Sharma - Radical transformational leadership: strategic action for change agents

We live in a world battling for peace, threatened with violence, where inequality is justified as both means and ends. This self-destructive worldview is dominated and backed by spurious arguments for a leadership based on the idea of supremacy of a race, religion, or culture. Monica Sharmas counterargument is gentle and persuasive. Her voice, based on experience and conviction, strengthens the case that leadership can be shaped with equality, freedom, and justice, rooted in the transformational power of human compassion.

Aruna Roy, sociopolitical activist, recipient of 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award

Monica Sharma is one of the elder statesmen of Sacred Activism. In this passionate, subtle, brilliant book, distilled from a lifetime of experience in the United Nations and elsewhere, she has given us all a blueprint and map for radical systemic change and how best to enact it. Everyone aspiring to affect authentic leadership in and for our time should read this work. It is destined to become a classic.

Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism

We have the capacity to shift the paradigm; Monica Sharma tells us how. With an expansive global vision, a compassionate heart, and radical courage, she shares her practical experience in pioneering transformative leadership. Monica is a rare soul who stands up to power and demands results. We need to listen.

Nancy Roof, PhD, editor, Kosmos Journal

This is a book that I have been waiting for all my life! Here is the master document on human development and social change written by one of the worlds leading social artists. Monica Sharmas brilliant and compassionate work and ingenious know-how has lifted, inspired and helped to alleviate centuries-old problems. She offers a dynamic set of approaches, templates and tools as profound as it is precise in the art and science of transformation. To my mind, it is a crucial systemic exploration of how to work with and transform the interlocking circumstances contributing to the complex problems we are facing. To achieve a world that offers peace, equity, and well-being for everyone, this extraordinary work offers the reader creative ways and means of contributing to a world-changing agenda.

Jean Houston, PhD, author of Jump Time: Shaping Your Future in a World of Radical Change

Dr. Monica Sharma shares her deep experience through her work with the United Nations and elsewhere in international human relations, organizing for positive social change. We are informed by her vast knowledge of global issues and her approaches to transition to more sustainable, inclusive, knowledge-richer societies beyond todays dysfunctional economics and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This book belongs in libraries and on the shelves of global citizens all over our world.

Dr. Hazel Henderson, CEO, Ethical Markets Media

Copyright 2017 by Monica Sharma. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by
North Atlantic Books
Berkeley, California 94712

Cover art Lily81/Shutterstock.com

Cover design by Howie Severson

Book design by Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Figures 5.1 and 8.1, Maya Mathur. Figure 9.1, Anusha Mathur

Printed in the United States of America

Radical Transformational Leadership: Strategic Action for Change Agents is sponsored and published by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences (dba North Atlantic Books), an educational nonprofit based in Berkeley, California, that collaborates with partners to develop cross-cultural perspectives, nurture holistic views of art, science, the humanities, and healing, and seed personal and global transformation by publishing work on the relationship of body, spirit, and nature.

North Atlantic Books publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sharma, Monica, author.

Title: Radical transformational leadership : strategic action for change agents / Monica Sharma.

Description: Berkeley, California : North Atlantic Books, 2017.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017025657 (print) | LCCN 2017032584 (ebook) | ISBN 9781583948965 (ebook) | ISBN 9781583948958 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Leadership. | Strategic planning. | Social change. | BISAC: POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / General. | BODY, MIND & SPIRIT / Inspiration & Personal Growth.

Classification: LCC HD57.7 (ebook) | LCC HD57.7 .S47575 2017 (print) | DDC 303.3/4dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017025657

To my familySubodh, Sujata, Sugata, Shankar, Priyadarshan, Sudarshan, Aeshna, Ashish, Mudit, Anindita, Vikram, Anusha, Naina, Maya, and Rita.

To people who contribute toward a thriving world for everyone, everywhere; and nurture our young to reach their full potential.

And

To our children and youth for generations to come

I am grateful to people around the world with whom I have worked and those from whom I learned, whose contributions to society made it possible for me to write this book. I thank those who I have cited for enriching the book with their perspectives and reflections on what radical transformational leadership means to them. Andrew Harvey invited me to write this book and offered suggestionsthank you Andrew, it was an interesting journey for me.

Many thanks to Priyadarshan Sharma, my husband, who went through several drafts painstakingly and gave ideas related to economics; Megan Joseph, Kirsten Gallo, and Paola Babos for diligently reviewing the drafts and offering their views; Maya Mathur and Anusha Mathur for their creative artwork and reflections; Vikram Sharma for his thoughtful write-up; Naina Sharma for her reflections; Janet Thomas who meticulously edited several drafts; a few initial tips from Gulan Kripalani, Mel Wymore, Douglas Reil, and Gayatri Titus; and to Louis Swaim, Tim McKee, Jasmine Hromjak, Jessica Moll, Bevin Donahue and her team, Julia Sadowski, and others at North Atlantic Books who enthusiastically supported the publication.

We live in turbulent times. Although the benefits of technological advances are reaching many of us, at least two billion people on our planet are left out completely. And whether we are rich or poor, we are all impacted in some way by several disastrous decisions that humans have made in the past. Some of these decisions were made unknowingly and often with good intentions, but why do we continue to support them in the face of irrefutable evidence that these decisions have resulted in environmental degradation, species extinction, conflict, killing, the displacement of millions of refugees, and appalling life conditions for one out of every seven human beings? Trying to make sense of these issues, we ask questions that vary tremendously based on who we are and our lifes purpose, and where we are on our lifes journey. But these questions share a common theme: What is missing? How do we engage meaningfully in life? How do we become aligned and attuned in heart, head, and actions?

Looking back over my life, I think about what inspired me to act. There is a quote by Swami Vivekananda that has great meaning for me: Take up one idea. Make that one idea your lifethink of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success. For me, that one idea is