Introduction
A Declaration: Women of the World Call for Urgent Action on Climate Change & Sustainability Solutions
We are the mothers and the grandmothers, sisters and daughters, nieces and aunts, who stand together to care for all generations across our professions, affiliations and national identities. …
We are gathering to raise our voices to advocate for an Earth-respecting cultural narrative, one of “restore, respect, replenish” and to replace the narrative of “domination, depletion and destruction” of nature.
International Women’s Earth and Climate Summit (WECAN, 2013)
When Casey Camp-Horinek of the Ponca tribe invoked blessings from the four directions at the International Women’s Earth and Climate Summit, she declared it to be a historic moment. The Summit – convened by the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) – gathered 100 women from the global North and South including Dr. Jane Goodall (Great Britain), former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, Dr. Vandana Shiva (India), Nobel Laureate Jody Williams (United States), Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres (Costa Rica), and many grassroots and indigenous leaders from areas such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Maldives, and Sarayaku/Ecuador. To launch unified campaigns, the declaration Women of the World Call for Urgent Action on Climate Change & Sustainability Solutions was ratified and signed by all delegates, declaring in its Preamble:
Climate change threatens life as we know it on our one and only home planet. Our children, our grandchildren and all future generations are in danger. Natural systems upon which all living things depend are in jeopardy. We have a choice: between a path of continued peril and a path towards climate justice and a safe and clean energy future. We can and must join together as women to take action with common but differentiated responsibilities for achieving sustainability. We must act now for ourselves, for future generations, for all living things on Mother Earth.
(WECAN, 2013)
The declaration, together with a co-created Women’s Climate Action Agenda of solutions, was then distributed to world governments throughout the United Nations network. Names continue to be collected to this day, with initial delegates’ and additional grassroots signatures delivered regularly to global leaders.
While the arc of the choice between peril and possibility will be known by 2030, the story itself is being written today by the collection of individual acts and leadership choices made moment by moment. As a result of efforts by countless individuals and organizations, ranging from grassroots to global visionaries such as those assembled at the Summit, humanity has made great progress toward sustainability. We now have the scientific knowledge that reveals the awesome interplay of chemical and biological processes that have maintained the precise conditions to sustain human life (Lovelock, 2003). We also have the technological knowledge and skill to live sustainably (Hawken, 2017). We even have a comprehensive plan of action to chart a sustainable future in the form of the universally adopted United Nations Transforming Our World: 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2015). What we do not yet have, however, is an understanding of how to mobilize the collective will to sustain and thrive as a whole. This question, which falls within the domain of leadership science, has yet to be sufficiently answered. Achieving a sustainable and peaceful coexistence for all living beings in the biosphere will require that we answer this ultimate leadership question: How do we bring out the best of our diverse humanity to ensure a sustainable future? The emergence of “restorative leadership” offers a response (Steffen, 2012).
Methodology
The guiding framework of restorative leadership has been discerned through a grounded theory process analyzing data from structured interviews, field observations, and primary and secondary source materials from over 45 individuals, organizations, and communities. Cases were chosen for the nature and degree of impact advancing measures of global sustainability and collective well-being. Data collection has spanned seven years, and the project appears to be the most extensive comparative analysis of its kind to date. The study draws from public, private, not-for-profit, and civil society sectors with foci on areas of business, development, ecology, and spirit. The full study includes active participation from recognized leadership such as: Her Excellency Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway who chaired the first World Commission on Environment and Development and introduced the concept of sustainable development globally (WCED, 1987), as well as a lead negotiator of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; the renowned development organization Tostan that empowers African communities to advance their visions of sustainable development, as well as the Skoll Foundation that funds innovative social entrepreneurs like Tostan to scale impact; and business leaders that changed corporate law to establish benefit corporations across a majority of the United States, as well as the leadership team that launched the B Corp movement, to name a few study cases.
