Leadership is Convening Excerpt from Community: The Structure of Belonging, by Peter Block Berrett-Koehler Publishers, May 2008 In communal transformation, leadership is about intention, convening, valuing relatedness, and
presenting
choices. It is not a personality characteristic or a matter of style,
and therefore it requires nothing more than what all of us already
have.
This means we can stop looking for leadership as though it were scarce or lost, or it had to be
trained into us by experts. If our traditional form of leadership has been studied for so long,
written about with such admiration, defined by so many, worshipped by so few, and the cause
of so much disappointment, maybe doing more of all that is not productive. The search for
great leadership is a prime example of how we too often take something that does not work
and try harder at it. I have written elsewhere about reconstructing leader as social architect.
Not leader as special person, but leader as a citizen willing to do those things that have the
capacity to initiate something new in the world. In this way, leader belongs right up there with
cook, carpenter, artist, and landscape designer. It is a capacity that can be learned by all of us,
with a small amount of teaching and an agreement to practice. The ultimate do-it-yourself
movement.
Community building requires a concept of the leader as one who creates experiences for
others––experiences that in themselves are examples of our desired future. The experiences we
create need to be designed in such a way that relatedness, accountability, and commitment are
every moment available, experienced, and demonstrated. David Isaacs of the World Café calls
this “relational leadership.”
This concept of leadership means that in addition to embracing their own humanity, which is
the work of every person, the core task of leaders is to create the conditions for civic or
institutional engagement. They do this through the power they have to name the debate and
design gatherings. We use the term gathering, because the word has different associations
from what we think of when we say “meeting.” Most people do not even like meetings, and for
good reason. They are frequently designed to explain, defend, express opinions, persuade, set
more goals, and define steps––the result of which is to produce more of what currently exists.
These kinds of meetings either review the past or embody the belief that better planning, better
managing, or more measurement and prediction can create an alternative future. So the word
gathering is intended to distinguish what we are talking about here, something with more
significance than the common sense of meeting.
Engagement Is the Point
Leadership begins with understanding that every gathering is an opportunity to deepen
accountability and commitment through engagement. It doesn’t matter what the stated purpose
of the gathering is. Each gathering serves two functions: to address its stated purpose, its
business issues; and to be an occasion for each person to decide to become engaged as an
owner. The leader’s task is to structure the place and experience of these occasions to move
the culture toward shared ownership.
This is very different from the conventional belief that the task of leadership is to set a vision,
enroll others in it, and hold people accountable through measurements and reward. Consider
how most current leadership trainings assert the following:
• Leader and top are essential. They are role models who need to possess a special set of
personal skills. .
• The task of the leader is to define the destination and the blueprint to get there. .
• The leader’s work is to bring others on board. Enroll, align, inspire.
• Leaders provide for the oversight, measurement, and training needed (as defined by
leaders).
Each of these beliefs elevates leaders as an elite group, singularly worthy of special
development, coaching, and incentives. All of these beliefs have face validity, and they have
unintended consequences. When we are dissatisfied with a leader, we simply try harder to find
a new one who will perform more perfectly in the very way that led to our last disappointment.
This creates a level of isolation, entitlement, and passivity that our communities cannot afford
to carry.
The world does not need leaders to better define issues, or to orchestrate better planning or
project management. What it needs is for the issues and the plans to have more of an impact,
and that comes from citizen accountability and commitment. Engagement is the means through
which there can be a shift in caring for the well-being of the whole, and the task of leader as
convener is to produce that engagement.
The Art of Convening
The shift is to believe that the task of leadership is to provide context and produce
engagement, to tend to our social fabric. It is to see the leader as one whose function is to
engage groups of people in a way that creates accountability and commitment. In this way of
thinking we hold leadership to three tasks:
• Create a context that nurtures an alternative future, one based on gifts, generosity,
accountability, and commitment.
• Initiate and convene conversations that shift people’s experience, which occurs through
the way people are brought together and the nature of the questions used to engage
them.
• Listen and pay attention.
Convening leaders create and manage the social space within which citizens get deeply
engaged. Through this engagement, citizens discover that it is in their power to resolve
something or at least move the action forward.
Engagement, and the accountability that grows out of it, occurs when we ask people to be in
charge of their own experience and act on the well-being of the whole. Leaders do this by
naming a new context and convening people into new conversations through questions that
demand personal investment. This is what triggers the choice to be accountable for those
things over which we can have power, even though we may have no control.
In addition to convening and naming the question, we add listening to the critical role of
leadership. Listening may be the single most powerful action the leader can take. Leaders will
always be under pressure to speak, but if building social fabric is important, and sustained
transformation is the goal, then listening becomes the greater service.
This kind of leadership––convening, naming the question, and listening––is restorative and
produces energy rather than consumes it. It is leadership that creates accountability as it
confronts people with their freedom. In this way, engagement-centered leaders bring kitchen
table and street corner democracy into being.
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