We have become so remarkably accustomed to a form of leadership that comes from the top. Why? Well, because it is easier for everybody. It is easier for the leader because they can indulge in their narcissism. And, well, we want them to. You see, if they are shaping things according to their filters and persona then we can move in a direction that is embodied by the leader. It is easy to grasp. The leader can also be in full knowing that they need to have a thick skin. They prep up for it. Then all too often we oblige their defensive energies by hammering away at the thick skin. They take responsibility for the whole. We let them and pay them well for it. Their remarkable and disproportionate pay and power grade gives us permission to either grumble or acquiesce. The possibility of communal co-dependency and the shadow side of top-down leadership is very high.

So the boundary conditions of this kind of leader-follower relationship are simple and clear and everybody plays. And guess what, the dominant energetic pattern is one of separating. We externalize, intellectualize, and dissociate. We simplify and alienate. Then we wonder why we are consuming the planet trying to fill all the gaps in our souls and in our relationships.

Hosting the space for generativity is a different game entirely. Watch out. It is dangerous. Life is dangerous. Good but not tame. Deep, deep democracy is at work.

Holding space for life, for what wants to emerge from the gifts of the people around you, starts with acknowledging you are a limited perceiver. Then, I believe, the best hosts must come into the spaces they host ready to be changed personally, to learn, and to be surprised. To be open to the unfolding of life and be its good and willing servant and shepherd are the way to host a truly generative field. If, like me, you believe that nothing changes until those gathered drop into their truest intentions and purposes and come into presence with one another, you will guide the room to connect. You will offer those gathered the opportunity to see and been seen by one another in as sacred, open, and loving way possible.

A couple of the needs I most often witness in my hosting work are loneliness and isolation. It is mindboggling how pervasive and powerful this is.

I was recently in a conversation with a host who shared with me that what three years ago would have taken a group a few days to achieve in terms of connection and resonance, we now seem able to achieve within 20-30 minutes. It’s true. We know how now and there seems to be more collective readiness for it.

So, we invite people to connect and it happens, quickly. The depth of connection people can experience so quickly often starkly contrasts the loneliness they are accustomed to feeling. In touching those nerves, all kinds of things happen.

It is not uncommon for all kinds of emotions to be unleashed. Powerful and profound experiences of all sorts come to life at once. Some people feel seen for the first time in their lives. Others come to tears before saying a word at the mere prospect that two other people are waiting with openness and attentiveness to hear from them and what is in their soul. Many experience a sense of love and longing … in the company of perfect strangers.

As things unfold others become uncomfortable with the emergence. Their need, legitimate need, for a sense of predictability and action, is confronted by the blossoming life and creativity in the room. Sometimes, as fear and scarcity fall off, the power to compel others in a ‘sure’ direction dissipates. ‘Waiting for it’ can be extremely challenging, like the ground underneath is gone.

As a host, or hosting team, you could very well find yourself overwhelmed by projections, transferences, shadows. Are you able to parse what is yours and what is someone else’s? Are you able to stay ‘still in disturbance’ when you have unleashed life on an unsuspecting routine? Are you able to hold your centre, process what is coming up for you, and still, still, transcend that to sense how to best host the room and respond to its needs first? Can you embody peace, trust, and non-attachment? Can you watch as some leave, separate, check out? Will you be okay? Can you stay ‘soft’ and out of leader-centric narcissism, its highs and lows, its doubts and certainties? Can you tenderly hold what is being born?

Top down leadership seems easier in the short term, but I believe it takes its toll. Too many leaders I have seen are in despair, prisoners of their own institutions, without the power to give life but only to take it away or at best hold the line. Alone, too often alone.

A different kind of leadership, participatory, serving as a host and cultivator of the conditions for transformative community change can be an incredibly wholing experience. I have come to see it as a spiritual practice. Rather than bouncing things off your thick skin you bring them in, sense and experience them fully, integrate, process, be responsive, then let go. It seems so much more personal and intimate. It is harder. And yet, in the times to come it will be necessary if we are, as a species, to learn how to serve life itself.  

I was there when a wise man I know suggested this:
Given the urgency of the crisis in which we find ourselves we have no time to be anything other than gentle.