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Sparks + Embers Episode No. 017: Apprenticeship Wisdom & Series Wrap
69 Plays1 month ago
In this final installment of the Apprenticeship Model for Leadership series, we talk about Generational Maintenance, synthesizing all domains for lifelong practice within a framework of intellectual humility and twenty-year thinking.
We also introduce the model for our next series, the Northern Arapaho's Four Hills of Life Movement. In this context we use the model to express some diuscssion about leadership and preview our next series about Community and what it means to live together.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction: Sparks and Embers
00:00:04
Speaker
There's something about a campfire. We gather around it, stare into the flames, and find ourselves in conversations we never planned to have. I'm Tiffany. And I'm Tyler. And this is Sparks and Embers, 10 minutes of what sticks when we step back from the fire.
Purpose and Insights of the Podcast
00:00:20
Speaker
Each week, we distill insights from our kindling newsletter, sharing the questions that won't let go and the connections that surprised us. We hope this creates space for whatever wants to emerge around your own fires.
Leadership and Apprenticeship: Living Bridges Metaphor
00:00:33
Speaker
We've reached the end of our series around the apprenticeship model for leadership. And we call back to the metaphor we began with, these living bridges of Megaliah.
00:00:43
Speaker
I was introduced to the living bridges of Megaliah through a three-week process exercise with an organization called Service Space, where we used the bridges as a metaphor for what it means to live together. And I think it's really served us throughout this entire series.
Themes: Leadership, Generational Thinking, Intellectual Humility
00:01:00
Speaker
This final article, we talk about the three themes that really connect everything. and Those three themes that we've seen woven throughout all of the articles and modules of this series include that leadership is a living system rather than a mechanical process, a linear formulaic process.
00:01:19
Speaker
It doesn't work when we treat people as cogs in a machine to be replaced. We need and must cultivate leadership in a way that is bi-directional.
00:01:31
Speaker
Part of the second theme is is that we want to be more generational in our thinking, more legacy driven, more asking what does it mean to be a good ancestor so that the things that we invest in today, we may never see the fruits of, we may never see the outcome It extends beyond the horizon of our own time here on earth. And when we, as leaders, embrace that, we become better leaders.
The Perpetual Apprenticeship Mindset
00:01:59
Speaker
And finally, that there is a intellectual humility in the idea of perpetual apprenticeship. The humility that the apprenticeship model engenders runs through this bi-directional recognition that I am a master, an expert, a leader, at the same time that I am a follower, an apprentice, a beginner.
00:02:23
Speaker
And that beginner mindset is something have. want to cultivate and embrace all of the time. There is no arrival. And the minute that we believe as leaders that we have arrived, that we are at the pinnacle, the summit, and there is nowhere to go from here, is the moment that we learn that yes, there is somewhere to go from there. And that is down back towards humility, oftentimes in humbling circumstances.
00:02:51
Speaker
This metaphor of cultivating over time, of working within nature to bend roots that build something that is enduring, that connects, that draws us together, that will last through the tumult of the intensity of life.
Four Hills of Life Movement Model Introduction
00:03:11
Speaker
is echoed in a another metaphor and worldview that we introduced this week. And it comes from the Northern Arapaho tribe. They call it the Four Hills of Life Movement model. We give an introduction to this model, then we adapt it as a wraparound for what we've been discussing the last seven weeks around apprenticeship and leadership.
00:03:36
Speaker
Part of the reason why this is important is because this will also be the model we are using in our next series where we will be discussing community, the characteristics that define community, what it actually is, and it it is also a bi-directional model.
00:03:53
Speaker
It is not a transactional model. And the Four Hills model is one that looks at the journey throughout everyone's life through the time that each of us is apportioned here as individuals in the context of living and bumping into one another.
Core Values in Leadership and Community
00:04:10
Speaker
And one of the things that the Four Hills model exemplifies is the characteristics, the core values that guide movement through all of those stages.
00:04:20
Speaker
Those four that we discussed briefly in this article are compassion, compassion, respect, quietness, and craziness. And I love the highlighting of these characteristics in this article because it really is used to address three fundamental questions of how does knowledge transmit across generations,
00:04:44
Speaker
How does personhood develop and evolve? How do communities adapt while maintaining core principles?
Ethical Leadership and Society's Focus
00:04:51
Speaker
And even though we've been talking about apprenticeship in the context of leadership, these are the reasons why we craft leadership and develop best practices and talk about expression and what's authentic and what's vulnerable.
00:05:07
Speaker
We talk about these things because... These are big questions for us. And I feel we've lost sight of the big questions. I feel we've lost sight as a culture of the things that draw us together. I feel we've lost sight of what it means to live.
00:05:25
Speaker
And that's why in Article 6, when we introduced the contrast between the living system and the death system, it's important for us to understand that with whatever time we have here, our choices matter.
00:05:40
Speaker
How we treat one another matters. The leadership of our own selves in our own solitude, the leadership in our families, in our tribes, the leadership that is evidenced within public office, the leadership that we show as stewards of our natural resources,
00:05:59
Speaker
All of those things aren't under assault, they're
Critique and Reclaiming Core Values
00:06:03
Speaker
absent. The symptom, the symptoms of chaos, the symptoms of separation, of division, of blaming, of scarcity, for us at Good Pain, we believe is because we have forgotten.
00:06:16
Speaker
We have forgotten these big questions. These questions will not be answered by anything outside of ourselves, particularly those that seek to leverage the fear and the risk and the anxiety that lies behind these questions sometimes due to the failures of community, due to the failures of our relationships to ourselves and to each other.
00:06:40
Speaker
It will not be answered by those leaders who exploit and abuse their power in order to maximize their own gains. That is unethical.
00:06:51
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That is not leadership. And at its core, that is what we wanted to prompt here with this conversation is not a critique on
Legacy-Driven Thinking and Community Values
00:07:02
Speaker
where we are. This is the strongest critique I think we've had through this entire series. What we want to call back to is the opportunity to remember that what we have done, we can do again.
00:07:14
Speaker
But what that requires is going back to these characteristics, compassion, respect, quietness, and this one that if you read the article and if you follow us in the next series, this craziness we will discuss in more detail.
00:07:29
Speaker
But those themes that we mentioned before, humility and continuing to lean into that perpetual apprenticeship, Longer-term thinking, legacy-driven thinking, and finally, choosing to live together is what we are about here at Good Pain.
00:07:46
Speaker
That's what this series means to us. And we are thankful and grateful that you have joined us through this.
Continuing the Conversation: Subscribe to Newsletter and Podcast
00:07:53
Speaker
If you want to read the full summary article, you can find it again on the website. And we look forward to our next series, again, discussing community and what it means to live together.
00:08:08
Speaker
Thanks for sitting around the fire with us. If these conversations sparked something, subscribe to Sparks Numbers and all our shows on Apple and Spotify. And if you're moved to, please leave us a review or share this episode with your friends.
00:08:20
Speaker
Both help us build this community. For the longer material that feeds these episodes, subscribe to the Kindling newsletter at goodpainco.com backslash kindling. That's goodpainco.com backslash kindling.
00:08:34
Speaker
We release it weekly with the kind of content that keeps these unexpected conversations going. We provide the kindling, you bring the fire. Until next time, keep the questions burning.