What do those that have significantly advanced global sustainability and collective well-being have in common, and what distinguishes their leadership from that of others? What can they tell us about how to bridge the gap between vision and the necessary progress for a sustainable future? This chapter illustrates findings on restorative leadership demonstrated by a subset of cases reflecting underrepresented voices across a range of geographic and sector engagement. In addition to the international women’s coalition WECAN and its members such as Amazon Watch (an indigenous rights advocacy organization), insights are illustrated by a rural community in the United States (Greensburg, Kansas), scientific leadership representing the voiceless interests of nature (biologist Janine Benyus and oceanographer Sylvia Earle), and the INGO Tostan. Findings illuminate the paradigm of restorative leadership and highlight a few practices that translate to remarkable outcomes such as establishing marine protected areas, arresting deforestation, evolving sustainable design innovation, and thriving out of natural disaster.
Emergence of Restorative Leadership
We are at a tipping point. This is a turning point.
We have a chance to get our act together.
Celebrate, because if you choose a time to be influential,
to make a difference in all of history, this is the moment!
Dr. Sylvia Earle (personal communication, August 6, 2013)
The historical crossroads for humanity to choose between peril and sustainability calls forth the emergence of restorative leadership. At this great turning (Macy & Johnstone, 2012), some are numbed by fear of the future as they continue business and leadership as usual, some are preparing underground lairs to flee, yet others like the Earth and Climate Summit delegates are daring to envision and champion a sustainable future for life on Earth as they act now for future generations and for all living things. Orienting toward all and future generations is a distinction of restorative leadership. First introduced for its power to cultivate resilient communities, restorative leadership recognizes the interconnectedness of all life and acts for the highest benefit to all. Striving to do no harm and to heal the Earth, our communities, and ourselves, restorative leadership cultivates collective well-being as a balanced expression of universal values and natural laws (Steffen, 2012).
Restorative leadership emerges at the intersection of an ancient paradigm of wholeness with modern scientific and technological knowledge. The ancient paradigm is reflected by Chief Seattle’s statement that, “All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth” (2015). Modern life sciences now confirm that interconnection and interdependency. Earth is a living and self-regulating system (Lovelock, 2003): we have evidence of humanity’s impact on the system, and that impact is changing the conditions that have sustained the viability of life on Earth for billions of years. Just as scientific theory affirms ancient wisdom, restorative leadership captures the distinction of a phenomenon with deep roots. Because it is evolutionary, engaging in restorative leadership naturally reflects elements of existing theory and co-emergent leadership models. Restorative leadership is fundamentally community leadership, inclusive in nature and aligned with principles of multicultural leadership (Bordas, 2007). By being grounded in dynamically networked relationships and the participatory nature of life, restorative leadership also reflects systems thinking and systems leadership (Capra, 1996; Meadows, 2008; Senge et al., 2015; Wheatley, 2006), and eco-mind and eco-leadership (Lappe, 2011; Western, 2013). Akin to transformational leadership with a focus on purposeful outcomes and uplifting process, restorative leadership elevates leadership engagement beyond servant to transcendent levels (Burns, 1978; Downton, 1973; Gardiner, 2006; Greenleaf, 1977). Restorative leadership also extends adaptive leadership (Heifetz et al., 2009) by addressing what could be considered the ultimate adaptive challenge – the existential threat that humanity faces in the 21st century. A holistically integrated and multidimensional approach, restorative leadership taps the best wisdom about ways of being and doing to fulfill humanity’s potential in response to the 21st century sustainability imperative.
