I think what I was trying to express must have been very, very opaque. I really wasn't rejecting the Servant Leader or the title.
My 'thesis' is that the real objections being raised to the paradigm of the Servant Leader, are grounded in one specific cultural context for the language - and the *possibility* of what it might mean in that context - rather than the 'thing in itself'. Objections to British colonialism - and the assumptions inherent in its offspring society - are really *nothing* to do with the practice of Servant Leadership itself but rather the language which produces a (historical psyche based) visceral response in some of us. I thought it would help if we could see this and perhaps agree that 'the thing in itself' aims towards torchbearer/pathfinder leader and helper/assistant servant rather than boss/bigwig leader and flunk/minion servant. I have to get past the language myself but I can see that if we don't get past the language we can't explore the reality. And I think there's a *lot* of value in the reality.
That said, perhaps you would consider that those who do have to get past the language are faced with the kind of difficulty you might face if confronted by language that had been consistently used in racist contexts, even though it was not inherently racist or expressive of a racist model. A good example might be 'The Squaw - Brave' paradigm. Both are Native American terms which actually denote an honorable status. A European might coin that term with the deepest respect for the real meaning of the words. And because I'm married to a Cherokee and understand the historical and cultural context of these terms - I'd spit nails. Then I'd try to look past the negative connotations, which is what I was proposing here. And I shall read all that you suggest.
Love
Sara
________________________________________
From: Practitioner-Researcher [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alan Markowitz [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 4:12 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Is what I am doing a good idea?
I guess I must represent the minority view on the title "Servant Leader". Based on the work of Peter Senge, we have understood the value of one's "mental models" in shaping our current perspectives and behavior. Using experiences from one's background can be a bit narrowing in looking at solutions to present and future educational issues. What we do know is that past educational hiearchical models do not work anywhere. They have produced "leaders" based on a pyramid and the Prussian army's hierarchical system. In the 21st century, this system is admittedly untenable. At the same time, our task must network systems rather than rely on individuals working on their own to make the degree of changes required to produce successful 21st.century learners. Consider your own mental models by opening to the possibility that the hierachical pyramid with the administrator on top can be inverted so that the Serv ant Leader (yes, don't yet turn itoff) is now at the bottom of the pyrmaid and plays a far different role within the scool organization.
I encourage you to visit the Greenleaf Centre for Servant Leadership-UK, located in Surrey. The Director is John Noble. He can be reached [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>.
Another resource that might be interesting is Dr. David Hargreaves in Oxford. He is Exec. Director of inet and the ssat shools. He has changed the leadership paradigm in a number of schools in UK and actually came over to our College last month tp work with us in implementing 21st century with this new role of the leader. We cannot afford to allow past experiences to help us solve the unknown issues of the future,
One final thought: The U.S. has adopted new national standards for school leaders. They are very consistent with the principles of a Servant Leadership. Please check out greenleaf.org<http://greenleaf.org/> with an open mind. Suspending one's mental models is very difficult. However, in a world of uncertainty where students must be prepared for a future that cannot be predicted for careers that are not yet inventd requires a systemic, networked effort where all are working toward a true vision.
I invite your response and dialogue.
Fondly,
Alan
greeleaf
On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 4:32 AM, Alan Rayner (BU) <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Dear Sara,
Yes, I agree and I think you have put this beautifully.
Love
Alan
----- Original Message ----- From: "Salyers, Sara M" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
To: <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 10:34 PM
Subject: Re: Is what I am doing a good idea?
Dear all, please forgive me for filling your inboxes with incomplete postings. I'll get hold of our tech support genius tomorrow and try to get this fixed. Once again, my deep apologies.
________________________________________
From: Practitioner-Researcher [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf Of Salyers, Sara M [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 5:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Is what I am doing a good idea?
Dear alan (R),
If there are two kinds of leader denoted by the same word:
1 chief, head, principal; commander, captain; superior, headman; chairman, chairwoman, chairperson, chair; (managing) director, CEO, manager, superintendent, supervisor, overseer, administrator, employer, master, mistress; president, premier, governor; ruler, monarch, king, queen, sovereign, emperor; informal boss, skipper, number one, numero uno, honcho, sachem, padrone.
2 pioneer, front runner, world leader, world-beater, innovator, trailblazer, groundbreaker, trendsetter, torchbearer, pathfinder.
Naturally there are (at least) two kinds of servant denoted by the same word:
1 attendant, retainer; domestic (worker), (hired) help, cleaner; lackey, flunky, minion; maid, housemaid, footman, page (boy), valet, butler, manservant; housekeeper, steward; drudge, menial, slave, water boy; archaic scullion.
2 a servant of the people: helper, supporter, follower.
