Category: international relations

Time to listen, time to hear the pain and speak

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside”  Maya Angelou                                                                                         


So many times in history we simply did not hear.
This time the whole planet is for the first time engaged in the same conversation, the same fear, the same story. Is it enough?

For the first time, we stand a chance to wake ourselves up to the dire call of the planet, to the conditions in which our vulnerable ones left this world without even a goodbye.  What kind of race have we become?

So much is changing, so much can change, and yet many cannot wait to go back to what they know, to business as usual, ensuring business continuity. What kind of continuity are we hoping for?

We are finally concerned for our health, of course our own individual health before that of others and that of Mother Earth. Let it be so, as we are finally discovering that our own health is linked to that of others and that of our planet. Mother Earth has choked for decades and been on fire all year long. We are faced with a disease affecting our breathing capability, setting our systems on fire. Are we hearing this call? Are we even listening? Do we understand?

For the past two months, have we heard the quiet in the streets? Have we noticed the blue sky and the sunshine, the birds singing, this bright ultra-light bringing sunshine when the sadness all around was so heavy? Have we noticed?

Have we appreciated the sudden slower pace, the time to be in family, having the luxury of inner reflection, meditation, and calmness around? Or have we looked frantically for external stimulations to fill a void inside?

Did we hear our hearts calling us to action to care for loved ones, or mere appreciation for what we have? How many of us teleworking have enquired about how our colleagues were coping, how their families were doing, how they themselves were feeling before enquiring about work, results, and business continuity?

It is high time to put our hearts at the center and align our thoughts and actions with the guidance from within. It is not small changes and various reforms that are required, but a whole systemic change that is in order. We have reached a tipping point. Do we even have a vision of what is our desired outcome? Are we capable of letting our imagination create something new and step out of conformity for fear of what might happen to ourselves?

A system that is immune to other people’s pain, disrespectful to the planet and ultimately to ourselves is not worth saving.

Our system of endless growth for the benefit of a few is not sustainable. We all deserve to thrive, to be happy, and to enjoy our beautiful planet. We owe it to our children. We all agree … but are we hearing the desperate calls of those dying alone among our elders? Do we understand the sacrifices of those working in hospitals? Do we listen with compassion to those in pain, or do we lead the way from the head, to be efficient and perform, to win … convinced or pretending that we know best?

Do we listen to find a new path? Do we hear from other people, diverse views, communities of elders, aboriginal wisdom? Where is this pandemic taking us? What existing weaknesses is it pointing to? Not only in our international system, in our society, but in our own lives, in our own family, our own heart? Have we built the same walls between our heart, head, soul as we have built between our countries as borders closed down so quickly?

Are we hearing the new voices, the new ways, the new ideas with an open heart? Are we prioritizing our health and well-being? Have we learned to listen to our bodies or are we following our fears, too scared to try a new path and too happy to close our minds and hearts to the fears, preferring to return to the well-known, even if it is leading to extinction?

Let us make sure that all those people who died did not lose their lives in vain. It is time to listen hard and hear what humanity has to offer that enlightened us in the past and can enlighten us again. The transition this time requires a profound change within human beings. We have become immune to pain at the systemic level. Let us hope we are still able to feel pain at the individual level rather than run away from it. A change in the socio-political system, our economy or even the international order will not come to the fore unless we transform ourselves deep down and hear the pain all around. Thinking our way out has led to much suffering. Let us feel our way out of this pandemic and start learning from joy rather than pain.

Please share as you see fit. It is no longer my story.

Leadership and loss of control

Leadership is often associated to being in charge, in command, and in control. Yet my most memorable leadership experiences have been when I lost control. Like many, over the years, I have envisioned myself going places, achieving a number of things. I developed visions and plans to get there. In fact, I was particularly good at it. But the hard part and where I truly learned about leadership was when life took me to places where I did not want to go – at least consciously. I would feel that something had gone wrong and that I made a mistake. My fault or not, this would always be associated with some disheartening possibility.

What if things going wrong were to take us to a place where we needed to go for reasons deeper than our own ability to reason? What if these detours and disruptions were necessary to shake us loose of an illusion of control? It usually takes something major to wake us up, and the point is rarely to go back to what we know, but rather to remind us that the way forward lies in what we do not know. How many discoveries were made by accident, changing the course of history? These major wake up calls soften us and make us vulnerable to the point where we can release our resistance and let go of control, of what we know and understand.

