Reading Kristen Lombard’s article on how The Circle Way supports the development of learning communities and authentic leadership brought to mind my several year involvement in the Shambhala Summer Program for Authentic Leadership (later called the ALIA Institute – Authentic Leadership in Action), convened annually in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. There, global thought leaders in leadership, process design and facilitation, organizational development, coaching, systems thinking, and creative expression hosted weeklong intensives held within the Shambhala wisdom tradition of contemplation and trust in authentic human nature.  Borrowing from co-founder Susan Szpakowski’s “Little Book of Practice: For Authentic Leadership in Action” (2010), below are several of its practices for sustaining authentic leadership in complex times.

1. Preparing a Place for A Meeting, Conversation or Event – In the words of architect Christopher Alexander, as much as you are able, choose a space that “gives life and beauty” with natural light, spaciousness, privacy, enlivened with flowers, music and other attractive touches, congruent with purpose and the “culture” of the gathering.

2. Getting Clear on Purpose – I call this “the conversation before the conversation,” the time spent together in advance of the actual gathering, to define, clarify and articulate the purpose of convening others together. Purpose is an organizing principle that helps maintain focus through emergent complexity and turbulence.

3. Preparing and Paying Attention via Mindfulness – Noticing how and to what we pay attention invites access to our inner and collective resources. The result we get depends on the type of attention or awareness we use. Practices that help us differentiate between our habitual self-referential or ego way of relating to the world (it’s all about me) and the direct, here and now experience, gets us out of our heads and into wholeness of our mind-body connection.

4. Noticing and Simply Asking – How do we suspend some of our limiting filters of perception and assumptions that underlie our actions? How do we listen deeply to what life calls us and others to do, and ask questions that invite curiosity and exploration, rather than reactive problem solving? How do we shift the conversation to focus on what matters, what we care about, what’s possible versus what’s wrong?

5. Supporting Relationships That Hold – When the intention and valuing of relationship is set using means for reflection and conversation, a shared purpose larger than any one individual agenda can be discovered.  Building trust, alignment and intention among a core group stewarding purpose creates the larger field holding the smaller field of work and action. The Circle Way’s shape of wholeness and emphasis on inclusion and equality, together with the thoughtful application of its components, e.g. checking in, forming agreements, roles, provide the structure and methodology to realize this potential of relationship.

6. Celebrating – By making and taking the time to celebrate our successes along the way, “we are celebrating the richness we already have. Our joy and generosity arise naturally, because we have let go of the burden that comes from being too small, isolated, already defeated. We celebrate the consciousness that arises when we come together with intention, inquisitiveness, humour, fearlessness, and gentleness.” (111)

Katharine Weinmann (Canada) is a teacher, practitioner and board member of The Circle Way. In her professional and “pro bono” work she helps individuals and groups attend to their inner lives to live and lead with kindness, clarity and wisdom.