January 2005

Synchronicity contains many rich and compelling views about ‘being’ a leader. I have quoted directly from the book and highlighted some of the essential ideas. Enjoy!

Synchronicity: the inner path of leadership
by Joseph Jaworski

Three fundamental shifts of mind necessary for creative leadership:

1. a fundamental shift in the way we think about the world
2. a fundamental shift in our understanding of relationship
3. a shift in the nature of our commitment

As Campbell pointed out, the hero’s journey is the journey of any of us who elect to search for our true destiny. It reflects the inevitable passages we encounter as we discover how to create the future. We hardly have the language to describe the fundamental shift of mind that permits us to participate in this unfolding creative order.

Robert Greenleaf (Servant Leadership) invites people to consider a domain of leadership grounded in a state of being, not doing, He says that the first and most important choice a leader makes is the choice to serve, without which one’s capacity to lead is profoundly limited. That choice is not an action in the normal sense - it’s not something you do, but an expression of your being. For Greenleaf, being a leader has to do with the relationship between the leader and the led.

When things become desperate, we can easily find ourselves waiting for a great leader to rescue us. Through all of this, we totally miss the bigger question: “What are we, collectively, able to create?”

Leadership is about creating a domain in which human beings continually deepen their understanding of reality and become more capable of participating in the unfolding of the world. Ultimately, leadership is about creating new realities.

One of the great mysteries of our current state of consciousness is how we can live in a world where absolutely nothing is fixed, and yet perceive a world of ‘fixedness’. When this fundamental shift of mind occurs, our sense of identity shifts, too, and we begin to accept each other as legitimate human beings.

In our traditional image of commitment, things get done by hard work. We have to sacrifice. If everything starts to fall apart, we try harder, or we tell ourselves that we’re not good enough, or that we don’t care enough to be that committed. So we vacillate between two states of being, one a form of self-manipulation, wherein we get things done by telling ourselves that if we don’t work harder, it won’t get done; and the other a state of guilt, wherein we say we’re not good enough. Neither of these states has anything to do with the deeper nature of commitment.

When we operate in the state of mind in which we realize we are part of the unfolding, we can’t not be committed. It’s actually impossible not to be committed. Nothing ever happens by accident. Every single thing is part of what needs to happen right now. We only make the mistakes that we have to make to learn what we’re here to learn right now. This is a commitment of being, not a commitment of doing. We discover that our being is inherently in a state of commitment as part of the unfolding process. I actualize my commitment by listening, out of which my doing arises. Sometimes the greatest acts of commitment involve doing nothing but sitting and waiting until I just know what to do next.

I began to understand another, deeper aspect of commitment. This kind of commitment begins not with will, but with willingness. We begin to listen to the inner voice that helps guide us as our journey unfolds. The underlying component of this kind of commitment is our trust in the playing out of our destiny. We have the integrity to stand in a state of surrender knowing that whatever we need at the moment to meet our destiny will be available to us. It is at this point that we alter our relationship with the future.

When this new type of commitment starts to operate, there is a flow around us. Things just seem to happen. A flow of meaning begins to operate around us, as if we were part of a larger conversation. This is the ancient meaning of dialogue: flow of meaning.

People gather around you, and a larger conversation begins to form. When you are in this state of surrender, this state of wonder, you exert an enormous attractiveness, not because you are special, but because people are attracted to authentic presence and to the unfolding of a future that is full of possibilities.

When we start to operate in this new state of mind, grounded in this different commitment, something starts to operate around us. We could call it ‘attraction’ - the attractiveness of people in a state of surrender. Lastly, when we are in a state of commitment and surrender, we begin to experience what is sometimes called ‘synchronicity’. In other words, synchronicity is a result.

I have discovered that people are not really afraid of dying; they’re afraid of not ever having lived, nor ever having deeply considered their life’s purpose, and not ever having stepped into that purpose and at least tried to make a difference in this world.

I learned that our deepest need is to overcome our aloneness and our separateness. The ultimate escape from our separateness is through interpersonal union.

