Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love. – Khalil Gibran
Leaving aside a bit what we know about the history of mankind — which, much of it, is a huge collection of romanticized stories that presents not facts, rather perspectives — we, humans, managed to survive as packs — our code of survival has been the pack order and our code of conduct has been the pack mentality.
And yet, survival has been in a slow and tender dance with evolution since the beginning of time. Symbolically, they have been the primordial couple — dynamics (evolution) and balance (survival). This couple has been dancing away into the sunsets of history in a continuous state of flow, ever moving, both creating and adapting to new realities.
When we look at history as a whole, it’s quite easy to observe that every step we took in our common evolution as a species, has naturally led us to a new necessary stage of learning. And each such stage has always required a new set of skills and a new level of awareness. We went from caves, to tribes, to small communities, to nations, to globe trotters and, in the meantime, some of us have even become interstellar travelers.
So what’s next on our Evolutionary Road?
Two words — systemic awareness.
What does that mean?
It means understanding the world beyond paradigms that establish “what’s right” and “what’s wrong”. It means looking at the world and understanding it as a moving phenomenon — a constant unfolding in the present moment, for as the saying goes:
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man — Heraclitus
It means the next stage of life invites us to observe and attribute meaning not by “what should be” or “what we wish it was”, rather by “what it is”.
It is the final step beyond the magical and linear thinking stage of humanity — a stage throughout which we naively imagined that creating and adhering as a pack to similar patterns of thinking meant that we could tame the otherwise unpredictable world.
Of course we do need to find constructive ways to navigate the complexity and unpredictability of world together… and there is no better way of taming the world than by understanding how it operates.
…and there is no true understanding of how the world operates unless we start seeing it as a whole — a system governed by a set of unchanging principles that maintain order, cohesion and coherence.
That is precisely the essence of systemic leadership.
The “systemic” stands for us becoming aware of the forces at play that have been organizing life since the beginning of time, forces that are deeply interwoven into the fabric of all human systems. It means acknowledging that the most stable order that allows the best possible flow, is one that is in harmony with the systemic principles governing the whole.
The “leadership” stands for us becoming mindful of how to tune into that level of understanding, so that we can notice when we are not operating in alignment with the natural order.
The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think ―
Gregory Bateson
Becoming aware of the natural order and our place in it, allows us to take inspired action and return to a state of harmony, a space from which as leaders we can facilitate growth and trust in human systems.
There is a new order rising in human systems. This order will not be created by power and individual will. It emerges from nature itself. Of course this movement won’t happen by itself. It will need facilitators that can hold the space for the new order of truth, beauty and love to become a reality in our daily lives.
For that we need to become disloyal to a lot of paradigms that served us well for a long time.
For that we need spaces for authentic dialogue, where truth beyond ideas of right and wrong can be spoken without judgement.
For that we need to acknowledge that life comes through us and has an evolutionary purpose of its own, one that we can choose to serve through our work and through the way we build our communities.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense — Rumi