by Heather Plett | Jan 24, 2011 | Leadership
When I was in the dreaming stages of this website, I was a little reluctant to use the word “leadership” in the title. Many of my readers and the readers I want to attract (and especially many women, I might add), would deny that they have any leadership qualities or that what they do on a daily basis has anything to do with leadership.
In the end, after much deliberation, it was exactly because of that gap that I decided to use the word. Part of my purpose in writing this blog is to let you know that, even if you never leave your home, never work as anyone’s boss, only work alone in a basement studio, or feel like the only thing you do all day is wipe snotty noses, you can be a leader. ALL of us can be leaders – at the boardroom table or kitchen table or art table or card table or… in the woods where there’s no table at all.
A leader is anyone who dares to step forward with even a small amount of courage to challenge the status quo, stand up for another person, change what needs to be changed, encourage those who need to be encouraged, make space for those who are hurting, invest in another person, seek excellence in your art, or simply make the world a better place for at least one person.
You are a leader if you are:
– a mother who teaches her children to be true to themselves
– a teacher who creates a safe place for students to learn
– a writer who puts her best work forward, despite the risk of failure
– a dancer who believes dance can change the world for those who dance and those who watch
– a soldier who sacrifices personal comfort to protect people in conflict
– a lawyer who strives for justice
– a child who dares to befriend the classmate who is different
– an entrepreneur who believes he has giftedness worth sharing
– a teenager who follows her own path despite peer pressure to conform to others’ expectations
– a development worker who leaves his comfortable home to live with marginalized people in a remote area
– a student who ignores the easy route and follows her interests into a course of study
– an explorer who forges new paths into unknown territory
– a man, woman, or child who dares to be authentic
– an artist who creates art that emerges from her heart rather than simply to suit the market
– a visionary who dares to stand alone
– an environmentalist committed to saving just one tree
– a poet who trusts words to shape the future
Don’t wait for someone to tell you that you are a leader. Take up the mantle, place it gently on your shoulders (it’s not as heavy as you think) and go forward, changing the world one small commitment (or even just one snotty nose) at a time.
Do it now. For all of us.
by Heather Plett | Jan 18, 2011 | Leadership, Wisdom
the centre of the circle
Sometimes, it’s nice to have your paradigms shifted.
I have a “healthy” distrust of conference calls. In my working life, I saw them as necessary evils, and in my last job, I tried for years to make them work with my national staff. But no matter what new ideas or formats I brought into them, I almost always walked away feeling discouraged. It seemed nearly impossible to have meaningful conversations with people spread across the country when some of them didn’t engage and others chose to engage in less-than-healthy ways. They got a little better when I stepped out of the chair position and circulated the responsibility, but still they were seriously lacking. The dysfunctions of our team seemed most apparent when we gathered on the phone and didn’t have the benefit of non-verbal communication.
And so it was that when the organizers of the circle/story retreat I was at in October asked if people wanted to hold a conference call to explore the extension of our community of practice, I was skeptical. “Can anything good come out of a conference call?” I wondered.
At the same time, I was eager to reconnect with the amazing women I’d spent four days with at the side of a lake. There’d been such incredible energy around our circle that I was willing to try anything that might continue to extend that into my life.
The call was on Sunday, and… well, let’s just say that my paradigm was significantly shifted. It worked! Beautifully! The whole time I was on the call, I felt held in the warm embrace of this circle of women. One person suggested we open our photos from our gathering time, and so I did, scrolling through while I listened and being reminded of their faces and what they’d come to mean to me.
It was so beautiful and meaningful in fact, that the next morning, just before I emerged from sleep, I had a dream in which each of these women offered me a little gift of advice, wisdom, or story.
Why did it work? It worked because we had been intentional about meeting in circle during those four days in October.
What does it mean to meet in circle? It’s a beautiful, simple concept that is as old as human communication. Long before anyone dreamed of conference calls connecting us across the miles, our ancestors gathered around fires in the evening to share stories of the challenges and triumphs of their lives.