Next:
"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world." (Wittgenstein)
Our world, Alan, (those of us with the history of the British Empire in psyche), includes a forelock tugging, upstairs/downstairs, colonizing, patronizing culture in which assumptions about the superiority of the ruling class 'leading' the serving class still colour the society we grew up in. These are assumptions which some of us react to in the way that hyper-allergenic reacts to peanuts. We choke. We are liable to be unwilling to accept a paradigm whose definition, because it is imprecise or 'dual', would unarguably allow the inclusion of the same elitist values (1.superior/master - 1. lackey, flunky, minion) to which we are allergic. But I think we have to agree that this 1/1 definition is not what is *intended* by the term Servant Leader. And what we reject is not substance nor spirit nor intent but language. I should add that you have already professed yourself aligned to a way of being that could be described as a pathfinder/helper and that this can also be expressed in accurate synonyms as Servant (type 2)/Leader type)2. Why do others not reject the language in favor of less 'open' terms?
Our American colleagues, for instance, have a very different psyche. True or false they have been raised on the idea that, in America, 'all men are created equal.' (Racism isn't the same as 'classism'; I believe, our fellow researchers would recognize racism in a heartbeat and would reject any linguistic terms that opened the door for a racist interpretation. But it isn't easy for non-Brits to recognize colonialism and 'classism' or any terms that might open the door to them - when they have not yet experienced the ascendancy of the ruling elite as something which teaches them to know their God-ordered place (below) in the pecking order. For some, this class thing is quaint European history. For others, it's a (true) horror story. Thus your emphatic rejection of the term Servant Leader, will possibly hurt and bewilder those for whom its context falls outside the limits of *their* world. We cannot know what it means to be unacquainted with the horror we feel and I humbly suggest that they do cannot understand the visceral rejection you express of this linguistic ambiguity. ?
(Right, deep breath, and jump...) *Love*
Sara
_____________________________________
From: Practitioner-Researcher [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf Of Alan Rayner (BU) [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 3:47 AM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Is what I am doing a good idea?
PS I woke this morning with the full recognition that I have never regarded
myself, or wanted to regard myself as either 'servant' or 'leader'. All I
have ever hoped for is to 'assist' - to help others [and be helped] along
their way, with love, care and respect. I'd rather be acknowledged anyday as
a 'Great Help' than as a Great Leader or Great Servant!
So let's have assistantship, not leadership or serfdom. Assistantship
enables complementation and synergy, without imposing unbearable demands and
expectations on individuals. It obviates the notion of power hierarchy. It
enables each to express their mind from where they are, without fragile
pride or prejudice. It allows admission of fallibility and vulnerability
without fear of recrimination. It allows each to acknowledge their need for
others' help. It enables each to let the other know when they see them in
danger, without fear of giving offence. It calls for the sick or injured to
be cared for, even as their individual life may be slipping away.
Being a Great Help is correspondingly not about sycophancy or pretence of
perfection in one or other. It can require discernment, courage and
care-full consideration, especially in a world replete with defensive Pride
and Prejudice. Wouldn't it be great if 'Prime Ministers' literally meant
'Prime Helpers', not 'Prime Executives'!
For better or worse, that is what I have always endeavoured to be, in spite
of and because of my self-doubts. Especially recently.
Warmest
Alan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Rayner (BU)" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
To: "Practitioner-Researcher" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 8:20 PM
Subject: Re: Is what I am doing a good idea?
Dear Sara and dear Cupane,
The messages that you have both sent in, along with Kathy's, are, to my
eyes, rich with a depth of understanding, feeling and humility that I find
delightful and warming to encounter.
Please find attached the paper I wrote in preparation for my keynote
presentation at ALARA in Melbourne next month. I hope you will find some
kind of response to your questions in there, and pointers to more. It can
also be found at www.bestthinking.com<http://www.bestthinking.com/> (Just search for Alan Rayner, and
you
will find five of my essays)
I have also pasted below, part of a paper entitled 'Space Cannot Be Cut:
Why
Self Identity Naturally Includes Neighbourhood', which is currently under
review. You might find it resonant.
I have not cut away from this list. It's just that I now think it best to
'respond only when invited to do so'. In some cases it may be better to do
this on an individual basis than to the full list.
Warmest
Alan
----------------------------------------
Adverse Abstraction: Self-Dislocation from Natural Neighbourhood
Notions of adversarial 'competition' and coercive 'co-operation', which
respectively underlie individualistic 'capitalism' and collectivistic
'socialism', are predicated upon an abstract logical assumption. This is
that individual or group entities can be defined independently from their
spatial context and correspondingly that their 'future' can be fully
defined
by present or 'initial conditions'. It gives rise to the familiar idea
that
undesirable present 'means' can justify desirable future 'ends'.
Human beings may be cognitively and psychologically predisposed to make
this
assumption through a combination of our inter-related capacities for
categorization, sociality, abstract thought, tool and language use and
awareness of mortality (Rayner and Jarvilehto, 2008; Rayner 2010b; cf.
Elstrup 2009, 2010). On the other hand, the imagination that comes
alongside
these capacities offers the creative potential to escape the restrictions
imposed by abstract objectivity through what is actually the more
comprehensive worldview of natural inclusionality (Rayner 2010a; see
below).
As terrestrial, omnivorous, bipedal primates unable to digest cellulose
but
equipped with binocular vision and opposable thumbs that enable us to
catch
and grasp, we are predisposed to view the geometry of our natural
neighbourhood in an overly definitive way. We see the world in terms of
what
it can do for us and to us as detached observers or abstracted '
exhabitants',
not how we are inextricably involved in it as natural inhabitants. We see
'boundaries' as the limits of definable 'objects' and 'space' as
'nothing' -
a gap or absence outside and between these objects (Rayner, 2004).