Fromm writes that mature love is union under the condition of preserving one’s integrity and individuality. The paradox: two beings become one and yet remain two. Giving is the highest expression of potency. Fromm sets forth the elements of love: care, which is the active concern for the life and growth of the one we love; responsibility, which is caring for one’s physical needs as well as one’s higher needs; and respect, which is allowing others to grow as they need to on their own terms. To learn to love is not easy. It requires discipline in one’s whole life. It requires concentration, aloneness, thought, knowledge of oneself, listening, living in the present, patience. Above all, to love must be your supreme concern.

When we are in the state of being where we are open to life and all its possibilities, willing to take the next step as it is presented to us, then we meet the most remarkable people who are important contributors to our life. The organizing principle of the universe is “relatedness,” and this is more fundamental than “thingness”....this new understanding is what’s missing in how we think about leadership...the being aspect of leadership.

Fromm explains that Being is a fundamental mode of existence or orientation to the world, one of aliveness and authentic relatedness. It has to do with our character, our total orientation to life; it is a state of inner activity. For the first time in history, he argues, the physical survival of the human race depends on a radical change of the human heart. This is a call to service that will take great courage – to leave what we have and move out, not without fear, but without succumbing to that fear. It is a call to redefine what is possible, to see a vision of a new world and be willing to undertake, step-by-step, what is necessary in concrete terms to achieve that vision.

The essence of leadership, says Greenleaf, is the desire to serve one another and to serve something beyond ourselves, a higher purpose. In that orientation, servant leadership seems like a very potent and natural way to think about leadership.

Leadership is all about the release of human possibilities. Just being able to be there for others and to listen to them is one of the most important capacities a leader can have. It calls forth the best in people by allowing them to express what is within them.

The mind has powers that allows us to go beyond our normal or habitual way of being, and beyond what we think is possible. When people join together and go beyond their habitual way of being as a group, even more possibilities open up.

At the heart of effective societal leadership is a sense of purposefulness; that there is extraordinary power in a group committed to a common vision; that successful leadership depends upon a fundamental shift of being, including a deep commitment to the dream and a passion for serving versus being driven by the pursuit of status and power.

To Bohm it was clear that humans have an innate capacity for collective intelligence. They can learn and think together, and this collaborative thought can lead to coordinated action. We are all connected and operate within living fields of thought and perception.

In dialogue, you’re not building anything, you’re allowing the whole that exists to become manifest. It’s a deep shift in consciousness away from the notion that parts are primary. People always say “We have to step back and see the big picture here,” as if we have to go from seeing the parts to constructing a whole. But the whole already exists; it’s just that we’re locked into a frame of reference that keeps us from perceiving it. In dialogue, the whole shows up and is manifested by individuals later as they take action.

Robert Frost once said “All great things are done for their own sake.” When we see our visions and our dreams in this way, it’s a subtle but most profound shift. And it’s under these circumstances that the “hidden hands” phenomenon begins to occur, and doors open of us that are beyond our imagination.

The key to overcoming the trap of overactivity is in doing the inner, reflective work, individually and collectively necessary to regain our balance.

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one...the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. – George Bernard Shaw

A central purpose of writing this book is to propose an alternative; if individuals and organizations operate from the generative orientation, from possibility rather than resignation, we can create the future into which we are living, as opposed to merely reacting to it when we get there. One of the most important roles we can ply individually and collectively is to create an opening, or to listen to the implicate order unfolding, and then to create dreams, visions, and stories that we sense at our center want to happen.

The conventional view of leadership emphasizes positional power and conspicuous accomplishment. But true leadership is about creating a domain in which we continually learn and become more capable of participating in our unfolding future. A true leader thus sets the stage on which predictable miracles, synchronistic in nature, can and do occur. The capacity to discover and participate in our unfolding future has more to do with our being, our total orientation of character and consciousness, than with what we do.

Leadership is about creating, day by day, a domain in which we and those around us continually deepen our understanding of reality and are able to participate in shaping the future. This, then, is the deeper territory of leadership, collectively listening to what is wanting to emerge in the world, and then having the courage to do what is required.