Here are some of the elements we committed to in circle:
– we are intentional about the shape in which we meet – each person can see each other person’s face and there is no heirarchy or power imbalance
– we are all leaders and all take responsibility for holding the rim of the circle
– we honour the space by adhering to some simple rituals
– we pass a talking piece around the circle and only the person who holds it has the authority to speak
– we use a bell to ring us into and out of the circle, thereby clearly demarcating it from other conversations and experiences
– the centre of the circle is like the hub of a wheel – it holds objects which symbolize the intentions of those around the circle
– we are intentionally inclusive, and honour each other’s contribution to the circle
– we speak into the centre of the circle, and trust that the circle will hold whatever is shared
– we build trust by deeply listening to each other’s stories
Because we had worked hard at establishing this circle when we were together, we were able to transfer the elements of it onto our conference call. Several of us lit candles, one person let her voice function as the talking piece, passing it back and forth around the circle, a bell was used to ring us in and out or to mark a pause when we just need to catch our breath, and we all showed up prepared to honour and trust each other.
For more on the circle and how you can use it in the groups you lead or participate in, read The Circle Way: A Leader in Every Chair
by Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea. (Note: Christina was our teacher when we met in Ontario in October.)
One of my commitments, coming out of this learning, is that I want to host circle conversations. I think they have the power to transform and I want to be a catalyst for that transformation. Talk to me if you have some ideas of how I can serve your group by hosting such a conversation.
by Heather Plett | Dec 31, 2010 | Creativity, Joy, Leadership, Sophia
Vision board for 2011
Almost every time I do a vision board, I think “ooooh… this one is my favourite so far!” That’s how I felt last night when I completed this one. I love it. It’s the biggest one I’ve done so far (I wanted to think BIG for 2011), and it’s colourful and beautiful and MINE.
There is something so gratifying about seeing your vision appear in this way. I think it works for me for a number of reasons:
- I’m a visual thinker. Give me images and vibrant colour and I’m a happy girl. I can get lost in an image without necessarily needing an explanation.
- BUT I also love words. (I’m a writer, after all.) I like to flip through magazines to see which words jump out at me and offer me some frame for my life at the time.
- I love to combine images and words and then watch what the combination evokes. AND I love surprises, and there are always a few of those when I put words and images together in new ways.
- I am comfortable with ambiguity. I don’t need to know what every image or combination of words means when I glue it on the board. Sometimes it just speaks to me and the meaning appears later.
- I like evolving, fluid structures. I don’t enjoy being hampered by boxy things like “strategic plans” or “business plans”. I prefer to watch the way my vision boards evolve, with changing colour themes, imagery, words, etc.
Some of the things I see so far in 2011’s vision board are:
- running – this is the first time I’m whispering it aloud, but I really want to run a half marathon!
- joy – my word for the year
- growth – exceeding my limits and expanding my horizons
- travel, adventure, journey (those things always seem to appear on my boards)
- leadership, sacred space, wisdom
- variety, options
This type of visioning speaks volumes to my Sophia heart. It’s the wisdom that flows from me when I am true to myself.
For years I tried to fit in a world where strategic planning and corporate vision statements and agendas and action items and objectives and goals felt like stiff wooden boxes that didn’t fit the soft curve of my heart. Though I became adept at adapting to that world, it never felt like my full truth.
Not that those things aren’t necessary – it’s just that they weren’t fully balanced with the wisdom of the feminine.
Now I’m looking at the world differently. I’m looking for the curves and circles, the organic ways of growing, the spaces in between the cold hard facts, the colour behind the black and white, the softness in the structure, and the joy factor.
This year, as I look ahead to my first full year of self-employment, I’m focusing on the joy factor. Instead of a business plan, I’m working on a “joy roadmap”. Instead of a vision statement, I’m creating a “joy image”. Instead of goals and objectives, I’m asking “what things will make my heart feel alive?”
Do it with me! Here are a few tips to get you started:
1. List five moments from the past year when you felt deeply joyful.
2. What was it from those moments that contributed to your joy and how can you replicate that in 2011?
3. Who were the people who surrounded you in those moments and contributed to your joy? How can you continue to surround yourself with these joy people?
4. Create a vision board, adding images and words that make you feel joyful.
5. Answer these questions:
- I am joyful when…
- I can bring joy to other people by…
Now go back and read your answers to the questions in #5. Are there intersections? Is it possible that the things you do that bring you joy are also the things that contribute to other people’s joy? I suspect so!
Joy is contagious. Go out there and find some. And then pass it on.
by Heather Plett | Dec 16, 2010 | Compassion, Friendship, Leadership
“Be kind,” my dad used to say, almost every time we left the house.
In high school, I mostly ignored his words. It’s what high schoolers do. When I left home and the parting was more significant, I paid a bit more attention, but still barely noticed what words he chose to use in parting.
