A few days ago, Tzipi Cohen-Sokuler (a dear partner from the Tribune for Participatory Leadership) and I talked about local community issues. So many small and big issues pop up in local communities:How to build the budget and issues in the distribution of resources, the amount of local taxes, what facilities will be built in the new playground, what the informal education activity in the locality will look like, what to do with the gate, loose dogs, the smoke from the fireplaces, and countless other issues...
The type of leadership that my friends at Tribune are trying to develop is what I like to call "leadership in the service of the community". Leadership, which also has a clear mandate and governance and at the same time - does what it does to serve the entire community and by listening to what the women ask for Participatory leadership.
Participatory leadership will take an issue that comes up on the "community table" and conduct a meaningful dialogue around it with the women so that we gather the various considerations and from them we can understand:- What will be the favorable direction of progress for us? What "aha" moment did we meet?- What solution is revealed to us that answers as many needs as possible? One whose heart and lungs expand with relief at the thought of him?
I participated in quite a few beautiful processes that happened, and the solutions, which may not have been exactly what everyone wanted, but responsibility and leadership were taken around them.
But there are also cases where the solution or direction has already been discovered, and there is still no ability to move forward. that instead of being able to move forward - the leadership experiences resistance.
A good example of this is a conversation we had with the secretary of a local community about an agreement that the community had to approve, and which was rejected by the assembly. In one of the conversations we had, he said: "I swear by this agreement, we thought of every single detail. We made every consideration, we considered everything. This is the best agreement that can be put on the table under the existing conditions."
If this is the case, there are cases where listening and revealing the best solution we can, is not the point. And if finding the solution is no longer the issue, but gathering around it and taking responsibility for it with both hands - then for me this is an invitation to go back and examine whether there is caring among the women in the process.
Caring for me is the basis for creating a good agreement. It is this place where I manage to connect in my heart to this - that what is important and dear to others, must be equally important to me as what is dear to me.
We will emerge truly victorious only if we all see what is important to each and every one of us, and we will equally care that no one with us suffers. that we are all equally important.
Caring can be nurtured and maintained in the community in all kinds of ways. When there is caring, compromise becomes agreement, because I can choose in this place to give something of myself without actually losing anything. On the contrary, I earn the profit that is my neighbor. And if we all care about each other, then none of us actually ever come out a loser. Caring will usually bring with it the desire for reciprocity and shared responsibility.
In my opinion, it is very important to nurture the connections and relationships in communities in general and local communities in particular. In these times it is even for me the order of the hour. More than what we do together - take care first of all to get to know each other.
If we take care to cultivate the connections and relationships and our capacity for dialogue, we will create a basic internal network, one that can be stood on as a solid foundation for everything we want to do. Then there's nothing we can't do together.