Brock { Abroad }

Building on a previous post, 21st Century Leadership, leadership styles in the past, present, and future are explained by Pieter Spinder at Knowmads.

When it comes down to traditional leadership, bureaucratic and autocratic leadership styles come to mind. Involving hierarchy, power retention within “manager-style” positions, all decision-making is given on a vertical style of bureaucratic leadership where only the highest positions are involved. Staff, within organizations and corporations, do not consult staff and are typically not given the opportunity to provide input. Without explanation, they are expected to obey orders. Usually, they do so without ever given a second thought. This is typically due to a structured set of rewards and punishments that are involved if they fail or succeed. In other words, if they obey or disobey.

Autocratic leaders are especially reliant on these threats and punishments to influence their staff, which they don’t trust or listen to for input, anyway. Bureaucratic style is a bit more managed “by the book,” so to speak. Everything is done according to procedure or policy. If not covered by the book, it’s passed on to the hands of a higher level without further regard. It’s this behavior that places a police officer as simply a rule-enforcer instead of a leader, for example.

What are some qualities of other present leadership styles that are valuable and what are the leadership styles of the future? Some valuable qualities that can help make a group of people collaborate more creatively involve just that type of attitude. These qualities get everyone more involved, they create a community dialogue and discussion. They are an easy entrance to expanding your network in order to open up to a wider audience, within a differently structured format, involving like-minded educators of a similar skill level. Here are the styles of the today and tomorrow we explored:

Transformational Leadership

Make change happen in self, others, groups, and organizations. Charisma is a special leadership style commonly associated with transformational leadership; extremely powerful, extremely hard to teach.

Transactional Leadership

Emphasizes on getting things done within the umbrella of the status quo, which is directly in opposition of transformational leadership. Using a “by the book” approach, this leader works within the rules and is commonly seen in large, bureaucratic organizations.

Creative Leadership

Ability to uniquely inspire people, generating shared innovative responses and solutions to complex and readily-changing situations.

street art, Tel-Aviv

Corrective Leadership

Empowers staff to facilitate collaborative behavior and creates a synergism by working with and through other people instead of bowing to authoritarianism.

Change Leadership

Endorses alteration, is beyond thinking about individuals and individual organizations, and single problems with single solutions. Rethinks systems to introduce change on parts of the whole and their relationship to one another.

Intelligence Leadership

Is able to navigate the future by embracing ambiguity and reframing problems as opportunities. Takes a proactive stance in taking their organizations into uncharted territory.

Multicultural Leadership

Fosters team and individual effectiveness, drives for innovation by leveraging multicultural differences. Teams are able to work more effectively in the atmosphere of understanding and mutual respect.

Pedagogical Leadership

A video from 21st Century Pedagogy attempts to answer the question: How do we involve new technologies to meet the changing needs of students in the 21st Century classroom?

The literature from the presentation reads:

Technology will never replace teachers. However, teachers who know how to use technology effectively to help their students connect and collaborate together online will replace those who do not.

There is a paradigm shift from leader/teacher centered “orientation” to an interactive, connective organizational system using more democratic learning with a more dynamic communicative approach. This is seen as an alternative to instructional leadership by enabling the learning and intellectual growth of those led. Read the rest of this entry »

This past Friday, Knowmads was so very artfully hosted by Pieter Ploeg a.k.a. pietradelmundo. Introducing one of the most valuable tools I’ve taken so far from my education at Knowmads, we held a World Cafe! Used amongst other social technologies such as open space and the art of hosting, World Cafe is a collective intelligence tool to create and harvest conversations that matter. Materializing from almost thin-air, deep discussions are brought to the table. A cafe table, that is.

Opening the session, Pieter set the space with potted plants at each table and welcomed us in from a tiresome review meeting to the beats of world music, instantly lightening the mood. As we sat in a circle, we introduced ourselves with an animal and flower that represents us. The answers were fascinating and I was already beginning to gain insight on a deeper level about the people I spend an already incredible amount of time with.

Asking the question: Given the state of the world, what and how do you want to learn for a better future?

Any thoughts?

Today was a great self-working Wednesday where the tribe got together, cooked together, danced, and started shipping! (literally!) Eight of us found our way to work en route a ferry where we went to sunny bar and cafe Noorderlicht near the MTV headquarters on the industrial north island of the city. Constructed from a greenhouse and secured at the base with cement bags, eclectic furniture, and an organically delicious menu and equally enjoyable staff, it has a panoramic vista of Amsterdam harbor. With painted leather sofas littered amongst old ship hull tables and cranes dotting the waterfront, this creative cafe was a buzzing hub of people working, talking, eating, and laughing. I think the tribe managed to do all of the above and then some! We split up to work on two very exciting projects that are keeping us incredibly good busy at the moment. One, from Royal Haskoning SMC and the other from KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.