It was always the same, though. “Be kind.” Not “be spectacular”, “be successful”, or “be brilliant”. Just “be kind”.
Last week, as I was preparing notes for the last class of the first session of the course I’m teaching, I invited my Facebook friends to inspire me with stories of inspirational teachers. In the comments I learned of a teacher who’d helped students study for a test in a different subject than he was teaching; a high school teacher who went the extra mile and invited students to visit a university class; a teacher who made a point of knowing every student by name and greeting them in the hallway accordingly; a teacher who told the students with honesty and warmth that they would learn more outside his classroom than in it; a teacher who would lead students through a guided imagery meditation to help them relax before tests; and a teacher who sent an amazing email as a send off to the students just before Christmas.
What struck me as I read these comments and prepared for my class was this: every one of these teachers was remembered for one simple thing – kindness. It wasn’t their brilliance, their creativity, or their talent. It was their simple effort to extend humanity and kindness.
Yesterday, after our last class was completed and we’d wished each other a happy Christmas break, several of the students came to thank me for what they said was “one of the best classes they’d taken”. I heard words like “it was a pleasure being in your class every Wednesday – you made it a fun, relaxed environment”, “thank you for helping us build community in our classroom”, “I feel like you’ve become a friend and not just a teacher”, and “thank you for giving so much of yourself to us.”
I think I was floating when I left the class. Even without their words I knew that this teaching thing is part of what I’ve been called to do. And I could walk away from my first attempt knowing I had done well.
On the bus ride home, my dad’s words came back to me. “Be kind.”
I don’t know if I was an exceptional teacher, or if I’ll be the one these students will remember ten years from now when they’re asked to name an inspirational teacher, but I do know that I did my best to live up to my dad’s parting words. And the kindness I gave to my students was given back to me.
When my dad died a sudden accidental death seven years ago, many, many people stopped at the farmyard to share stories with our family. We heard stories of when he’d gone the extra mile to help a neighbour during tough times, when he’d stopped to fix a stranger’s tire, and when he’d helped families work through conflict. None of these were remarkable stories that would go down in the history books labeling my dad as a great success. But I do know one thing – he was remembered for kindness. Those parting words he always left us with weren’t simply a catch phrase, they were a lifestyle.
When I die, Dad, I too want to be remembered for kindness. Thank you for serving as a model.
It’s simple. Just be kind.
by Heather Plett | Dec 13, 2010 | Creativity, Leadership
Sometimes it feels like we have gotten stuck in too many broken systems, failing institutions, and flawed structures that are not serving the purpose for which they were designed. We know things are broken – we can see it plain as day – and yet we feel like those villagers who were too fearful or complacent to tell the emperor he has no clothes.
I am teaching a public relations course in a brand new building that was completed the month before my class started. It was touted to be an innovative, interesting building. “How exciting to teach in a space that’s been created with innovative learning in mind!” I thought, naively.
I can only say this – it is a remarkable disappointment. The first thing you notice is the institutional look of it. Bare concrete floors, stark white classroom walls, and nothing that looks warm and inviting – anywhere. The next thing you notice is the noise level. I’m not sure what the walls are made of, but when a siren goes by (which it does, often, as we’re on one of the busiest corners in the city), I have to wait for it to pass before I can speak again. Don’t even get me started about the jack-hammering on my first day.
As you look a little deeper, you notice the more subtle things. The lack of coat racks or lockers, for example – students (and teachers) have to lug heavy backpacks and winter clothes with them everywhere they go. And then there’s the lack of common spaces, lobbies, or even a cafeteria. Neither students nor faculty can gather in common spaces in comfortable chairs. It feels remarkably like they don’t want people to be communicating with each other. (After all, isn’t that how revolts form?)
As a teacher, my greatest issue is with the lack of flexibility in the classroom. I am a creative person teaching a writing class – I need a creative space. And yet there are essentially no options for innovative use of space whatsoever. I can’t even fall back on the oldest method in the books – gathering in a circle – because the desks are too rigid to permit it. And forget trying to put anything colourful on the walls to try to foster creativity – it’s against the rules.
I could go on and on (and sometimes I do), and you might think I’m just a complainer looking for a sympathetic ear. (After all, haven’t teachers been teaching in much worse conditions than these for years?) But I believe this goes deeper than simple complaints – I believe this is a symptom of an illness that we’ve allowed to run too rampant in our culture. I believe that we are failing our students by letting them know that this is the best they can expect in life. I believe we are stifling their imagination, and the work force that they will soon be part of will suffer for it.
