Haitian Colleagues Reflect on Power and Leadership

Here are some of the nuggets of wisdom my Haitian colleagues have shared in recent weeks. I took them from our list serve (105 people) translating them from Haitian Creole to English.

The element that gives leadership force is the capacity to help individuals use their knowledge to help themselves and the collective as well.

This force becomes stronger than the traditional form of power, because it makes people feel responsible, which enables them to use their power and act on the responsibilities they’ve taken up for themselves.
Xavier Abelard

Leadership is the capacity in each of us to question ourselves: what scares me and what enables me to rise above my fears, overcome my bad habits and not be carried away by ego? We question and we grow into visionaries and discover our own self in all others. Others advance on their path to self-discovery when they encounter a person who has reached this level. They see that this person knows him or herself. They trust and listen when s/he speaks. A good leader acts and decides based on the good of the collective and is not driven by personal interests.

Power is the capacity in each of us to transform ourselves. The more we master our thoughts, words and deeds, the more we develop the capacity to transform ourselves.
Bayyinah Bello

You choose to use your power with respect or with arrogance. If you choose respect, respect brings forth relationships. Relationships bring forth knowledge. Knowledge brings forth Inner Power (non apparent) and reverence.

If you choose arrogance instead, arrogance brings forth separation. Separation brings forth ignorance. Ignorance brings forth fear. Fear brings forth more separation, along with lies and violence. Lies and violence bring forth outer power (apparent).

Leadership, in its essence, which is void of violence, rests on an Inner Power. This leadership needs not to be big in title, money, or arms. It knows its strengths and weaknesses, its rights and responsibilities, its territory and limits. Leadership knows where it starts and finishes. People who follow a person possessing such leadership don’t contest his/her power. On the contrary, they support and encourage him/her. The key word describing this type of leadership is respect.
Djalòki

Leadership is the power that a person develops in him/herself to serve well those around him/her. This power can convene people and get things done.
Prophete Charlotin

Leadership is the capacity to accompany others in helping them to discover and realize their dreams. A leader needs to serve and to know how to open space and create an environment of mutual respect.
Jude Appolon


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Fellow CPTers are being attacked by Jewish Settlers.

HEBRON DISTRICT: Israeli settlers continue attacks on CPTers escorting Palestinian school children

CPTnet October 9, 2004
By Maia Williams

On Saturday, October 9, 2004 at around 3p.m., on the road from Tuba to Tuwani, eight Israeli settlers with wooden sticks and sling shots attacked CPTers Diana Zimmerman and Diane Janzen, an Operation Dove member (name withheld by request), one resident from Tuwani, two residents from Tuba, and two fieldworkers from Amnesty International, Donatella Rovera and Maartje Houbrechts. When the accompaniment team saw the settlers, dressed in blue jeans, t-shirts, and masks walking toward them they called the Israeli police immediately and began walking quickly away from the settlers.  Three of the settlers with sling shots ran after the Palestinians hurling stones at them.  The other five settlers attacked the accompaniment team....

URGENT ACTION:

Tell Israeli government to stop settler attacks on Palestinian schoolchildren, CPTers and other international accompaniers....

Learn more about what you can do Christian Peacemaker Teams

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"Dialogue for Development"

While my Haitian and expatriat colleagues and I feel convinced that sustainable change in Haiti requires new approaches to leadership and new practices in how groups and communities work together, it's not an easy concept to explain to funders.

It can be discouraging when the very strategy that you've developed after years of listening, analysis, and experimentation makes little to no sense to many of the people funding your work.

Today I read Ramon Daubon's article, "Dialogue for Development" in the Kettering Review and am inspired. Mr. Daubon is VP of Programs at the reputable Inter American Foundation. He's held high posts in US Agency for International Development and the Ford Foundation. And, everything he's saying reinforces the lessons my colleagues and I have learned which have pointed us to initiating The Experiment in Alternative Leadership.

