The death of Vaclav Havel yesterday reminds me of the essence of politics, the greater sense of service and community that defines politics in its purest form. Havel, a dissident, playwright and the first president of the Czech republic after the fall of communism, believed in a politics was that was “a practical morality, as service to the truth, as essentially human and humanly measured care for our fellow humans.”

His rhetoric about community and relationship is missing in our current polarized and polarizing political climate. Long before people spoke of emotional intelligence, Havel was championing it. In discussing what he learned during his tenure as President of the Czech Republic, Havel says he realized that the most essential assets for any politician are

fellow-feeling, the ability to talk to others, insight, the capacity to grasp quickly not only problems but also human character, the ability to make contact, a sense of moderation: all these are immensely more important in politics.

Is there still room for such kind of politicians? Am I naïve to believe that politics could someday embody these ideals? Perhaps. Yet I hold out the hope that we can and will get there one day.

I’m here in Denver at the 2011 Worldwork Conference – 260 people from all over the world, learning about the planet and its vast problems, and also learning how to facilitate and resolve conflict. Today I’m part of the facilitation team. Sitting here over my coffee, getting ready for the day, I’m reminded of my post, “Leading Under Fire,”  which I originally called Game Day. I’m reposting it here, and I think I’ll also give it a re-read, reminding myself of all my good points, as I get ready for the day. Enjoy!

Read the full post here.

Martin Luther King, Jr., on the eve of his assassination, eerily voiced a premonition of his death:

I’ve been to the mountain top!… He’s allowed me to go up the mountain! and I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight… that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!  And I’m happy tonight, I’m not worried about anything…. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

King, like Moses, never gets a chance to see the promised land. It’s both a truth and a metaphor. It’s a metaphor for leadership: There really is no leader beyond our own yearnings and dreams. While we  hope to rest in the illusion that there exists someone wiser, greater, or more powerful who can lead us, our fate is to become the wise woman or man we crave.

Is it even possible to  elect a leader, or a government that lives up to our ideals? Or, are our ideals ours to become? John Dewey predicted this when he said that, contrary to popular thought, the work of democracy was not to achieve common good and harmony, but was the work of individual self-realization. This is, as James Baldwin said, the real work of achieving our country.

I can’t help but be influenced by the end of year recaps at this time of year –the best of this, the worst of that. It’s definitely a time to reflect, review, and plan. I love spending a few days, usually somewhere between Christmas and New Years, reflecting on  the past year, what I’ve accomplished,  learned, did, things I didn’t do, and then meditating on my sense of the coming year. It’s not just about goals – but also about what I sense is on the horizon. I try to feel my way into what the coming year will bring. What tendencies are stirring? Fantasies? What have I been daydreaming about? What projects are coming my way? Things that feel really important, I’ll work into more practical goals – I’ll set small benchmarks, assign them a time and place. I’ll look into my schedule and prioritize.

Looking backwards is fun, too. One of the things I like doing is reading through my agenda, journal and writing, seeing what I have done over the past year. Sometimes I read back several years, and two things always jump out at me. First, I’m always pleasantly surprised to see that I really have accomplished some things. I know, it sound a bit crazy, But I am one of those people who suffer from feeling there is way more to do than what I have time for. So seeing the things that have actually happened is always refreshing.

The other thing I notice is that even as I change, I stay the same. I think we all d0. We really do have theme songs, and no matter where we end up, we have something very recognizable about us. I saw this recently, since I just launched my newly revised website, thanks to the collective genius of Team Diamond (Suzie Schofield, Jim Parker and Bryan Capitano). I was looking for documents related to my web server and it gave me an opportunity to look at websites past. Like Scrooge in his vision, I dropped in on earlier iterations of myself. So what is it that didn’t change? Well, looking back at my earlier web presence, before blogs, before Web 2.0, before social media, I was playing around with different ways to create community with my website. Are there any readers out there who remember:

The Village Well? An email string on research and creativity?

Hi-5 – top 5 favorites submitted by different contributors?

The Process Work Wiki, or pwiki, which later was Processworkinternational?

OK, enough of the past for now, soon I’ll be drunkenly singing Auld Lang Syne and making promises I won’t want to keep ….

Wishing you all happy holidays, and thanks for reading. It’s a pleasure to not change along with you all!

Randy Cohen, the New York Times’ ethicist, recently opined on the court ruling that ordered Google to release the name of the anonymous blogger whose site Skanks in NYC was devoted to slandering a fashion model:

Has anonymous posting, though generally protected by law, become so toxic that it should be discouraged?

