Sharing Leadership Ideas from Real Life
Each Thursday, I’ll launch a topic for discussion, dialogue, debate, and introspective conversation. In group facilitation situations, I ask the participants to reframe disagreement from the category of a “weapon” to the category of a “creative tool.” This change in paradigm allows for very lively and productive discussions to happen. It takes away the risk of feeling like participants are criticizing each other and allows them to be free to point to ideas and concepts without having to pretend to be polite or pretend to agree. We have been conditioned to feel that disagreement is not polite. In fact, disagreement is a way to be in integrity.
We find that it’s okay to disagree. Many times we find new ideas, fresh perspectives, and opposite polarities that make sense. Healthy dialogue does not depend on everybody agreeing; in fact, if everybody agrees, it’s a boring discussion, and we might get trapped by not exposing blind spots that could limit our effectiveness as leaders and as an organization.
In that spirit, I offer a chance for dialogue on topics related to leadership. I will choose topics that have high visibility in the news or in certain communities of interest, such as business, entrepreneurship, religion, and social benefit work. I welcome suggestions for other topics. I’m sure that there are many, many to choose from.
Will you contribute your ideas? Please comment using the form below.
Today’s topic:
Racial profiling with local police departments…what is the leadership challenge, internal and external?
Here’s an article posted on March 5 in USA Today:
DOJ: Wilson won’t be charged in Ferguson fatal shooting
Read it HERE
I have become more aware of this problem since I have been attending a local group called “Dialogue on Race” where we have conversations about the issue and in which our local police chiefs and sheriff are participants. I now have a very different perspective on the situation.
Can we have dialogue and share thoughts as an information exchange and not as an argument? Many groups don’t have the skills or the culture to have open dialogue when there are differing perspectives.
Questions to answer:
- What is the leadership challenge with police racial profiling?
- How can community leaders respond to this challenge from both an internal perspective inside the municipality, and externally as a citizen?
Please comment below.
Hugh Ballou
The Transformational Leadership Strategist TM
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