Restorative Leadership Principles in Practice
Imagine the ocean teeming with life and vibrant with color. That is the world Dr. Sylvia Earle first saw in 1979 when she made history as the first human to dive solo and untethered to a depth of over half a mile. A literal “living legend” according to the Library of Congress, Earle is a woman of firsts beyond that dive, including the first female chief scientist of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the first Time Magazine Hero for the Planet (National Geographic, 2017). With insight that extends to the deep-time perspective of the origins of life, Earle works tirelessly to help others see that the “Earth generally and certainly the ocean is not too big to fail” (personal communication, August 6, 2013). She warns that we are altering the nature of nature itself, as evidenced by global warming hazardously tipping the temperature and pH balance of the oceans, waste disorienting and suffocating marine wildlife, and overfishing pushing species and coastal cultures to extinction (Steffen, 2016). She is dedicated to growing “awareness in people everywhere that their lives depend on maintaining the systems, the natural living systems, (and) protecting what remains and restoring what we can as if our lives depend on doing that, because they do” (Steffen, 2013). Through her perseverance, National Geographic Explorer Earle is credited for catalyzing the collective will to add the Ocean to Google Earth and to expand the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument to be the world’s largest marine protected area, among other leadership feats (Dell’Amore, 2009; Morelle, 2016).
Progress like that demonstrated by Earle and delegates from the International Women’s Earth and Climate Summit reflects a qualitative distinction of restorative leadership. Fundamentally, leadership is an art and science that can be thought of as a collection of ways of being and doing that create the conditions for envisioned success to arise. In the case of restorative leadership, there are four principles underlying the distinct ways of being and doing that result in significant advancements toward global sustainability and collective well-being: 1) leadership is an innate and universal capacity; 2) the world is an interdependent and integrated whole; 3) genius, goodness, and generosity abound; and 4) everything is possible. These principles in turn give rise to a number of practices that are key to exceptional levels of positive impact, some of which will be illustrated below.
Leadership is an Innate and Universal Capacity
Individuals, communities, and organizations that practice restorative leadership have a holistic worldview. From a restorative leadership perspective, leadership is an innate and universal capacity. With roots in Old English, the word leadership in its original sense is the ability to influence others within a given context (OED, 2017). Being actors in the interconnected web of life is the universal context that all of humanity shares (Capra, 1996). Leadership is an innate and universal capacity because human beings cannot help but have influence on the web: each individual action and inaction impacts the interconnected unfolding of life itself. Liberating the power of our leadership potential and elevating the nature of our influence start with embracing the innate capacity to shape our world moment by moment. Naturally, the leadership question that follows is: What impact do we intend? With the power to shape the world comes the responsibility to do so with intention. Acting without intention risks being complicit with a harmful path. Choices matter and leadership matters. This fundamentally constructivist and ecological perspective translates to core restorative leadership practices such as being highly intentional with life’s leadership influence; awakening and authorizing; and advocating and empowering. Awakening and authorizing, advocating, and empowering will be highlighted below.
Restorative leadership affirms and aligns with emerging Critical Leadership Studies insights that are pluralistic, participatory, and inclusive in perspective (Collinson, 2011). Consistent with critical theory (Horkheimer, 1972), power is implicit in all relationships. To engage in restorative leadership is to operate from power with others, recognizing that having influence is inherent within the web of interconnection and even marveling at such vast potential for beneficial impact throughout the web. Ecology and living systems science (Wheatley, 2006) help us to see that as ecological actors, each of us is in a position of power to play a distinct coevolutionary role in charting the future of humanity by virtue of the participatory nature of our interconnected reality. Life is a coevolutionary flow; “Each of us has a capacity to actually make a difference and it starts with knowing” (S. Earle, personal communication, August 6, 2013). Restorative leadership is transformative in its ability to awaken and empower, and with that, to help humanity overcome the existential crisis now faced as a result of the dominant leadership paradigm. The state of the world is a reflection of the quality of our leadership.