“Look at these stark white boxes, students,” we’re telling them. “This is your future. Fit into the boxes as best you can and don’t dare leave your mark on the wall.”
Here’s the thing – institutions should not mold US to serve THEM. WE should create institutions that serve US. And when an institution ceases to serve us, we should abolish it, or at least do some serious reconfiguring.
This building is only one of the flawed institutions I’ve witnessed lately. One of my daughters is gifted academically, and yet she is completely bored at school, falling through the cracks in an education system that is teaching to mediocrity. And when it comes to health care, I could write a volume on the many ways that our health care system has failed various members of my family, mostly because there are lots of disillusioned people “just doing their jobs” in a broken system.
The question is, who tells the emperor he has no clothes? As a contract teacher, do I risk being seen as the “complainer”, or even worse, the “trouble-maker” because I believe we are doing a disservice to the students by not offering them more? As a parent, do I work my way up the school division hierarchy to find someone who will pay attention to the fact that the education system is doing our gifted students a disservice by boring them to tears? As a caregiver and family member of people suffering at the hands of the health care system, do I march into the halls of power and say “This is NOT GOOD ENOUGH!”
It’s easier just to pretend the emperor has on a beautiful handwoven coat.
And yet there’s a tiny voice inside me saying “SPEAK UP! Somebody HAS to!”
And so, this week, I’m letting that voice speak. It’s time to write some letters, speak some truths, and run the risk of offending the emperor.
I think Sir Ken Robinson would approve.
by Heather Plett | Nov 14, 2010 | Birthing Sophia, Leadership
There’s a question that’s taken up residence in my heart. It’s a big question, so it takes up a lot of room. Even when I try to ignore it, it keeps nagging at me, imploring me to engage.
What could happen for the world if all of us – women AND men – learned to trust our feminine wisdom more and let it inform the way we live, the way we lead, the way we treat our earth, and the way we make decisions about justice and politics and relationships?
It’s not a question that’s easy to answer. It’s one of those big, potentially world-changing questions that is sometimes easier to ignore because of what it demands of us. It’s a scary question – one that requires the kind of stretching and changing that can be uncomfortable for all of us – individuals, organizations, governments, non-profits, and communities of every kind.
It’s scary, but I have come to believe it is absolutely necessary. We have to ask the question and we have to be prepared for how it might change us. There are enough crises going on in the world today that we cannot deny the urgency with which we need to explore alternatives to some of our past models.
This blog is going to serve as a space for inviting that question into our hearts, sitting with it for awhile, and letting it gradually change us.
The question is not about whether women should take over the world. That would only shift the kinds of problems we have, not overcome them.
What I’m talking about is the wisdom that we ALL have access to, gifted to us by our Creator. It’s the kind of wisdom that is embodied in the Greek word Sophia. It’s wisdom that is spiritual, intuitive, visionary, compassionate, creative, and yes, feminine. It sits in circles sharing stories and wisdom. It welcomes art and music and dance into the houses of power. It remembers that wisdom resides not only in our minds, but in our bodies and in our souls. It believes in the Sacred and allows for spirituality to impact the way we treat our earth.
When we learn to trust that kind of wisdom, and give it equal space with masculine wisdom that is more rational, direct, practical, assertive, then I think we can make transformative things happen for ourselves, our communities, and our world.
Let me just say that I don’t claim any proprietary ownership of this question. It’s a question that is on the hearts of many great thinkers in the world today. I’ve been exploring the wisdom of some of these great thinkers, and some of them will be joining me for some meaningful conversations in this space.
Stick around – I know there will be lots of interesting ideas explored here.
I’m so glad you’re joining me in this quest.
Let’s be sojourners together on this journey.
Let’s do it for our daughters and our sons. Let’s do it for the earth. Let’s do it for ourselves.
Note: If you want to learn more about the birth of Sophia Leadership, I’ve added some of the posts from my personal blog below this one. You may also want to visit the “About Heather” page for a story of my journey to Sophia. And if you want to see a list of some of the books that have inspired me on the journey, check out the “Sophia Reads” page.
When I was in the dreaming stages of this website, I was a little reluctant to use the word “leadership” in the title. Many of my readers and the readers I want to attract (and especially many women, I might add), would deny that they have any leadership qualities or that what they do on a daily basis has anything to do with leadership.
