6) Fierce Determination and Compassion: Finally, Bioneers presents a call for fierce love. This is not a sentimental love, but rather a strategic, determined, compassion-in-action, willing to confront power, communicate effectively, break down barriers and silos, take down or transform status quo structures, and do the hard work kind of love.
Co-founder Nina Simons suggests some of the the qualities of the new leaders: 1) they gather people together, 2) they are paradoxical, have masculine and feminine characteristics, and are fierce and empathetic simultaneously, and 3) they are holistic, glimpsing the big picture.
Mary Gonzales, Gamaliel Foundation’s CA director, Dr. Elizabeth Lindsey, the first female National Geographic fellow, and Andy Lipkis of the TreePeople embodied well the archetype of this fierce and loving leadership.
Gonzales reminds us that the price of alienation from nature and from each other is a loss of democracy, a loss of community. She shared her story of being a young Catholic mother who played out a particular script informed by society and her parents, then slowly entering the world of organizing and becoming transformed into a fierce leader of on-the-line social struggles by speaking out, waking people up, building power, and identifying what draws people to the table.
Gonzales directs a leadership program for women called Ntosake, which means, “she who walks with lions and carries her own things.”
Lindsey urges us to”step into uncomfortableness, to close our eyes to see more clearly,” and to embrace these challenges as our “prelude to greatness.”
Lipkis suggested that just as we often have a fear of falling in love, with the simultaneous sense of vulnerability and excitement, we also fall into compassion. Finally, he says, “Let us be volcanoes of enthusiasm.”
Photo Credits: Spiral from Hoklife
[...] Bioneers 2010 last weekend Loorz announced the iMatter March on Mother’s Day, May 8, 2011. He called it a [...]