense. With so much at stake, Ceri
Oliver-Evans, who runs the Centre for Leadership and Public
Values, a bi-national partnership between the Graduate
School of Business at the University of Cape Town and the
Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University,
argues that we require men and women in all leadership
positions who are committed to a vision of a greater common
good within their spheres of influence. She contrasts two
very different visions of leadership: the one in service
to the common good; the other, detrimental to it. Recognizing
the difficulty of trying to serve the whole from within
the existing dominant paradigms, she argues that it is
therefore critical to train and support leaders who are
attempting to do this difficult work on a global scale.
III — CONNECTING INNER AND
OUTER LEADERSHIP
What each of us do in the outer world is profoundly
influenced by what each of us are within our deepest
selves. This section explores this connection from several
powerful, diverse vantage points, and challenges each of
us to ask ourselves: What, at the root of our identity,
is motivating our actions? How does our inner state of
being affect our impact in the world? To what higher goal
or purpose are we pledging ourselves?
11. POSITIVE EMOTIONAL RESONANCE
THROUGH BIOPSYCHOLOGY:
An Emerging Field for Leadership
by Susan Andrews (Brazil)
“No man is an island,” the poet John
Donne wrote, and scientific research is proving that
our moods, especially those of leaders, profoundly affect
everyone around us by a process of “limbic resonance.” In
accessible language, Susan Andrews, founder and coordinator
of Future Vision Ecological Park in São Paulo, Brazil,
explains how emotions are directly linked to our biochemistry;
in particular, our hormones and neurotransmitters, which
have also been termed “molecules of emotion.” Practical
exercises, which reduce the hormones of anger and aggression,
and build those supporting collaboration and connection,
can help us to evolve a new paradigm of collective leadership,
to transform tension into harmony, and dominance into partnership.
12. BRINGING CHANGE THROUGH PRACTICAL
IDEALISM: Emerging
Models of Community Leadership in Pakistan
by Mehjabeen Abidi Habib (Pakistan)
There is a growing body of literature on transformative
leadership from the world over. One such study, undertaken
by Mehjabeen Abidi Habib, author of the book Green Pioneers, shows
that Pakistan also has a group of individuals who are making
remarkable differences to community development and nature
conservation. This essay focuses on the motives of leaders
the author terms practical idealists. Premised on
the view that humans seek meaning in life, it presents
a typology of inner meaning based on ecological anthropology
and comparative religion. Examining cases of pioneering
work, it suggests that multiple meanings, ranging from
science-based classifications to experiences of transcendent
unity, increase our concern for others. It concludes that
this is not a culture-specific phenomenon, but a perennial
human quest that spans place and time.
13. Training the mind for leadership: Skillful Means — Releasing
Our Human Potential While Working
by Arnaud Maitland (Holland)
Arnaud Maitland, director of Center for Skillful Means
is a successful business entrepreneur and a longtime student
and practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism. Skillful Means, a
method that applies ancient wisdom to contemporary situations,
is a training of the mind while we are working. The seemingly
simple practices, done on the job, allow the mind to open
up and reveal its potential. Maitland has applied the Skillful
Means teachings in various professional settings. During
his many years as an international leadership teacher,
Arnaud Maitland has shown hundreds of students the benefits
of training the mind, and of viewing awareness and familiarity
with time as the ground from which success originates.
14. Six Billion Paths to Peace: Reflecting on the
Power of Service and Leadership to Create Global Harmony
by Harumitsu Inouye, Liane Louie-Badua and
Maura Wolf (Japan and USA)
In this clear and compelling explanation of their Buddhist-based
leadership philosophy, the authors call for a global leadership
based on service. After defining service through the image
of a lotus flower, they demonstrate how the power of service
can create harmony within the individual, in interpersonal
relationships, and between groups and communities at every
level of society. Using a series of activities, the authors
translate their philosophy into practical ways in which
individuals, groups and organizations can deepen their
commitment to a service-based view of leadership.
IV — BRIDGING SECTORS AND COMMUNITIES
Leadership that works within the boundaries of one group
or community may not work across borders. This section
raises the critical question: “What are the qualities
of leaders and leadership contexts needed to facilitate
cooperation across all the divides that can separate human
beings from each other?” As the points of view of
these authors from around the world illustrate, humanity’s
shared responses to this question are as profound as its
differences.
15. The Change Lab: A Breakthrough Way for Small Teams
to Unstick Large Systems
by Adam Kahane (Canada
and South Africa)
Adam Kahane was a key scenario planner for Shell, as well
as the South African peace process. The first time he glimpsed
how small teams could shift large systems was when, two
years after the end of the devastating Guatemalan civil
war, he helped to facilitate a group of 44 leaders from
the guerillas and the military, national and local politicians,
business and civil society, the media, clergy and trade
unions to develop Visión Guatemala. After two years
of regular meetings, the group generated a series of important
initiatives that also created a team spirit, which helped
Guatemala in later political crises. In this intelligent
analysis, he not only describes this process, but elaborates
on how he is applying the learning from this and other
projects to developing the innovative U-Process Change
Labs to tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges.
