Creative Leadership Coaching

Happy new year!  Time flys when … you are busy   I am longing to write about Partnership dynamics.  However, I recently came an article on psychopathy and power hierarchies and am reminded of another topic — the pathology of dominator dynamics.  Reviewing the various pathologies of psychopathy, sociopathy, narcisism and codependence, one can (I suggest) readily [...]

Hi Carman, A beautiful Sunday morning to you! I agree that Partnership does not need to answer to Paul, Plato or Shakespeare, although I do enjoy dialoging with them from time to time. Thank you for sharing your deeply thought through and fresh thoughts on Paul. One observation I would add is that whatever was or [...]

Hi Lisa, Why am I not surprised that serving a greater good is [your] greatest form of satisfaction? Thank you too for your invigorating treatment of the holistic paradigm. I would like to address and integrate some of your comments, beginning with, “I disagree with Paul’s dichotomization of flesh and spirit, but that view is [...]

Carman, Thank you for this contribution. It’s so relevant to our whole discussion, I’m also posting it up here in the main blog. Best regards, Lisa Hello Denis and Lisa, I’m not sure about the question but I believe you are asking about the odd language academics use to describe organizational culture. It’s so easy [...]

Hi Lisa, I love Sundays! Thank you for the references to Solzhenitsyn. It’s interesting that thralldom figures prominently in his text: “The whole raison d’etre of serfdom and the Archipelago is one and the same: these are the social structures for the ruthless enforced utilization of the free-of-cost work of millions of slaves” (Chapter 5). [...]

Carman, Thank you for your note! I appreciation this whole process of deconstruction and reconstruction of ideas. It takes courage to relinquish our certainty enough to open our minds to new connections and possibilities. There is a period of chaos before new structures coalesce, which can be uncomfortable, to the say the least, but the [...]

Hi Lisa,  I am happy to hear that you have experienced Partnership relationships where thralldom was not an active force. I would like to include myself in that relationship. Succinctly, I would say that “partnership” is more probable where one is not subject to the will of another. Even slaves experienced a kind of partnership, [...]

Carman,  Thank you for offering the example of Orwell’s Oceania, as perhaps the ultimate example of a Dominator organization. Oceania is perhaps a pure example of a direction that human organizations can take when their core value is power (money and power-over) and there are no other strong mitigating values or externally or situationally imposed [...]

Carman, In re-reading your post, http://www.creativeleadercoach.com/2009/06/22/our-house-from-carman-de-voer/ I continue to notice new levels of richness and meaning. Freire describes some of the core insights of Partnership: “Any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence” (Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p.66). Yes, as Freire describes, domination is [...]

Another beautifully written post by Carman de Voer: Hi Lisa, For the last few weeks I’ve been pruning a figurative olive tree http://www.freewebs.com/gwencarm/–a Promethean task, to say the least, but one, I hope, will also “light up the mind.” I’m not at all surprised that you would integrate love and leadership. Though we have never [...]