{A special thanks from the tribe to Roel and Ellen over at Access to Retailing for the great tip on one of Amsterdam’s hottest hangouts.}

How you can have both your apples and chocolate: on balancing discipline and flexibility… Read the rest of this entry »

find what is sacred.

believe in belief.

be inquisitive.

You’re beginning to ask bigger questions of yourself and the world you are encountering along the way. Suddenly, you ask of yourself: What do I really want to get out of this journey?

Up until then, you feel that you were merely stumbling around without actually paying attention to making sure that each foot went after the other. Your feet still stumble, but at least you attempt to be more aware of it. You have faith that those feet will keep taking you forward…

I like to call it {abroad} way of thinking…

I left on my own pilgrimage in search of my passion. I wanted to grow as a writer, but also as a person. I wanted to find my story in the telling.

What you say and do, how you communicate, are merely your forms of expressing yourself. Information gets lost, ‘in translation’. It begins taking on new dimensions from the completely unique perceptions each individual applies to some very universal concepts. In other words, everyone has their own definition of the truth and each individual must define it for themselves. It makes the world go round. It’s how things are created, innovated, imagined, and explored. It’s the art of dreaming and the science of doing. It’s understanding that everyone is in search of their own truth, and no two truths will be the same.

Disappearing from the world and into myself, I was able to begin to express where my heart was. I needed long-term solitude free of everyday distractions that were keeping me from knowing where my path should lead me. I realized I couldn’t possibly “know”, but I could always be experiencing.

After walking over 400 kilometers, I felt an amazing sense of accomplishment. However, The feeling was soon followed by an immediate sense of emptiness. A feeling that the journey was somehow over.

After a little over a week interacting with people as little as possible, I was beginning to feel a lot more comfortable in solitude. I was also beginning to see it in my writing, or rather, my confidence to do so. My confidence to create. Not just create writing, but create whatever and whoever I wanted to be, to live life in a new and exciting way. I was finally aware that there were infinite possibilities and if I was open to creating them, I could really begin to change who I was into who I want to be.

I began feeling happier. I felt a sense of newfound clarity breathing in fresh mountain air and carrying everything I owned on my back. Each step brought me closer to my destination, and one foot couldn’t go before the other. It was a practice in meditation on all levels. It was simple. Time didn’t seem to matter and was broken up by eating, writing, thinking, and not thinking. From one village to the next. From morning to night.

“never trust a thought that didn’t come by walking”

-nietzsche

I had a big question looming on my mind as I embarked on the journey. Where is the path taking me next? I was unsure if moving to a city full of vices was really what I was looking for. Wasn’t I supposed to travel the world? Wasn’t I supposed to spend a spontaneously simple life out of a backpack meeting new faces without any schedule or plan? It almost seemed as if I was just throwing the towel in and letting whatever happened… well, happen. Which, don’t get me wrong, isn’t a bad thing. As a matter of fact, It’s how I found myself here in Amsterdam, actually.

There is a big difference between leading your life and letting your life lead you, and I was beginning to see that I was going wrong because of one major problem. I was letting things just “happen” to me instead of actually making things “happen.” The problem was that I didn’t know how to make my life really be what I pictured it to be. I was staring at a blank canvas and hoping the Mona Lisa would just appear. In a perfect world, maybe. But we don’t live in a perfect world and I hope that’s why you’re reading this right now. Because you actually believe you can do something about it.

It’s by taking one step after the other, one stroke of the paintbrush at a time and being open to changing course when you think you were meant to do something else. It’s being open to yourself that will give you the answers and there is simply no possible way you can know what you’re supposed to do except for this very moment that, in this case, you have dedicated to yourself to in this moment, reading this very blog. It’s a choice that you’ve made. Fortunately, I can not tell you how to make any choice in your life.

It’s fortunate that we have that freedom to make those decisions for ourselves, because nobody knows you better than you do. No matter how much people love you, you understand that no one but yourself can possibly know what is best for you and it is important to take that time in solitude to evaluate yourself as an individual free from any job, person, thing, obstacle, or limit.

It’s about taking the time to take care of your garden instead of thinking someone else will take care of it for you, or furthermore, that it will take care of itself.

Week 2: Social Innovation and Sustainability

On the first day of our week-long introduction to Social Innovation and Sustainability, the Knowmads got down to some good ‘ole experiential learning. Coming from a vast demographic, we explored our personal experiences and thoughts about some very broad ideas. Headquarters began buzzing with ideas, emotions, questions, frustrations, exclamations, and much, much more. We got the ideas out of our brains and into the circle where I sat facilitating, scribbling, and webbing our thoughts out on a giant dry-erase mind map.

Questions we asked ourselves: Read the rest of this entry »