Awaken and Authorize, Advocate and Empower
The moral courage to act boldly on behalf of all and to dedicate oneself to collective well-being starts, for most, with awakening – listening deeply to oneself and to ecosystem signals – and then self-authorizing individually and collectively for positive engagement. When Osprey Orielle Lake envisioned the Summit and co-founded WECAN, she intended “to engage women worldwide to take action as powerful stakeholders in climate change and sustainability solutions” (WECAN, 2013). This was in response to failure by the world’s governments to act to avert a global rise of two degrees Celsius during climate treaty negotiations in Copenhagen. Lake self-authorized to advocate for women’s and indigenous wisdom to influence global policy, and as a result WECAN allies now include Global Greengrant Fund, the National Wildlife Federation, Social Venture Network, and the Women’s Environment and Development Organization, among others, championing positive change. The Declaration and subsequent campaign efforts among WECAN allies helped advance the Paris Agreement and compelled DNB of the Norwegian Oil Fund to fully divest their $331 million credit line of the Dakota Access Pipeline (Lake, 2017), in addition to other successes.
Because the dominant leadership paradigm is failing the planet and her people, humanity’s diversity has been emboldened to engage. In the case of the Summit and WECAN, for example,
Women around the world are rising with fierce resolve, because what is happening at national and international policy levels on climate change is not equivalent to the urgency we are facing…as we engage and take action we are part of social and environmental movements that are much greater than ourselves, greater than our communities or our countries. We are part of our planet’s immune system that is rising up against injustices that are destroying our Earth and all life as we know it.
(O. Lake, personal communication, July 17, 2014)
Restorative leadership advocates for diverse actors being heard and claiming their leadership as co-creative life forces. Local knowledge and lived experience are valued and imparted with authority and expertise. With the restorative leadership embrace of universal capacity comes the personal and collective responsibility to exercise what Paolo Freire – a renowned practitioner and scholar of critical pedagogy – described as our creative capacity to act to transform the world as permanent re-creators (Araujo Freire & Macedo, 1998). However, beyond traditional liberatory praxis that focuses on human discovery of oneself “to be a maker of the world of culture” (Bell et al., 1990, p. 85), restorative leadership awakens us to being ecological actors determining the future of life itself. As biologist Janine Benyus explains, there is an awakening that humans “are part of the redesign of everything on this planet. That they are agents of natural selection essentially …” (J. Benyus, personal communication, July 23, 2010).
The World is an Interdependent and Integrated Whole
Named one of the “World’s Most Influential Designers” by Businessweek (Biomimicry Institute, 2017), Janine Benyus is a science writer best known as the author of Biomimicry: Innovation inspired by nature (1997). Benyus co-founded the world’s first bio-inspired consultancy and launched the certified B Corp Biomimicry 3.8. Biomimicry brings the genius of nature’s designs to sustainable solutions by emulating nature. For the impact of her restorative leadership transforming the field of design for highest-benefit outcomes, Benyus was named a Champion of the Earth in Science by the United Nations Environment Programme. Both Benyus and Earle have made very intentional restorative leadership choices to leverage the authority of their positions as scientists on behalf of nature, using their credentials and voices through spoken and written word to inspire the collective will to value nature from a holistic perspective. Engaging in restorative leadership reflects a return to the paradigm of wholeness, and demonstrates qualities of reverence and respect for the ever-evolving experience of life on Earth. Whether grounded in local knowledge or based in scientific fact, those practicing restorative leadership grasp the integrated and interdependent nature of the whole of life. Earle explains:
All creatures depend on how the planet as a whole functions – not land here, ocean there, polar areas here, desert areas there. It’s all connected in ways so that if any part suffers or changes, it resonates throughout the whole system. And as the creatures unique on Earth who can observe, document, [and] anticipate the consequences, we also have the responsibility to take this knowledge to heart while we still have time.
(S. Earle, personal communication, August 6, 2013)
Restorative leadership orients vision and effort within that larger whole and acts from the implications of interdependence at multiple levels. Those who practice restorative leadership place preeminent value on relationships. Such a relational orientation is common to the organic solidarity of indigenous cultures like many allies of WECAN, and of place-based communities like the rural town of Greensburg, Kansas. As James Lovelock said, “[C]ountry people still living close to the earth often seemed puzzled that anyone would need to make a formal proposition of anything as obvious as the Gaia hypothesis” (Lovelock, 1979, p. 10), which is science explaining that the Earth is a complex, interdependent system. Such holism gives rise to core restorative leadership practices such as taking the long view, persevering through learning, and leveraging the interconnection for cascading benefit.
