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Sparks + Embers Episode No. 010: Leadership Within Self (Part 01, Apprenticeship Leadership Model)
100 Plays3 months ago
We launch our series on the Apprenticeship Leadership Model this week.
The Khasi people know something about trees that modern arborists are only beginning to understand: the strongest bridges grow from the deepest root systems. Before any rubber tree can span a river, it must first sink roots deep enough to withstand monsoon torrents. The aerial roots that eventually become bridges are fed by this underground network, invisible but essential. This is our metaphor for leadership this week.
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Transcript
Introduction to Sparks and Embers
00:00:05
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.
00:00:21
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.
Exploring Apprenticeship Leadership
00:00:35
Speaker
Welcome back to the show. Today we're launching a new series that I'm excited about. Tyler has been exploring and coaching the apprenticeship leadership model, and he structured it as a modern symposium with seven interconnected modules.
00:00:49
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Tyler, before we dive into today's topic, can you give us a big picture of what this series explores? Yeah, I think for me, the series follows the ancient symposium tradition, the sessions in the Agora, that Greek market that went wide and deep on topics.
00:01:07
Speaker
We're not just delivering information, but thinking through questions together. The seven modules build on each other. So we are going to start with leadership within the self. And then we're going to move through family, then tribe or community, profession, society, and then global context.
00:01:24
Speaker
We finally end with synthesis. Each module reveals how leadership in one domain prepares us for the next. And we talk about this through the lens of what's called those bridge builders of Megaliah who understood that individual trees become part of something larger when their root systems connect to underground.
00:01:41
Speaker
That sounds so interesting. And today we're starting with the foundation, leadership within self. You've been exploring this concept about the bridge builders in India. Can you tell us more about
Insights from Meghalaya's Bridge Builders
00:01:52
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that story? Yeah, it's the Qazi people in Meghalaya who grow bridges out of living tree roots.
00:01:58
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They guide rubber tree roots across rivers for decades, knowing they'll never walk on the bridges they are creating. Their great-grandchildren will. These bridges get stronger with time and storms while our concrete spans tend to crumble. I mean, decades of work for something they'll never use themselves. That's intense.
00:02:17
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When I was first exposed to this metaphor, it really made me think even more about leadership and that apprenticeship model.
Critique of Self-Help Culture
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We're drowning in credentials and leadership courses, but we're starving for the kind of wisdom that lasts.
00:02:30
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The Qazi people understand something we've forgotten. Real leadership grows from deep roots, not surface performance. So when you say leadership within yourself, you're not talking about self-help or those kinds things? Absolutely not.
00:02:44
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I spent years burning through productivity systems, convinced that the right habits would turn me into the leader I thought I needed to become. The harder I pushed, the more depleted I felt.
00:02:55
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I was trying to build bridges without really good, solid roots. I'm sure you you felt that. And what made you realize that it needed to change?
Solitude and Leadership Within
00:03:05
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I think one of those things was even just the recognition of the word solitude.
00:03:11
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There's such a push within our culture that I felt towards individual achievements and going it alone. We lionize the view of that maverick, that person who pulls themselves up by their bootstraps, the reframing of what that looks like in terms of this solitude anchoring.
00:03:30
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where I'm practicing going within myself each morning, no agenda, no phone, just sitting with whatever's happening inside. That's something that helped me to cultivate who I need to be in context to the communities in which I operate.
00:03:49
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That's a really important core requisite that I've found for myself in talking to other leaders is equally important as well. That unless we find that sense of anchoring within self, we will be blown about by virtually anything.
00:04:06
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That seems counterintuitive for leadership development. I think it can be. Leaders I respect most aren't trying to convince anyone of anything. They speak from such clarity about their own values that others are drawn to their perspectives, partially because by speaking with that clarity within themselves, they're calling others or almost giving permission to others to find that sense of clarity and values within themselves that are authentic and real.
00:04:35
Speaker
That kind of authority can't be manufactured through charisma or techniques. It grows from sustained attention to that inner landscape. Yeah, that's really that's really cool. You mentioned something called 20-year thinking in your article.
The Practice of 20-Year Thinking
00:04:51
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What does that mean in practice? When someone asks me to take on a project now, I ask myself to stand in the future by some leap, whether that's a year, five years, or in this case, 20 years. Will this decision seem wise 20 years from now?
00:05:05
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It eliminates a lot of opportunities, which can feel terrifying. But what I discovered is that this filter reveals which opportunities align with my deepest values.
00:05:16
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So in the end, you're making fewer commitments. Fewer commitments, better commitments, increasing the quality. The projects that pass that 20-year test energize rather than drain me.
00:05:28
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They connect me with something sustainable in my motivation and something that won't burn out when the enthusiasm fades or when the day-to-day drudgery starts to diminish the sheen on a project.