16. THINKING GLOBALLY, MANAGING LOCALLY: Lessons from
a Community Conflict in Argentina
by Graciela Tapia (Argentina)
For the last ten years, Graciela Tapia, who heads Cambio
Democratico, one of the world’s leading conflict
resolution networks in Argentina, has mediated many disputes
in Latin America. Her essay discusses the lessons learned
from these experiences, including the challenges involved
with using dialogue and other tools. She explains why dialogue
is sometimes a catalyst for positive change, while at other
times, when it lacks adaptation to the local circumstances,
it can intensify stuck patterns. In a specific scenario,
she focuses on the conflict between a local community and
landless migrant farmers in northern Argentina, where the
country borders on Brazil and Paraguay. She contrasts various
forms of leadership, including the inspirational shift
of a traditional conflict-oriented leader into a co-creative
one, and on the other hand, the resistance to change by
a populist leader, who used manipulation and violence,
and was ultimately killed.
17. CATALYZING LISTENING AND DIALOGUE: Building New Skills
for Civic Engagement
by Christine Loh (China)
Christine Loh, a former member of the Hong Kong legislature
and founder of Civic Exchange, provides an overview of
what she believes are the most essential tools for leaders
dealing with complex, cross-cultural contexts. She distills
the tools down to five: Listening, Dialogue, Designing
Meetings, Facilitating and Mediating. These skills, which
she refers to as “Sustainability Tools,” are
essential for leaders who want to go beyond their own interests,
institutions and cultures. In addition, the author provides
a deep and penetrating analysis of how these tools relate
to the Chinese cultural context, and provides valuable
insights on the interface between China and the rest of
the world.
18. BRIDGING LEADERSHIP: Fostering Trust and Co-creation
Across Political and Religious Divides
by Jacinto Gavino and Ernesto Garilao (Philippines)
Jacinto Gavino and Ernesto Garilao, two of the leading
professors at the prestigious Asian Institute of Management,
describe how they applied the “Bridging Leadership” approach,
which they co-created with Synergos Institute’s worldwide
leadership network, to successfully assist in mitigating
the critical divides between Muslims and Christians, indigenous
and non-indigenous populations in Mindanao. Using concrete
examples, they describe the leadership impacts of this
method, the sustainability of which ultimately rests on
the qualitative development of the leaders themselves.
19. Developing Collective Leadership: Partnering in Multi-stakeholder
Contexts
by Alain Gauthier (France)
In this chapter, Alain Gauthier, a senior leadership coach
and facilitator working worldwide with the top management
of major corporations, the United Nations, and other international
institutions, describes in great detail the application
of the partnership paradigm in multi-stakeholder contexts.
Based on his experience in facilitating the emergence of
sustainable local and global partnerships, the author discusses
multiple approaches and tools that can be applied to help
diverse leaders and institutions mature together as “boundary
crossers,” while addressing critical issues that
cannot be solved within a single organization or sector.
V — LEADERSHIP FOR CHANGING ECONOMIES
In a civilization that is as focused on the economy as
ours is, it is only fitting to complete our exploration
on global leadership by posing some challenging questions
about our structural constraints — and liberating
possibilities. These two closing essays deal with the fundamental
economic structures that shape our societies. The nature
of the modern corporation, and the functioning of the contemporary
money system, each have powerful impacts on leadership
across all sectors. The authors of these two essays render
a crucial service by alerting us to how these institutions
currently shape us, and, even more valuable, provide inspired
and pragmatic suggestions on how we can reform these two
dominant and deeply interconnected societal forces which
determine our social and environmental sustainability.
20. LEADING SUSTAINABLE CORPORATIONS
EVERYWHERE: From
Oxymoron to Reality
by Walter Link and L. Hunter Lovins (Europe
and USA)
In this penetrating analysis, two of the world’s
leading experts in combining economic success with social
and environmental sustainability describe the dynamic shifts
that are presently occurring in markets and societies around
the globe. Assessing key leverage points, Walter Link and
L. Hunter Lovins demonstrate how all of us — as CEOs
and consumers, employees and civil society activists, investors
and bankers, members of parliaments, unions, churches and
pension funds — can actively contribute towards reorienting
our socially and environmentally challenged planet.
21. TRANSFORMING MONETARY SYSTEMS: Changing the Way Money
Shapes Leadership
by Bernard Lietaer (Belgium)
What is the relationship between global leadership and
monetary systems? In this essay, Bernard Lietaer, one of
Belgium’s leading economists who assisted in the
creation of the Euro currency, one of the European Union’s
most important reform efforts, argues that a global economy
and civilization requires a global currency not tied to
the interests and policies of any single nation or community.
He makes clear that any discussion of global values, trends
or ideas, however well-intentioned they may be, will not
bear fruit unless we also address the fundamental issue
of how the monetary system affects those same values, trends
and ideas.
CONCLUSION
Obviously these twenty-one essays about global leadership
in the twenty-first century do not complete our creative
process. Rather, they are a momentary imprint in the ongoing
process of the deepening global conversation that we invite
you to join. At the end of this book, the three co-editors
will close their reflections with a set of powerful questions
that are designed to further stimulate our planetary inquiry
towards co-creating a more humane and sustainable civilization.
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