Leadership is a naturally occurring and necessary function within any conscious organism that imbues and suffuses its ‘sphere of being’ with a sense of meaning and belonging. Leadership ensures that the group’s innate promise will be activated and quickened and that its deep purpose and destiny be fulfilled over time. Leadership is sensitive to and mindful of the cycles, seasons and psychological state of the group with its various developmental needs, and compassionately and skillfully cultivates the right psycho-energetic conditions in which the collective promise may unfold and eventually flower through the synthesis of everyone’s contributions.
Leadership maintains a sense of coherence in the overall group field so that each part understands and profoundly senses that it is part of the whole and that the ‘whole’ can only fully express through an integrated and aligned group field. The role of leadership in time and space is to help precipitate the promise and potential of a preferred and promised future into the matrix of the Now. Leadership supports the ever-unfolding process of revelation and reminds the organism of its place within the greater scheme of things.
Leadership, however, is more than a function, it is a fiery Presence of constant regeneration. If we view the energetic geometry of the group field, we have the vertical component that determines purpose and direction together with a horizontal component that ensures the interpersonal cohesion of the field. The vertical axis embodies the Masculine aspect while the horizonal outreach is a function of the Feminine aspect. When these two intersect we have a Cross. Leadership requires a dynamic state of equilibrium between the Feminine and Masculine Energies and so leadership stands at, and serves from, the center of this cross.
In addition to the Cross, another symbol may help illustrate the required dynamic equilibrium of Leadership in action. Imagine a Circle (or Sphere) representing the permeable membrane that bounds the group’s ecosystem with a focused point at the Center. In this way, the Leadership Presence stands both at the Center as the bearer of the Fiery Seed of Purpose (Masculine Energy) as well as holding the periphery of the sphere and the space inside it in the Fire of Love (Feminine Energy) that nurtures and sustains the whole living system. In a healthy and thriving organism, the Masculine and Feminine aspects of leadership stand and act together in dynamic equilibrium as a combined Creative Force.
Leadership is also charged with another responsibility: namely, that of connecting the sphere of the group’s ecosystem to the greater sentient system in which it ‘lives and moves and has its being’. No individual, group or system exists alone and separate and thus a vital leadership role is to remind the organism that it exists within a nested universe of evolving lives and is an integral aspect of a continuum – spanning the microcosm and the macrocosm – which is often referred to as the Great Chain of Being.
Michael Lindfield