This issue has gotten my attention as I’m preparing a workshop on Bullying in the Public Sphere. I often find myself drawn to read comments on news sites, drawn no doubt by the same impulse that makes me crane my neck as I drive by an accident. Unmoderated comment sections provide an un-chaperoned space for every adolescent impulse we’ve ever repressed. The comments rapidly devolve into nasty, name-calling, deliberately inflammatory and hateful. It’s this impulse (what possible evolutionary purpose might it serve?) that the mainstream media depend on for their fortunes, and is no doubt why there continues to be unmoderated comments sections after every article. (more…)

When I started this blog, I didn’t want it to focus on current events or politics. But it’s hard, in these recent days, not to focus on the issues dominating the headlines. Is anyone else like me? I dread election years. I watch the news and debates out of sense of duty, cringing through them, and finding excuses to leave to the room. I hate the feeling of my lowest instincts being appealed to, my fears, prejudice and hatred being played like a violin. I am insulted by politicians who seek to flatter me or who expect me to admire their wit and cleverness when they mock their opponent. I hate them but I hate myself more for being susceptible to it.

As the nation was riveted this past week on the financial crisis and bailout, a tiny feeling of optimism crept in. The financial crisis requires real understanding, an intellectual grasp of an arcane, highly complex and completely opaque system. While the financial outlook may be grim, one silver lining is the opportunity for learning and a real engagement with issues beyond the usual Punch and Judy show that the media would have us focus on. (more…)

“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people” — Mohandas Gandhi

Welcome to my blog, A Userâ??s Guide to Power. Why a userâ??s guide? My focus here is on learning how to use power well, and when, why and how itâ??s used poorly. Itâ??s also part of a longer project of writing a book called A Userâ??s Guide to Power^TM.

Why power? Why not call it leadership, influence, or persuasion, as do others when they talk about power? I want to use the word â??powerâ?? just because itâ??s such a dirty word and thorny problem. I want to tackle the problems of power head-on. Friendlier words like influence, persuasion, or leadership make it more manageable, but unpacking those thorny problems of power may help us learn more about its uses and misuses.

This blog will be a more personal, at times psychological approach to the behaviors and skills underlying our use of power. Itâ??s not going to focus on current politics, or even on specific public leaders, though it may occasionally. Itâ??s not about critiquing or benchmarking leadership by example, because my goal is to view leadership and the use of power as an everyday behavior, something for us all to master. This blog is a small attempt to humanize and demystify leadership, to bring it down off the mountain and into the hands of the people. Hopefully, it will be a forum on the trials and tribulations, challenges and success of leaders and leadership. I hope that by investigating the behaviors, mindsets and challenges inherent in using power, we come to appreciate leadership as something we all do and must do.

Thatâ??s why I call it a â??userâ??s guide.â?? Even though power is most associated with office, strength, rank, economics, or whatever, at its root, itâ??s still a set of behaviors. And therefore, using it well is learnable. It means learning and mastering the set of skills and behaviors that comprise it. Not dissimilar from learning to ride a bike. That may be an oversimplification, or naïve, but everything Iâ??ve seen so far in my work lead me to think this is worth a shot.

In the interest of full self disclosure (which is, supposedly, a good use of power), one of my ulterior motives is to talk about democracy. By viewing leadership and the use of power as something for us all to master, I am beating the drum for democracy. Personally, I am fascinated by the psychology of democracy â?? that means, how do people, not just countries, governments, and institutions, become democratic? What are the behaviors that we need to act democratically? And how do we learn them? Democracy, to date, has been more of a mechanism and less of a behavior. Because power is at the heart of democracy – demokratia, â??power of the people,â?? talking about the behaviors underlying power also means talking about the behavior that makes us democratic – governing ourselves and others wisely.

Trying to tackle the problems of power and failure of democracy only in terms of systems, institutions, governments, etc., misses a key leverage point â?? people. Before power is a problem on the outside, itâ??s a profound personal problem for the individual. Our first experience of how we use power is personal and internal. Getting up in the morning, we push ourselves to leave the warm bed, to turn on the shower, answer difficult emails, make breakfast for the kids, go to a job we hate, endure routines we dislike. And we use power everyday to make choices, whether mundane choices between eggs or cereal, or life altering decisions between jobs, partners, or goals. Even if we donâ??t make choices, or refuse to decide, weâ??re using power to resist deciding.

This use of power is not always at our fingertips. It is often used against us. Inner criticism is a form of power. So are resistance and cynicism, procrastination, rebellion, and bad moods. We use power to pursue goals that arenâ??t good for us. We use power to convince ourselves that we donâ??t deserve to live with love in our lives. We use power when we talk ourselves into giving up, or push ourselves to stay with something harmful. Power is at play whenever we put ourselves down, or feel inferior.

While it is often easier to see power â??out there,â?? in our bosses, parents, teachers, and in the institutions and bureaucracies that confound or oppress us, power begins within. How we use power on the outside is a reflection of how we use it on the inside. Whether we feel empowered or not, whether we can push back and influence the world around us in ways we want, depends on our intimate relationship to power.

My next series of posts concern the fog of war, the confusion, lack of awareness and obscured vision that awaits us when we step into a leadership role. I also look forward to being enriched by hearing from those of you in designated leadership positions, what is the human side of leading like? How is it to be in the crosshairs of public opinion? What has helped you most, been the biggest challenge? What have you learned from your failures? Thanks for joining me here.