00:05:40
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I think a lot of people would recognize that feeling inside them. Is there research, though, backing this up? Yes. We have research that shows that heart rate variability demonstrates we think better when we operate from longer timescales rather than moment-to-moment stress responses. When our heart rhythms align with longer-term cycles...
00:06:03
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Our cognitive of performance improves measurably as well. I think we know these things. The research validates that we are a mix of short-term and long-term.
00:06:14
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We just happen to be in a point in history where I think a lot of us feel that we're just thinking and living in the short-term alone. And part of...
00:06:25
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of what I have to ask myself in the leadership of myself is where am I allowing myself to be co-opted into short-term thinking? We all are feeling that sense of pressure on getting more and more short-term in our thinking. And we're forgetting that legacy matters.
00:06:44
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We're forgetting that we stand for something bigger than ourselves. In addition to having to put food on the table, in addition to needing to meet the needs of the near term, all of that has a context.
00:06:58
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And when we start to lose that context, when we start to lose the opportunity for thinking that I'm building something that my grandkids will use, that's where we start to find in a sense of imbalance.
00:07:10
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So this challenges the whole self-made leader narrative that's everywhere. I think that myth is killing us and has been for a long time. I went to a conference where everybody shared their individual breakthrough story, but it was interesting.
00:07:26
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There was very short attention that was given to the community of people around them, the community of solitudes who had stepped into new roles as elders, as people who were builders.
00:07:40
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That competition for who can thump on their chest the loudest to really emphasize, look at what I did and to point to what I did without the deference to the teachers, the family members, the colleagues, those communities that enabled growth, that narrative structure, it's a lie that our present leadership emerges from individual effort. It never has. It never will.
00:08:04
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But for some reason, we all want to believe that. I think partially because we want to selfishly be entitled to the fruits of this myth that says we did it all ourselves. Therefore, we get to control everything ourselves.
00:08:18
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So when you mean that you're being thoughtful about the people that come around you that bring you to where you are now, do we see the effects of that in research?
Quality Relationships in Leadership
00:08:28
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Yeah, social neuroscience confirms what those bridge builders have known, that human development is collaborative. Our brains develop differently depending on the quality of relationships available to us. And that means quality through a diversity lens as well.
00:08:43
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The neural pathways for emotional regulation and complex decision making require interpersonal connection in order to form. Okay, so what does this mean for someone listening who feels stuck in their leadership development?
00:08:56
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I think from an action perspective, we can start mapping our invisible support systems that enable us and our current work. Who listens when we process difficult decisions?
00:09:09
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Who challenges our thinking without making me defensive? When I include these relationships in my understanding of leadership development, the whole project felt more sustainable.
00:09:20
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So instead of treating yourself as a performance machine that needs optimization, you're... I can focus on tending the relationships and practices that generate the clarity and courage leadership requires for where leadership is going to emerge within myself and those around me.
00:09:39
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Leadership development becomes community development when we stop trying to transcend our interdependence and and trade it for this independence. This sounds like a complete reframe of what leadership development means, least right now.
00:09:55
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I would say that it's not new. We've known this for a long time. The bridge builders have been around for a long time. Apprenticeship is not new, and that's going to be a theme we're going to keep emphasizing. But we've forgotten.
00:10:06
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Individual trees become part of something larger when their root systems connect underground. The strongest bridges emerge when multiple trees contribute their resources to a shared structure serving the entire community.
00:10:20
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We are part of networks we can't see. The question is whether we're conscious participants.
Practices for Sustainable Leadership
00:10:28
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Yeah. Where do you want people to start with this approach? I think there's three experiments that we can do in our own lives. and And the first is trying that solitude anchoring, finding minutes. This is, again, not new. And there's lots of people that say find 10, 20, 30 minutes without agenda, disconnected from digital demands.
00:10:47
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Build on top of that. Apply that 20 year filter to your current commitments. And finally, map the support systems that enable work and ask if they're sustainable or are we just right at the edge all the time waiting for these things to topple over? Yeah.
00:11:03
Speaker
um So in the next series, you're exploring how family so systems fit into this, right?
Family as an Apprenticeship in Leadership
00:11:08
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Yeah. Family becomes our first apprenticeship in this underground economy of mutual support. We learn the grammar of relationship that shapes every other form of leadership we attempt.
00:11:18
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Most people think family dynamics are personal therapy, but their preparation for leading in communities where trust and long-term commitment determine whether our good intentions actually serve people. The full article digs deeper into all of this. It goes, yeah, much farther.
00:11:35
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We explore the research, the challenges and the questions that keep emerging. When we start thinking like bridge builders, the Qazi people know something we're beginning to remember, that the trees that grow deep roots in solitude, they end up discovering they were never alone.
00:11:52
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That's beautiful.
00:11:55
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Thanks for sitting around the fire with us.
Engage with Sparks and Embers
00:11:57
Speaker
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.
00:12:07
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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.
00:12:21
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.