Take the Long View
Key to the level of impact possible through restorative leadership is the practice of taking the long view. Sylvia Earle explains that, “We need leaders who get the big picture, who are looking beyond their own time in office, or their own time in whatever role they are in … to use that special gift that humans have to anticipate what their impact is going to have on the next decade, the next century, the next millennium, and to realize that we have a unique place in history right now” (personal communication, August 6, 2013). The age-old insight and scientific fact that the world is an interdependent web of life is grounded in a life cycle on Earth that extends into deep time (J. Macy, personal communication, July 28, 2010), both past and future. The past that we have to learn from is what Janine Benyus describes as “3.8 billion years of brilliant, time-tested solutions through life’s evolution” (personal communication, July 23, 2010). The future that we have to consider is best illustrated by the cultural practice of the Haudenosaunee Confederation, or Iroquois tribe, who “consider the impact on the seventh generation” when making decisions (Haudenosaunee, 2017).
Atossa Soltani, who is the founder, 20-year executive director, and now board president of WECAN ally Amazon Watch, describes taking the long view for collective well-being among indigenous peoples in the Amazon Rainforest:
It’s that everyone in their community is having access to a better life, but that better life does not jeopardize future generations. … They get together, and it might take three years, but they get together and they articulate their true north or this idea of evolution … they are looking at a circular frame around: “Okay in seven generations we want there to be forests standing with lots of wildlife and rivers that are running clean, with access to our medicinal plants, with our language still intact, with our cultural ceremonies and stories still alive, and with youth feeling proud to carry on this identity of our culture”. That becomes their vision for their future and everything else, whether they are going to grow corn or do a fish farm or develop an educational program, has to serve the larger vision.
(A. Soltani, personal communication, April 24, 2015)
Amazon Watch is one of the world’s foremost advocacy organizations helping indigenous peoples to defend the forest for themselves and safeguard life’s biodiversity for all of humanity. Soltani, recipient of the prestigious Hillary Laureate Award for Leadership in Climate Equity, guided the organization to forge cross-sector partnerships and longstanding relationships of trust while at the same time building local capacity throughout the Amazon basin of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. As a result, indigenous voices have been present at forums like the United Nations COP21, and violators of indigenous and nature’s rights have been held accountable, as with the verdict against Chevron Oil for $18 billion in penalties. Soltani illuminates deep understanding of interdependence and speaks to taking the long view organizationally: “When I look back at our successes, almost all of them took something like eight, 10, 12, 14 years. … Generally, it’s rare to have anything significant without spending at least ten plus years in a place committed to a long-term strategy. I think that that’s been one of the lessons: it takes time, and we have to have the long-range view to think long-term and to think about our staying power in that place” (personal communication, April 24, 2015).
Genius, Goodness, and Generosity Abound
Restorative leadership empowers communities to come together in shared vision on common ground and orchestrates collective intelligence for collective action. An evolutionary paradigm, restorative leadership demonstrates a fundamental belief in human potential and the wisdom of human and natural communities, and therefore tends to co-create and facilitate rather than command and control (Steffen, 2012). Answering the 21st century call to evolve requires a combination of humility and confidence, and the courage to swim with others in unknown waters. For some in leadership it requires what Meg Wheatley calls a “conversion moment … when you realize that it’s not all up to you, and that other people are as competent and capable and creative as you are” (M. Wheatley, personal communication, May 11, 2011). For Janine Benyus, it’s not only people that are competent: “If I could reveal anything that is hidden from us, at least in modern cultures, it would be to reveal something that we’ve forgotten that we used to know as well as our own names, and that is that we live in a competent universe, that we are part of a brilliant planet, and that we are surrounded by genius” (Benyus, 2009).