This perception of boundaries as discontinuities inescapably renders the
comprehension of continuity problematic (Smith, 1997). If two adjacent
locations in space and/or time are distinguished by a boundary, which one
does the boundary belong to? If it belongs to both of them, how can the
mutual exclusivity of two-value logic be satisfied, and where do both
cease
to be both and become either one or the other? If it belongs to neither,
then where does one location end and the other begin and what really comes
between them? In the case of a curved boundary, does it belong to whatever
lies within it or to whatever lies without it? If two distinct locations
are
both contained within a larger location, are they mutually exclusive or
co-existent? Upon such dilemmas rests the whole gamut of alternative
propositional (either/or) and dialectical/transcendental logics (both/and
in
mutual opposition) that have been in conflict for millennia and continue
to
be so (e.g. see Valsiner, 2009). So too do the 'holons' - as 'Janus-faced'
entities combining individual and collective aspects, and 'holarchies' -
as
nested arrays of holons, of Koestler (1976) in his 'Open Hierarchical
Systems Theory' (Rayner et al., 1984; Wilber, 1996).
That it is nonetheless possible to avoid this perception is, however,
evident from the indigenous cultures that sustain a much stronger sense of
inclusion in Nature, aided by the preservation of oral, aural and nomadic
traditions (e.g. Cairns and Harney, 2004; Taylor, 2005). For example,
notice
the similarity between the following quotes from Bill Yidumduma Harney
(BYH), a fully-initiated Elder of the Wardaman people of Northern
Territory, Australia (see Cairns and Harney, 2004) and a 'natural
inclusional poem', 'The Hole in the Mole', by myself (AR) (see also
Rayner,
2010a).
BYH: 'You might recognise some of the land, changing all the time. Then,
like imagination to us, with spiritual link-up from the stars, and all the
other stuff from the top to the bottom, they sort of guide you all the
way.
They start like be still in the valley, you've got it in your mind, links
the air to you, up to the stars, guide you direct to it straight across
country...all these stars pulling everything together, moving around, all
come together'.
AR: 'The Hole in the Mole'
'I AM the hole; That lives in a mole; That induces the mole;To dig the
hole;
That moves the mole; Through the earth; That forms a hill; That becomes a
mountain; That reaches to sky; That pools in stars; And brings the rain;
That the mountain collects; Into streams and rivers; That moisten the
earth;
That grows the grass; That freshens the air; That condenses to rain; That
carries the water; That brings the mole; To Life'
Moreover, according to Walker (2003), "Cross-cultural views of the self
define individuality in terms of boundaries, locus of control and
inclusiveness versus exclusiveness, or that which is intrinsic versus that
which is extrinsic to the self (Heelas and Lock, 1981, Sampson, 1988).
Cultures that emphasize firm boundaries and high personal control tend to
view the self as exclusionary or 'self contained'. Fluid boundary, strong
field control cultures, view the self as "ensembled," meaning that the
self
is inclusive of other individuals. While 'self contained' individualism is
indigenous to the United States and to the European countries from which
its
dominant ethnic groups draw their roots, 'ensembled' individualism is far
more prevalent as a percentage of all known cultures (Sampson, 2000).
Ensembled individualism is also indigenous to Aboriginal, Native American,
Senoi and other cultures that are widely known to use dreams for social
purposes."
The perception of completely definable objects separated by intervals of
space as 'gaps of nothingness' sets the scene for the hard line logic of
abstract rationality to become established in the foundations of our
mathematical, scientific, theological, linguistic, governmental and
economic
endeavours. It also profoundly affects our perceptions of 'self' and
'self-interest'. The Aristotelian axiom that 'one thing is not another
thing, and, specifically, that 'one self cannot be another self' leads to
what C.S. Lewis (1942) called 'the philosophy of Hell', in which 'to be
means to be in competition'.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Salyers, Sara M" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
To: <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 7:54 PM
Subject: Re: Is what I am doing a good idea?
Part of your poem is covered up by a nasty PDF notice but I got most of
it.
I don't k now how to tell you how much I love this.
How can I teach you without knowing who you think you are?
How can we create a better world without sharing the meaning of 'better'?
How can we describe to each of us who we think we are?
How can we accept discovering that we are wrong?
I think we are just Awareness/Emptiness What do you think?
A. Cupane
Nov. 2006
I think so too. Thank you.
Sara
________________________________________
From: Practitioner-Researcher [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On
Behalf Of Cupane cupane [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 2:35 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Is what I am doing a good idea?
Dear all
I think is just one of the questions that we should always make. Do you
mind
to read my poem and tell if what you are doing is good idea for you?
Cupane
Perth-Australia
Phone: 61 - 8 - 92663792
Fax: 61 - 8 - 92662503
Maputo-Mozambique
Mobile: 258 - 82 - 288 1750
http://www.geocities.com/acupane
(under construction)
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