Hello Robbie, Steve and all - Yes Robbie you have managed to say much better
than I some of the issues that this "other than leadership" discussion prompts
us, in some way, to handle.
Indeed this stepping outside is a huge task and this is one of the adventures
in adventure pedagogy for me and for many others. This is an act of "border
crossing" as Henry Giroux might say or as I have tried to say before using the
work of Georg Simmel (1911 - the adventure).
Also such dominent paradigms have firm attachements to various conditions of
practice and it is here that I think many of the class, race and gender issues
become a little more translucent. In other words we might be discussing
structures of action.
Thanks for this continuation
best wishes
steve bowles
Robbie Nicol wrote:
> Hi Steve Crosby,
>
> I was drawn to your comments less by the notion of leadership and more by
> your reference to Fritjof Capra. Your title (other - than 'leadership')
> implies that you are less than happy about what you have read so far. I
> then wondered what the great man would make of leadership in OAE. You have
> already mentioned that the concept of leadership exists within a specific
> discourse. I believe Capra (I will use his terms) would see that discourse
> as 'mechanistic' (you become a better leader by following prescribed steps)
> and 'reductionist' (if you break the concept into pieces you can assemble
> them again into a whole). Having read Capra you know all this. However,
> what intrigues me is how similar your quest for an 'organic' view of
> leadership is to Capra's work in The Web of Life (1996). In his quest to
> develop a theory of living systems he found that he had to step outside of
> his own specialism (theoretical physics) to see what biologist,
> sociologists etc etc were up to. He found (as have many other
> environmental philosophers) that dominant worldviews (paradigms) act as a
> form of validity deciding upon what is 'good' knowledge, and conversely,
> what is not recognised. In this way the paradigm acts as a filter and
> arbiter of knowledge. He found his work fell outwith the dominant paradigm
> and so he decided that before he could develop his theory of living systems
> he had to step outside the box (as Thomas Kuhn (1962) would say) and
> renegotiate the paradigm itself. This is a long winded way of saying that
> maybe you need to step out of the box for your answers (I think this is
> what Steve Bowles is saying - hi Steve). If this is what you decide then
> the first stop is not leadership texts but methodological ones. The
> challenge then is to develop a new framework from which to consider
> leadership. This is what Robert Pirsig did in Zen and the Art of
> Motorcycle Maintenance, he developed a new metaphysics of life and called
> it 'quality'. Perhaps leadership needs a new metaphysics or at least an
> alternative one. This is a mighty task but if you are looking for
> 'organic' leadership discourses then I believe you need to develop the
> framework as well as the discourse, this is the challenge.
>
> Good luck with whatever path you choose.
>
> Robbie Nicol
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|