On leaning in and leaning out and walking out and walking on

M & SI’m a statistic. I’m one of the women Sheryl Sandburg and others talk about who don’t, in their opinion, help the cause of feminism. I made it all the way to the glass ceiling, peered through the cracks, decided I didn’t like what I saw, and walked out. I’m a “walk out who walked on.”

There’s a pretty good chance I would have made it through that glass ceiling if I’d “leaned in” long enough. I had all of the credentials and was an ambitious up-and-comer at the time. I took the fast track through the ranks of the public service, had the title “director” added to my name, got the office right next to the corner office, and was making more money than I’d ever dreamed I could.

On top of the career, I had a good feminist husband who carried his share of the household and parenting responsibilities, a couple of beautiful daughters, a house in the suburbs, a minivan, a trailer at the lake, and a boat. You could say I had it all – the feminist’s dream.

And now? I still have the husband and daughters (with an extra one since those days), but I no longer have the trailer at the lake, the boat, the comfortable paycheck or the title of “director” attached to my name. Instead, I have a tiny office in my basement without a window and a fledgling career as a teacher, coach, facilitator and writer.

Some might call me a failed feminist. I let go of the dream that my foremothers fought for. I quit the corporate climb on the wrong side of the glass ceiling. Instead I now spend a good portion of my days creating mandalas with Sharpie markers, hosting story circles, and inviting retreat participants to stitch together quilt squares – not exactly the things a traditional feminist would take pride in.

Why did I walk away from the corporate career and the frequent flyer points in favour of Sharpie markers, quilt squares, and women’s retreats?

There are a few reasons.

  1. At the height of my career, I had a stillborn son whose presence in my life reminded me that my priorities are not wealth, work, or prestige but rather family, community, and space for spirituality.
  2. I wanted to find happiness. I knew that the corner office wasn’t my path to happiness.
  3. I became convinced that it’s time for feminism to grow into something new, and I was pretty sure that I could serve a greater role in helping to birth the new wave of feminism from outside a corporate structure.

It’s that last point that I want to talk about in this article. Instead of a “failed feminist”, I like to think of myself as an “emergent feminist”.

It’s time, I believe, for women to change the world.  That won’t happen simply by getting into CEO positions and taking more seats at the boardroom tables. Women will change the world only if we CHANGE LEADERSHIP.

When I was in formal leadership, on my way to the top, I thrived because I learned to think like a man. I listened to the voices of mentors who told me that “feelings have nothing to do with leadership and you should leave them out of the boardroom”, I shut down my intuition in favour of logic, I left my spirituality and much of my creativity at home, I was careful not to be too wild or passionate, and I even started to believe what I was told once that “relationships get in the way of good programming.”

By the time I broke away from formal leadership to start my own business, ten years after being named a director, I was almost completely burnt out from living in a way that was not authentic to me. I returned to the things that made me feel alive – spiritual practices, art-making, wandering in the woods, and relationships – and when I did I realized that THESE THINGS were exactly what had been missing in my leadership practice. More importantly, they weren’t just absent from my own journey, they were missing from leadership in general.

Instead of leaving them at home, I should have clung to them and brought them into my work. Instead of shutting down my feelings and encouraging my staff to do the same, I should have invited them to bring their vulnerability into conversation circles. Instead of creating strategic plans that rarely evoke any imagination, I should have drawn mandalas that wake up the right brain and invite it to the table. Instead of sitting around energy-killing boardroom tables, I should have held staff retreats in the middle of the woods.

For far too long, we’ve accepted a masculine-dominated leadership paradigm in our government offices, our businesses and even our non-profits that is no longer serving us. As Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze say in Walk Out Walk On, we’ve been relying on the leader-as-hero model, when what we really need now is the leader-as-host. In the words of Tina Turner, “we don’t need another hero”. We need people who can lead from a place in the circle, people who can help heal the brokenness in the world, people who help us feel connected again, and people who can remind us of the importance of our relationship with the earth.

“Leadership is about rearranging the chairs, getting the questions right, putting citizens in front of each other and then knowing what’s worth focusing on. The leadership I’m longing for is the leadership that says my number one job is to bring people together, out of exile, out of isolation, and into connection.” – Peter Block

All around us, we see signs of how disconnected we have become – over-consumption of our resources, terrorist attacks, climate change, extreme poverty, etc. These are the stories of a disconnected human race and this disconnection has been fueled by competitive, hierarchical, power-driven leadership that has been allowed to run un-checked.

If the new wave of feminism has a role to play in the world it is not about pushing harder for the corner office, but about bringing us back to a place of connection. Instead of fighting for the top jobs, the power and the prestige, we should be urging our leaders to bring us out of exile and back to community, back to spirituality, back to earth stewardship, and back to ourselves.