Intending to bring the highest benefit to all, restorative leadership recognizes the inherent value and goodness of the collective and utilizes a community-centered approach, engaging social networks to forward and sustain hopeful possibilities (Steffen, 2012). Also, asset-based and participatory, restorative leadership empowers diverse actors to see and apply their knowledge and skills, and to recognize their collective assets as valuable and relevant to addressing diverse community and global priorities. With deep faith in the resources of genius, generosity, and goodness that abound, key restorative leadership practices such as ask and listen, align and co-create; bridge differences and scale across shared values; and act net generous advance a world that works for all. Deep listening is the prerequisite to transformative progress. Through participatory process rooted in local knowledge and lived expertise, collective intelligence and wisdom can be revealed, amplified, and applied to resolving the world’s most pressing problems.
Ask and Listen, Align and Co-create
Recognized as one of the world’s leading social enterprises addressing complex global problems, Tostan is an INGO based in Senegal whose mission is to empower African communities to bring about sustainable development and positive social transformation based on respect for human rights. The rural regions across Sub-Saharan Africa where Tostan works could be considered ground zero for climate change. Restorative leadership as practiced by Tostan reveals the potential to chart a sustainable future when diverse actors are empowered to exercise their innate leadership potential and restore balance: to date, over 8,000 villages that have participated in the Tostan Community Empowerment Program (CEP) have self-organized and chosen to publicly abandon female genital cutting (FGC). With a vision of human dignity for all, Tostan provides human-rights based non-formal education to those that have not had access to formal schooling. The CEP utilizes active facilitation techniques and expressive arts to do so. Progress is co-produced, illuminating community assets and validating collective genius in process. During the three-year CEP, Tostan hosts weekly dialogues that explore and analyze community health, hygiene, environment, and education aligned with the community’s development priorities. Tostan founder Molly Melching explains, “You have to start by getting people coming together around what is really important to them. Once they define that, it becomes much easier for them then to look at what they are doing and decide together.” Melching calls it “an approach that unifies rather than divides” (M. Melching, personal communication, April 19, 2011).
Fundamental to restorative leadership, participatory practice is highly accessible: ask and listen, align, and co-create. This begins with starting where the community is. In the case of Tostan, for example,
You start with why people are doing what they are doing, and see that the social constructs were decided upon and then became an integral part of the society over 200, 300, in the case of female genital cutting, 2,000 years ago. It became an integral part of that system in order for a respected woman to have that status, in order to prove that you were worthy of marriage. … Then we look at the end result and ask, Why do we do this? Why is this necessary? Let’s look at this now in terms of, What are our real values?
(M. Melching, personal communication, April 19, 2011)
Melching clarifies that seeking to understand harmful practices like FGC does not mean excusing them. Rather, it empowers critically thoughtful dialogue, self-authorizing, and self-organizing in a nonjudgmental space consistent with core human values. As Skoll Foundation CEO Sally Osberg explains, “For people to change, they need some permission and they need some safety” (S. Osberg, personal communication, May 1, 2016). With participatory engagement, the process itself is transformative. The participatory approach liberates participants from internalized blocks or oppression, as well as acculturated patterns of silence or submission that perpetuate disengagement, disenfranchisement, and denial of personal and collective responsibility. In that space, communities feel freedom to revise their behavioral norms to more accurately reflect their values and vision for themselves.
In large part, participatory engagement is so effective because the process is the change and the means are the end (Steffen, 2012). Melching explains that, “If you don’t go through the process, you lose so much of the meaning that comes with change” (M. Melching, personal communication, April 19, 2011). For example, the personal and collective actions involved in dialoguing about female genital cutting (FGC) represent change because the taboo of discussing FGC is being altered in the process of talking about it in public space. In addition, making inclusive decisions and choosing collective action in a deliberative way, particularly in cases that include men and women, organically evolves social norms of equity. For rural African women, the increase in confidence is evident as their voices grow from being barely audible in circle, to being projected while standing in front of their community, to being globally resonant when publicly abandoning the 2,000-year-old tradition of FGC.