Daubon writes, "The sad truth is that in most community development processes the possibility of outside expert help--or worse, of outside funds--have annulled the need for a careful convening, a laborious discovery of the underlying concern, and a deliberative choice of direction. Paricipants have rushed instead to design a "fundable project" based on the perceptions of a few. This is why development assistance has failed."

Daubon also writes, "More than a methodology to manage conflictive situations, sustained dialogue is a way of thinking based on two fundamental insights: 1) Conflict is the manifestation of extreme dysfunctionality in relationships. The issue in conflict emerges from the destructive relationship; so, rather than dealing with the issue, "sustained dialogue" is designed to deal with the relationship, which once restructured will allow dealing with the issue. 2) The restructuring of relationships happens through sequences of recognizable phases, not sharply delineated but evanescing gradually from one to the next--movement along those phases being neither predetermined nor unidirectional. It doesn't take a great conceptual leap to see underdevelopment as dysfunctionality in communities and apply these same insights. All human groups are capable of bonding in intimate circles or trust, but these are limited to relatively small circles of people who know each other personally. To carry out broader exchanges and transact with strangers in other circles, even beyond one's own community, requires a mediating mechanism, a habitual practice, a covenant of acceptable behavior that operationalizes the relationship between strangers, perhaps what I have called above, "bridging social capital."

The practice of Open Space and Reflection Circles does exactly what Mr. Daubon states needs to happen.


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Estimates of Haitians' Lives Lost Exceed 3,000

Here is a message I've received from a friend who just returned from flood zone:

Dear Friends of the Office of Social Advocacy,

Richard Turcotte, CEO of Catholic Charities, and I returned from our visit
to Haiti.  While there, we met with the staff of Catholic Relief Services
in Port-au-Prince and presented them with an initial check for $10,000 to
support their emergency relief efforts.  On Saturday I traveled with CRS to
the hardest-hit region of Gonaives, where we met with CRS and Caritas staff
and the Bishop of Gonaives. The stories of destruction and survival were
moving.  The head of Caritas Gonaives spoke of how he personally spent the
day of the floods collecting bodies and delivering them to the local
morgue.  By his own count he collected 96 bodies.  The Bishop of Gonaives
is housing 250 people in his chancery office who are now homeless after the
floods.  Thousands are dead and hundreds of thousands are now hungry and
homeless after losing their loved ones, the homes and their livelihoods to
the flood waters.

Cut and paste the link below into your internet explore or other browser
for a 3 minute streaming video update on our trip, including pictures we
took in Gonaives, comments from the Archbishop and his letter to President
Bush regarding the Haiti catastrophe.  Most importantly, please share this
link with others.

http://www.miamiarch.org/video/media.cfm

Catholic Charities is committed to collecting as much as possible to
support the relief efforts of CRS and Caritas.  With your help, we can make
a difference in the lives of people in Haiti now.

Thanks and God bless,
Brian

Brian Stevens
Director of Social Advocacy
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami
9401 Biscayne Blvd.
Miami Shores FL 33138
(305) 762-1338 office
(305) 762-3011 fax

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Good Leadership’s Use of Power

The Experiment in Alternative Leadership and John Engle Associates were created on the belief that all people can benefit from a more egalitarian approach to leadership.

While Lord Acton’s (1834-1902) words are commonplace in our society—Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely—our culture, like most, includes an unhealthy fascination toward obtaining power over others. Too often we seek to control the behavior of others over focusing our energy on mastering our own behavior.

A person possessing leadership qualities does well to develop clarity of purpose and allow this self-knowledge to appropriately align his/her behavior. S/he helps others to do the same. And, s/he uses the power, which she possesses over others to create structures and establish habits that help people to identify and engage their collective wisdom, talent and commitment.

Using Open Space, Reflection Circles, Lexio Divina, Appreciative Inquiry and other means, we help people in positions of authority to share their power in productive ways. Jesus modeled this approach to leadership, where respect for others and the act of serving guides our behavior.


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