Instead of simply fighting to gain entry into the halls of power, we should be working to change the furniture in those halls. It’s time to move the chairs into a circle and open the windows to the world. It’s time to air out the corner office and replace it with conversation spaces. It’s time to replace competitiveness with collaboration, and hierarchy with community.

This is why I decided to walk out and walk on… my role in the world is no longer to fight for power, it’s to help us figure out how to balance power with love. Instead of standing in front of people, I’m sitting beside them and creating space for conversations. Instead of thinking like a man, I’m inviting men to think more like women.

I don’t want the corner office, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see a woman there. I will always fight for her right to be there, and when she gets there, I’ll be standing beside her, helping her to take down the walls of her corner office and invite people in. I will urge her to see the world through balanced eyes, honouring both the feminine and the masculine in the world, and creating space for us all to have meaningful conversations that lead the world into the transformation it needs.

I’m now leading from a place in the circle so that I can help other women (and men) learn to do the same. When we’ve gathered into that circle, we can all lean in and listen to each other.

If you’re looking for a new way of defining leadership, join me on a free call on Re-imagining Leadership for our Time on May 1 at 2 pm. Central.

Re-Imagining Leadership for Our Time – Free Call

“I’m finally beginning to realize that I’m a leader.”

Those are the words I heard not long ago from a woman who’d just finished the four month leadership program I was co-facilitating. She was an incredible woman doing great things in her community, including lobbying to save a local nature trail, but she’d never thought of herself as a leader.

I hear those words all the time, especially from women. I’ve been hearing them recently in relation to my online course Lead with Your Wild Heart. “I love your program… but… I’m not sure I’m a leader.” Almost without fail, these women are gifted in art, teaching, community transformation, homemaking, earth stewardship, etc., and yet they don’t see leadership in what they do.

Part of the purpose of Lead with Your Wild Heart is to re-imagine leadership for our time. I believe that the need in the world has changed and that we now need to see leadership through a new lens.

I believe that the leaders the world needs now are those who know how to host conversations, imagine change, paint, dance, sing, write poetry, love generously, live in right relationship with the earth, build community, imagine new ways of using and honouring our limited resources, teach, and play. 

As Margaret Wheatley says, a leader is “anyone who is willing to help.” The world needs us to show up and help right now, with whatever gifts we have to offer.

I’ll be hosting a free call on Wednesday, May 1st, at 2 p.m. Central on Re-Imagining Leadership for Our Time.

The call will be an exploration into a new way of defining leadership that fits the paradigm we are now living in. Your questions and ideas on the subject will be more than welcome. One of my deepest beliefs about effective leadership is that it involves hosting meaningful conversations that help surface the wisdom in the circle. Your wisdom is welcome in this circle, and so are your doubts, questions, and curiosity.

I’m happy to be joined in the call by some of the members of my Wise Heart Wisdom Circle. Those who’ve confirmed so far are Desiree Adaway, Julie Daley, and Lisa Wilson.

Sign up below and you’ll receive the call information in your inbox. I look forward to our conversation!

ALSO… over on Facebook, I’m collecting “what if” questions about leadership to inspire us for the conversation. Scroll down below the sign-up form to see the ones already gathered, and add your own to the comments of this post.

wild heart - quote 2

wild heart - quote 3 - Sera Bishop

A circle of connection

I am home tonight, for a quick stopover in between hosting a women’s retreat in the woods and then traveling tomorrow (after teaching one of my weekly classes) to Minneapolis for an Art of Hosting training.

My life, these days, is all about hosting meaningful, heart-based conversations, whether they take place in the classroom, at a retreat centre in the woods, around the table in a rural coffee shop, or over the phone or Skype. I am listening deeply, coaxing a lot of stories to come forward, sharing from my heart, and doing my best to create safe space for vulnerability to show up.

I can hardly imagine more important work to be doing than this. These spaces where conversations happen and people connect with each other are where the life blood of the world is pulsing. This is where change begins to happen. This is where hope grows.

At the end of the weekend retreat, each of the women was gifted with a stone that had a word carved in it (hope, love, courage, peace) and a beaded bracelet that reminds them of the circle they are now connected to. I asked them to hold out their hands, and it was only after I took the picture that I saw that the attempt at a circle had come out looking more like a heart. Either way, it works for me!hands with rocks

My roots are showing

trees at grave

There’s a ridge that runs across the prairies. It was once the beach of the prehistoric Lake Agassiz. Fed by glacial meltwater at the end of the last glacial period, its area was larger than all of the modern Great Lakes combined, and at times it held more water than contained by all lakes in the world today.

