The Lotus--A Practice Guide for Authentic Leadership in Strategic Sustainable Development, has just been released. Review it and download it at no charge, here. Here's how the author's summarize it:
The Lotus - A Practice Guide for Authentic Leadership in Strategic Sustainable Development - presents nine personal leadership capacities that authentic leaders find essential in their work when facilitating large-scale, complex, transformational change in organisations and communities. Furthermore, it suggests practices (ranging from contemplative and spiritual to physical, engaging both head, heart and hands) that help in developing your personal leadership capacities.
‘The Lotus’ was developed by Christopher Baan, Phil Long and Dana Pearlman. It is the outcome of our 2011 Masters in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability (MSLS) thesis research at
Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden. The final thesis, including references, is available here.
Cultivating personal leadership capacities to facilitate collaboration in Strategic Sustainable Development
Towards an authentic approach to facilitation
Christopher Baan, Phil Long, Dana Pearlman
June 2011
The complex, multi-faceted sustainability challenge that society faces calls for a strategic approach to sustainable development. Strategic planning processes towards sustainability in organisations and communities are oftentimes led by a facilitator or facilitative leader. We argue that planning processes of complex and transformational change, call for collaboration among stakeholders and for highly skilled facilitative leaders who are committed to the development of self, others and society. This thesis explores the ‘interior state’ of facilitative leaders as a high leverage point in moving society towards sustainability. We identify nine personal capacities that enable leaders to facilitate collaboration in Strategic Sustainable Development: (1) Being Present, (2) Whole Self-Awareness, (3) Suspension & Letting Go, (4) Compassion, (5) Intention Aligned with Higher Purpose, (6) Whole System Awareness, (7) Personal Power, (8) Sense of Humour, and (9) Holding Dualities and Paradoxes. We identify a range of personal and collective practices that help develop these personal capacities. We propose these capacities are the foundation for a more holistic and authentic facilitation approach applied to strategic sustainable development.