Everything is Possible
From a restorative leadership perspective, everything is possible and we have infinite evolutionary potential to activate. Indeed, as Benyus says, “This is the era of demonstrating that it’s possible” (J. Benyus, personal communication, July 23, 2010). We now know the state of the world as we have never known it, which calls us we to act as we have never acted – in concerted effort to yield unprecedented results like those of Tostan’s rural African communities and the rural U.S. town of Greensburg, Kansas. During a historic storm in the spring of 2007, the people of Greensburg emerged from their shelters to discover that their town had been obliterated by the largest tornado in recorded history. Greensburg transformed total loss to renewal by rebuilding sustainably through a participatory process that considered the well-being of future generations and catapulted them to a global leadership role as a model of disaster recovery in a world facing increasingly extreme weather events.
Orienting from a paradigm of possibility, restorative leadership like that demonstrated by Greensburg navigates unknown waters while sustaining vision and charting breakthrough progress to yield previously unimaginable results. With a balance of humility and conviction to co-evolve for the highest benefit to all, there is deep commitment to and faith in the possible. To engage in restorative leadership is to have an empowered relationship to context and to choose possibility, which is consistent with liberatory praxis and constructivist facility. For example, Freire illustrated this mindset: “I had the possibility to experience hunger. And I say I had the possibility because I think that experience was very helpful to me” (Bell, et al, 1990, p. 24). Daniel Wallach, a community leader in Greensburg credited by many for effective post-disaster organizing that helped chart a sustainable future for the town, explains:
I think that anything is possible. I mean, as trite as that sounds, we do forget the truth of that sometimes and we look at problems and think they’re insurmountable, and they never are. We have incredibly profound creative spirits and what we’re capable of doing individually is astonishing, but what we’re capable of doing together is magical. … So to be proactive in relation to problems instead of being reactive is key, because when we’re proactive we feel a power and it makes us rise up.
(D. Wallach, personal communication, July 23, 2013)
Proactive, possibility-oriented practices key to the transformative power of restorative leadership include possibilize and create eddies of possibility by example; transform circumstances to aligned momentum; and live the guiding questions.
Transform Circumstances to Aligned Momentum
Situated in the middle of everywhere or nowhere depending on who is talking, Greensburg is a politically conservative town in a conservative state, although for folks in Greensburg, ideology is irrelevant in disaster recovery. On May 4, 2007, the 120-year-old town of approximately 1,400 settled in for the night just as the sirens sounded. It took the first recorded EF5 tornado that was 1.7 miles wide with winds at over 200 MPH just eight minutes to reduce Greensburg to 388,000 tons of debris (Fox, 2013). Resourceful and resilient, Greensburg framed the disaster as an opening to honor lost lives and serve future generations. “Blessed with a unique opportunity to create a strong community, devoted to family, fostering business, working together for future generations,” as the Greensburg Community Vision statement post-disaster reads (Fox, 2013, p. 21), Greensburg transformed the circumstance of utter devastation and the threat of ghost-town extinction to strengthening identity and becoming a model of what is possible. Mayor Bob Dixson illustrates this: “This is part of my healing process. (In) post-disaster recovery, if anything, you have two options: you can be humbly grateful or you can be grumbly hateful, and we as this community chose to be humbly grateful and we’ve had the opportunity to build for a better future” (B. Dixson, personal communication, July 20, 2013). Greensburg rebuilt itself through a highly visionary and participatory process, becoming one of the first cities to be 100 percent wind-powered and the first city in the United States to require that all city buildings be built to LEED platinum standards. The town now has the most LEED buildings per capita in the world (Greensburg, 2017).