It is on that ridge that my parents’ bodies lay buried. Their bones now mingle with the fossils of ancient fish and salamander and water fowl.

Their unassuming graves lay just feet away from a stand of towering poplar trees. These trees have withstood the harsh winds, cold snows, and blistering heat that shapes the prairies. They are sturdy and courageous and they know how to find nourishment even in the sandy soil of the ridge. The roots of those trees will now feed on the decay of my parents’ bodies. The green leaves that will grow in the Spring will be richer because my mom and dad lend them their nourishment.

I will stand in the shade of those trees, come summer, and know that my mom and dad are still there, caring for me, feeding me, mingling with the soil and the trees and the dirt of centuries of history.

It matters to me, this knowledge that my roots are now entwined with the roots of these beautiful trees, and that the bones of my mom and dad are now mingled with the history of the prairies. It matters to me that the cycle of life goes on and that even in death, we matter to Mother Earth and she matters to us.

It may seem macabre, but it’s not really. It’s the cycle of life. It’s the way things are meant to be.

We can not extricate ourselves from this deep and meaningful connection.

The promise I made to myself

18 - ring

Three and a half years ago, I brought myself a promise ring.

I was visiting Banff at the time, after a business-related road trip through Western Canada. Visiting Banff always brings up mixed emotions for me. I love the beauty of the place, in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, but it holds a sad story from my past. I lived there the summer I turned 19, and it wasn’t a particularly happy summer. I was in that “trying to decide whether to stay safe in life or to take more chances and risk getting hurt” phase of early adulthood. Sadly, I let the things that happened to me that summer convince me that safe was a better option. I gave up the plans I’d had to change schools and move to another province and I went back home to nurse my wounds and play it safe.

One of the places that always brings up deep longing for me is the Banff Centre. When I lived there, my roommates and I sometimes went to watch visiting performers, and each time I went, I’d think “oh, if only I were talented enough to spend time at a place like this!”

When I visited three and a half years ago, I drove past the Centre and started to cry. I cried for the young woman I was more than twenty years earlier who believed she wasn’t talented or worthy. I cried for the hurts that young woman had already suffered and had yet to suffer. I cried for the long journey I’ve had since then, learning to trust both my worthiness and my longings, and learning to be both resilient and courageous through the hard times.

When I drove back into town after visiting the Centre and the resort where I spent the summer cleaning other people’s mess out of hotel rooms, I wandered through the downtown and dropped in at a jewellery store. In a flash of inspiration, I bought myself a promise ring with a blue chalcedony stone.  (I later learned that the chalcedony speaks of spirit and trust and is known as the Speaker’s Stone, the stone of one who must measure his words. It encourages reflection and meditation, its gentle radiance preparing us for action but helping to hold back words we might regret. The great Roman orator, Cicero, is said to have worn one around his neck.)

Later that day, I sat in a cafe with my journal and wrote the following promise to myself:

I promise:
– I will take more chances.
– I will believe that I am an artist.
– I will trust my ability.
– I will look for opportunities to paint and make art as often as I can.
– I will sign up for another class or workshop that stretches me.
– I will honour the muse.

I couldn’t go back and make those promises for my 19 year old self, but it wasn’t too late to make them for my 40+ self.

Last week, in the last lesson for Lead with Your Wild Heart, I invited participants to make a commitment to themselves and to honour it with some kind of gift, like a ring. That tweaked my memory and I went back to find the original post I wrote about the promise ring I’d bought for myself. I started crying all over again – not because I was sad anymore for my 19 year old self, but because I am delighted for my 46 year old self that I can honestly say that I have kept my promise to myself.

I have done just what I said I’d do. I took more chances (quit my job and started a business), started making more art and taking art classes, I’ve been honouring the muse, and trusting my own ability.

Nothing to date has felt so much like an honouring of that promise as the creation of Lead with Your Wild Heart. Nothing has felt so much like it is emerging out of my most authentic, most beautiful, most Spirit-guided self.

I’ve just opened registration for the second offering of Lead with Your Wild Heart, and I can say that I am thrilled beyond expectation with how beautifully it has turned out. This has been an exercise in trusting my own wild heart, and I know that it will serve as a gift to all those who take it into their own wild hearts.

And now… can I tell you a little secret? I’m dreaming of taking some version of Lead with Your Wild Heart to the Banff Centre for Leadership Development. I don’t know yet how to make that happen, but I’m sharing the dream in hopes that will help me get closer to it.

I’m trusting my wild heart and seeing where it leads.

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