Karen Kimsey-House - Co-Active Leadership, Second Edition: Five Ways to Lead

Co-Active Leadership

authors of the international best seller
Co-Active Coaching

Co-Active Leadership, Second Edition

Copyright 2021 by Karen and Henry Kimsey-House
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Second Edition
Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-5230-9112-6
PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-5230-9113-3
IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-5230-9114-0
Digital audio ISBN 978-1-5230-9115-7

2021-1

Interior design: VJB/Scribe; Cover design: Nicole Hayward; Edit: Elissa Rabellino; Proofread: Kay Mikel; Index: Paula C. Durbin-Westby; Production service: Linda Jupiter Productions

Dedicated to the Co-Active leaders who have touched
our lives and the Co-Active leaders yet to come

C o-Active Leadership: Five Ways to Lead is based on the simple and somewhat radical idea that leadership need not be confined to a select few people at the top of the pyramid. Instead, everyone can be a leader regardless of role or title by choosing any one of five different ways to lead: Leader in Front, Leader Behind, Leader Beside, Leader in the Field, and Leader Within.

On any given day, we all occupy one of these roles, and when leadership is applied more broadly, we are more effective and fulfilled because this inclusive understanding of leadership fosters connection and empowers people to live and work with shared ownership of whatever is being generated.

Co-Active Leadership: Five Ways to Lead offers a more inclusive leadership model that values and respects different expressions equally. As we operate in this broader context of leadership, we are more effective and fulfilled because this inclusive application of leadership fosters a sense of interconnection and empowers people to live and work with shared ownership of whatever is being generated.

In the six-plus years since we wrote the first edition of Co-Active Leadership, weve worked with this leadership model extensively with our private and organizational clients, in the programs we teach globally, and in all aspects of our own company. Weve learned a great deal more about how to apply this model to every area of life, and this expanded second edition offers quite a lot of new material. There are two new chapters. , What Is Co-Active? provides a deep dive into the Co-Active philosophy, which guides this approach to leadership. The chapters illustrating each of the five different ways to lead have been updated significantly, with a number of suggestions for leadership development added at the end of each chapter.

We wrote Co-Active Leadership: Five Ways to Lead to offer a new model of leadership available as a choice to anyone. Organizational leaders and people who work in organizations, managers and those who report to them, community organizers and social advocates, parents and family members, team leaders and team members, teachers and students, business and life partners, and communities will all find this book invaluable. Most of all, we wrote this book for the dynamic and creative leader that lies within you, our reader.

Reading this book can be transformative, or it can be just an intellectual exercise. The key is your willingness to let go of what you believe leadership to be and to hold it in a completely new context that includes everyone, most particularly you. As you read Co-Active Leadership, we invite you to view each chapter as an invitation to claim different aspects of the compassionate, connected, creative leader within you.

The stories we share are from our own experience or the experience of students, clients, or colleagues. When others were involved, we have changed the names of the individuals to protect confidentiality.

If we are going to overcome the daunting challenges of our time, we must learn how to collaborate together in new ways that allow us to access the diverse talent and lived experiences of many. We hope that this book will prove to be both a practical guide and an inspiring journey and that it will support you in generating an experience of wholeness and success in your work and in your world.

O n October 17, 1989, the workday in San Francisco was just coming to an end. South of the city in Candlestick Park, thousands had gathered to watch Game 3 of the World Series. At 5:04 p.m., the Loma Prieta earthquake struck, shaking the Earth, shattering windows, knocking down buildings, and kicking up huge clouds of dust. Electricity was out throughout the entire city of San Francisco, so none of the traffic lights were working. Thousands of anxious people flooded out of the Financial District, inching their way home through a confused tangle of automobiles, cable cars, and pedestrians.

At Kearny and Pine, however, traffic was flowing freely. A homeless man, well known for his presence on one of the corners of this particular intersection, was directing traffic. He had placed himself in the center of the intersection and was managing the flow with great care and panache. He stood tall as he waved cars forward from one direction and held his hand up firmly as he instructed others to stop and wait. Attorneys, stockbrokers, and other highly paid executives all followed his direction without question. People who just the day before had walked by him without a second glance now honked, waved, and blew him kisses.

No one had told the homeless fellow that he was the one to step up and lead. He didnt need to wait for the authorities to arrive and give him a title. He just saw the need and decided that he was the person for the job. Those who were following his directions did not need to see a rsum to determine whether he had the requisite training. They immediately became dedicated co-leaders, eager to serve and support in whatever way they could.