Sync Surfing
This article focuses on leadership journeying with a flood of metaphors, questions and prodding!
We know that leadership isn't a static thing, we move in and out of it, refining and shaping and learning as we go.
How have things changed for you in your leadership journeying over the last year?
Do you understand more about yourself and your relationship with and to leadership and more importantly, where you are really good at leadership?
Are we, as the theologian Howard Thurman once said,
'...following the grain in our own wood...'?
Sync Leadership has taught us alot since the team started and like the waves breaking on the shore, and the sea recedes, we are busy sifting through what is left behind on the beach.
Sync is learning much about itself through its membership's diverse range of work positions and opinions.
We are always keen to develop the good parts of Sync and rethink what doesn't work so well for people who are journeying with us.
Sea Change
Many of you have told us that you've been making very different decisions at work and about work, employing new ways of thinking, approaches and methods and learning a host of new things along the way. Has Sync influenced your decision making? If so, don't forget to tell us about it.
When we celebrated the end of our Sync Intensives pilot: Sync 20 in 2008 many of the presentations made at that time, were driven by elemental metaphors. We heard about flight and the air, unruly waters, the heat of fire - even a volcano!
‘...To use the metaphor of a storm, I feel a change in atmosphere in my work, there are rumblings, loud ones!’ Jo Paul Sync 20
Sync Coaching has proved to be a really valuable way to see who we are and change the bits that don't work so well!
Victors of circumstance
It has been interesting to see people moving away from being victims of circumstance, overwhelmed and sometimes silenced by those things that have for years, felt out of their control, to victors of circumstance as Institute of Human Development Director of Studies, Adrian Gilpin, so cleverly pens it.
This has included Sync members really beginning to own their impairments, exploring and being clearer about their access needs and wearing their disability with a new sense of pride, endeavour, even humour.
Moreover more Sync members are giving themselves permission to step into a bigger sense of themselves and the possibility of making a real impact and are getting that bit happier about pursuing and harnessing their natural gifts and talents and working up a new vision and purpose with boats, paddles and a compass - rather than drifting aimlessly in a sea of indifference and acceptance of the status quo.
Inner Voice
In Adrian Gilpin’s seminars, he often asks the question of those assembled:
...'Are you someone who hears their inner voice or have you allowed it to become drowned out by life’s noise?’
Our lives are full of the noise of ‘you can’t’ and ‘you shouldn’t’ and that noise, whether we like to admit it or not, often comes from within.
Much of our journeying is with self, with our own voice for company. Taming the inner voice is a lifetime’s work and requires us all to develop a discipline that stops the natural spiralling that happens when setbacks occur.
Sifting through information and taking what is useful to learn from, leaving the rest for someone else to worry about, is part of being resourceful and saving energy for the things that really matter.
'...I had to learn to understand that i could really own what i needed in terms of access and spell it out before i signed up to a meeting or said yes to an interview where i would again be at a disadvantage.' Sync Member (anon)
Sync member Rachel Gadsden painted her process describing how Sync coaching had allowed her to wrestle with her inner voice. You can read this on dao. (9th March 2009 entry)
Special Set Backs
As for those voices outside of ourselves.
How did we all react to Barack Obama ‘dissing’ the Special Olympics in that talk show interview? How did we experience his gaff?
A little bit Sync-cringe worthy, from our perspective, especially when we had bigged him up so much in other articles.
What about you? Did some of you sink into outrage and feelings of deflation, or did you see this rather public boo boo as dare, i say, fortuitous?
In my mind, the president is more likely to make super-power-sure that he’ll never take his eye of this particular ball again and one would think that he’ll be listening to disabled people differently here on in, as will his aides! We shall see...
Social Climate Change
If we are better able to tame our responses to those proddings inside and outside of ourselves, we'll be less likely to get thrown of course. But what of the environment we journey through, is it welcoming and has it changed? Is disabled leadership more acceptable now? Is it any more mainstream than it was before or are we still stuck in the silo?
In recent meetings, I've attended, the concept of social climate change has been raised. I like this idea and it fits well with our journeying - the idea being that we are about the business of shifting the social climate in which we lead so that it becomes more welcoming, representative and genuinely inclusive. How might we impact on this?
Sync still presents an opportunity for us to lobby en masse. A collective voice in a sea of very different opinions and idiosyncracy. Our diversity is our strength and there are enough of us to really get our points across.
Sarah Pickthall, Sync Coaching
