Leadership - A discussion of traits, characteristics, and current news of leaders.

Last week, Amish leaders brought us all to our knees with sorrow … when gut-wrenching violence struck their strong, peaceful community. We mourn with them… we see who they are to any community … and we want to know more about how they operate so peacefully.

We also wonder how violence and war images weave naturally through the brains of the rest of us… while Amish brains wire differently for peace and reconciliation. These new questions rise up as a phoenix from ashes in the seemingly ridiculous response to violence that we observed in the face of their tragedy and sadness last week.

That image of Amish leaders at a killer’s funeral will continue to project colors and shapes of forgiveness onto screens at the back of our minds.  Its lesson will not fall out of focus, unseen, anytime soon.

To some business heads ... Amish leaders projected a ridiculous and illogical lesson on forgiveness last week. Forgiveness appears ridiculous beside business structures we tend to champion in the West. Its contrasts to images of revenge ... harsh words ... or anger, mock common responses. I’ve been asking a key question - since the powerful story of Amish leaders who attended their family’s killer at his funeral. How can we forgive in ways that prosper business and community in our broken firms?

Two things struck me about leaders, the brain and the amazing Amish lesson of peace to the rest of us. Amish leaders model and help people to:

1.   Rewire their brain’s plasticity for forgiveness and this state existed long before violence struck their caring community.

2. Make learning and peace and forgiveness an adventure that hardwires their daily lives.

We continue to reel in sorrow for the Amish people’s loss… and for their leaders' role to hold up courage, and run from fear. We support our Amish neighbors in any way we can. We also take the ridiculous lesson of forgiveness and consider the possibility of brain based peace plans that could reboot our minds from violence that shadows us daily, to the innovation of peace through forgiveness.

Next to business structures that sue, compete unfairly, abuse others, or backstab … forgiveness looks ridiculous. Life sucks at times and the unfairness gets you in the gut when you expect it least. If you wait to try out forgiveness until life kicks you in the shins … though …your brain cannot rewire that fast for noble choices … because forgiveness will not exist in your basal ganglia. Surprisingly, forgiveness, the brain and the Amish lesson at a funeral last week,  has more to do with business leaders than most people realize.

What would a business structure look like when forgiveness fits into a leader's mental schemata … like it did at a funeral where the victims blessed a killer’s family? I feel curious about that possibility in my own life today.  Could a new mental framework help business leaders to rewire for a new vision… one that would bring mind-bending profitability in new ways? I already have ideas about the brain's role in that change.....  What do you think?

There is some good stuff going around the web today.

I offer my support and encouragement to Chartreuse, an independent blogger that has thrown out an innovative idea that captures the power of new media and citizen journalism.

I often read what Chartreuse has to say about blog networks and new media. It is colorful if nothing. Over the past several months, we have become better acquainted with Chartreuse. I never thought of him as an activist but he has started something that is quickly becoming a major story and cause. His action, his innovation, his ability to draw support – his leadership - is worth noting. It started here.

“I read a story about FEMA not allowing Katrina victims to talk to reporters. That sounded a bit outrageous to me so I asked a friend of mine who works in a position which allows her/him to see what’s going on across the state of Louisiana to tell me if it was true. (Sorry, they are not allowed to speak “on the record” to the press!)”

Chartreuse received an unofficial on-the-ground-report from New Orleans – and it wasn’t pretty. It spoke of racial profiling and police harassment of Katrina victims. I have to say, the claims were so extreme, I wasn’t sure what to believe. I trusted Chartreuse to publish the truth. He wanted to know more. From his post yesterday

“I’m putting up $1000.00 of my own cash to send 2 people to New Orleans and the Gulf Region for a weekend to find out what’s really going on.”

“I write a lot about change, institutional collapse and personal empowerment. I don’t write enough about responsibility.

I feel we all have a responsibility to do what we can.

Let’s do something important.”

The call to action has not fallen on deaf ears. Know More Media is in with cash and coverage. Nearly a hundred readers have responded and several citizen journalists have applied to file the report.

We have it in our power to begin the world over again. - Thomas Paine

I learned about this story from my 12 year old son.  He heard about it last week and has been passionately evangelizing this story since that point.  He is recruiting his friends, his extended family, his church youth group.  He wrote all the newspapers and TV stations in the area.  He convinced his junior high school to show a clip on their daily announcement period.  I have had no involvement in this to this point.  He is not alone.  Youth across America have caught on to this story and have been mobilized.  Why?

Remarkable.  Seth Godin encourages us to make our product so noteworthy that people will remark about it and want to tell stories about it.  Chartruese tells us to not be blankity-blank "pedestrian", meaning don't be common or average.

Three 20-something kids with a video camera wind up in northern Uganda.  They see incredible horror and encounter heartbreaking suffering, most especially among children.

Instead of turning their backs, they can't stop thinking about it.  They decide to do something about it.

What can three white kids do to stop 20 years of horror and war?  They decide that alone they can't do much, but if they can mobilize enough other youth, they can influence the powerful.

They know their audience - other youth.  They use multimedia, they use rock music,  they use myspace, they make music videos, they portray things raw and gritty and honest and authentic.

They first tell their story of their experience in Northern Uganda about  the Night Commuters in a documentary: