Leadership as Holding Space
Adaptive Leadership emboldens people and changes lives. Time and again, I’ve seen teams break through to new possibilities, communities tackle their toughest challenges and people rediscover their capacity for freedom in difficult conditions.
“Leadership” in these contexts means creating a space — and importantly, holding space — for people to grasp the bigger picture. To see themselves in both their full glory and full folly. To go through deep experiential learning in the service of a more beautiful world.
Powerful examples of holding space abound throughout history. For thirty years, practitioners of the clearness committee method from Quaker tradition held space to ripen the antislavery movement in the US. In Brazil, the educator Paulo Freire pioneered the “theater of the oppressed” as a way to hold space for people to regain their sense of humanity, reprising the oppressor–oppressed distinction. Nelson Mandela’s truth and reconciliation process in post-apartheid South Africa, a shining beacon of hope for democracy worldwide, brought space holding to a level unseen before or since.
Across time and place, people have developed countless practices for holding space with one another. I’ve seen the wondrous potency of restorative justice dialogues in prisons, peacemaking circles in first nations cultures, tribal rites of passage, ‘wandering’ retreats and the timeless power of mindful stillness in the great mystic traditions. As Rumi says, there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. Even the movement, laughter and embodied wisdom revealed by skillful stand-up comedy, musical improv, dance and sculpture can uncover difficult, necessary and beautiful truths. Truths whose realization calls for courageous leadership.
As a descendant of this long lineage, Adaptive Leadership shows us how to lead and hold space regardless of our history, identity or access to power. It brings us to the heart of the organizational realities of our time and place. There, it uncovers a vast field of leadership possibility in seemingly barren ground — organizational, political, social, ecological and personal healing. It reminds us that the work of leadership and the work of healing go hand-in-hand, reconnecting us to life, wholeness, loss, purpose and, ultimately, community.
Holding space as leadership. There couldn’t be a simpler concept.
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[Adapted from Adaptive Leadership Facilitator Guide by Eric Martin and Saima Irtiza]