In the first town meeting following the tornado, sitting mayor Lonnie McCollum, a former state patrol officer sensitive to the hardship, modeled the restorative leadership proclivity to transform circumstances to aligned momentum by declaring that recovering from the disaster was an opportunity to address systemic problems in the area. Local citizens like Daniel Wallach came with a concept paper envisioning a model green community and established the not-for-profit GreenTown to help facilitate the rebuild. City administrator Steve Hewitt was a consistent voice in a chorus of many championing the idea that Greensburg could and should rebuild with a bold vision. And they did. Dixson states:
We did everything as a community, everything … we would have four and five hundred people show up at those community meetings under the big tent. We hugged together, we laughed together, we cried together, we worshiped together, and we planned together. So everything came from us.
(personal communication, July 20, 2013)
Likening it to a barn raising, Wallach highlighted the restorative leadership distinction in process:
The new model, which is really the old model, is … “Let’s shepherd our resources and come out of this stronger and better,” and again painting the picture of: If this succeeds, how good does this feel to be a model, to take this loss and to make a tribute to those that we did lose by doing this thing that is paying it forward in a really powerful way?
(D. Wallach, personal communication, July 23, 2013)
To successfully transform the circumstances to aligned momentum, Greensburg returned to their foundational understanding of interdependence and core practice of taking the long view. One church leader explained:
As pioneers, sustainability is not something new. It’s old and familiar for us to be good stewards, making the most of what we had and taking care of those scarce resources. We already reused materials, what is now called recycling. We already placed our chicken coops facing south to prolong the laying of eggs. We already planted our crops on the north side to protect them. We were conservative with water because it comes from our own lakes and streams or we had to pump it by hand. It’s not something new, it’s something old. We were called to be good stewards of our land.
(Woman Church Leader, personal communication, May 3, 2017).
And so, Greensburg mobilized the collective will to chart a sustainable future because, as this leader said with simple clarity,
It’s the responsible thing to do. When the community was first built in the late 1800s, we built the best we could with what we had. It’s the same thing now with new technology. Why would we build to the technologies of the 19th century and not build with the best we have now? It uses less energy, less resources, and is built to last 100 years or more. It’s the right thing to do. … We are doing it for the next generation. We are doing it for the future.
(personal communication, May 3, 2017)
Building upon a tradition of knowledge that respects the Earth and natural laws, while integrating modern scientific and technological advancements, Greensburg took the noble restorative leadership path of acting for the highest benefit to all in the most dire of circumstances.
Conclusion
With the future of life on Earth at stake, it is the collection of individual acts and leadership choices made moment by moment that can transform the risk of peril to previously unimaginable possibility. The extraordinary examples of Greensburg, Tostan, Amazon Watch, Janine Benyus, Sylvia Earle, and the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network illustrate the power of restorative leadership to chart a sustainable future where all life can thrive. It is possible. Drawing on what is both ancient and innovative, the emergent trend of restorative leadership offers breakthrough insight on how to mobilize the collective will to sustain and thrive at this time in our evolutionary history.
Manifesting a future that thrives in balance requires that we bring out the best of our diverse humanity. Restorative leadership guides us in doing just that as we remember what we have forgotten, balancing modernity’s progress with a return to wisdom ways of knowing and being part of the interconnected web of life. As a leadership heart-mindset, restorative leadership’s underlying principles that leadership is an innate and universal capacity, that the world is an interdependent and integrated whole, that genius, goodness, and generosity abound, and that everything is possible – along with their aligned collection of practices – yield globally resonant impact. Restorative leadership elevates leadership engagement to transcendent levels, understanding that with the power to shape the world comes the responsibility to do so with noble intention.
It is time to reawaken to the interconnectedness of all life and act for the highest benefit to all. Striving to do no harm and to heal the Earth, our communities, and ourselves, there exists a unique opportunity before us: To restore humanity’s sense of interdependent wholeness and to ignite the collective will to fulfill humanity’s potential. Each of us is in a unique position to play a distinct coevolutionary role in charting the future of life itself. It is time that we activate our individual and collective power in service to future generations of all life.
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