You may have visited this undesirable place lately, where your response to difficulty has prompted you to witness some of the patterns of behavior that come up unconsciously, unresolved emotional baggage that stands in the way of an easier life, a more joyful existence. It takes courage to face these moments, surrender to what is, and leadership to create a new path rather than return to familiar ways of being and doing things. You will only get a finite number of opportunities to change course and emerge transformed. What is true individually, also applies internationally.

Peace within dictates peace on the outside

There are so many reasons why the world is in turmoil and so few recipes to bring it to a peaceful place. In reality there is only one reason to account for this dire state: we are not at peace ourselves. We feel compelled to blame disorder and chaos in the world on our fellow citizens or global circumstances over which we believe we have no control. Our own disorder seems of little relevance, and yet there will never be any peace in the outside world until we have created peace within. The roots of the problem are firmly entrenched in ourselves.

Where should we start when assessing our own relationship to peacefulness? Should we seek help on the outside or search within? More often than not, we rely on others, on experts’ account to help us interpret what may be wrong with us. We certainly cannot all be psychologists, physicians, teachers to show us the way to healing and enlightenment. The input of specialists is undeniably valuable, but in reality our own sense of the path is ultimately the most important piece. Our own inner knowing and processing of external help is fundamental to healing. We are the authorities in our own lives, and we have the final say on what is our reality. Yet we tend to let others decide for us where the problem lies and what is the cure. We abdicate our own responsibility, often unaware or not trusting enough our inner knowing. As we learn to relate to what surrounds us from within, we discover an inner sense of what is right and a resonance between the outside and the inside – a harmonious and peaceful experience of integration that brings us and the universe closer, stronger, more engaged, and interrelated with a greater ability to make a difference.

Once we have become aware of this special connection between the universe and ourselves and have found the path to manifest externally what is firmly anchored in ourselves, we can share with family and friends, inspiring our communities and the whole wide world. The first step, though, is looking within and choosing the more peaceful resonance over the negative vibrations and chaotic experiences that the world will become a more peaceful place.

Today’s adversarial leadership

There are many styles of leadership. While I have been advocating positive leadership or service leadership, offering insights through my blog, it is clear that we are witnessing a surge of adversarial leadership on the international scene. High-conflict leaders have recently been leading from a place of drama, resorting to false heroic postures rather than working on solving current challenges. This has provided fertile ground for the rise of authoritarian political leaders. This phenomenon is not happening in vacuum. Our current social and political environment is attracting this type of leadership.

What are the main characteristics of today’s adversarial leadership and why is it happening now? Current adversarial leaders in politics and business around the world harbor high-conflict personalities, often bordering on a psychological or social disorder, either through impaired interpersonal relationships, lack of self-reflection, or an inability to change in the face of an obvious need to redirect. They are commonly referred to as narcissists, antisocial, or paranoid. 

The four key characteristics of this leadership style today are:

  • A tendency to blame others who become targets of personal attacks;
  • An all-or-nothing approach to solving problems;
  • A show of intense emotions, impairing problem solving and conflict resolution; and,
  • A tendency to resort to extreme behaviors from which most people would refrain.

As sociopaths of narcissists, they can also be seductive and highly attractive leaders, as many high-conflict leaders from the past were known to be.

What is it in our world today that attracts such leaders? Let us look at three key factors to start with. First, the media competition and highly emotional tendencies which have monopolized viewers’ attention these past decades, glorifying extreme behaviors, normalizing conflict behaviors through antagonistic debate shows, and fear-based coverage which happen to sell best. Second, a tendency to simplify highly complex challenges such as climate change through evil scaremongers and superheroes offering fantasy solutions, yet displaying no leadership skills and no results. Third, adversarial systems offering “either/or” solutions, which play well in debates, panels and combative politics, but rely on no community-based real life progress ensuring sustainability and thrivability.

This leadership style will continue to grow until we in society recognize our personality patterns and take responsibility through our voting power and decision-making communities, from boards of directors to school councils, as well as changing ourselves. It takes a community to raise a leader!