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Neela 🌶️'s avatar

I love this Scott and you know I have thoughts hahahaha

The moment people stopped trying to be "leaders," they started actually leading.

Why? Because real community change doesn't need these things -

More vision statements

More leadership frameworks

More hero-leader worship

What it needs -

People who show up as themselves

Problems broken down to tomorrow's scale

Permission to ask for specific help

The most powerful line? "Never once have I thought: 'I'm going to leadership today so hard.'"

Maybe we don't have a leadership crisis.

Maybe we have an authenticity opportunity.

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Scott Ko's avatar

Hahahaha I was looking forward to your thoughts Neela! There was an older article I wrote a while back on my personal site in which I reflected that leadership is only ever identifiable in hindsight.

One of the things I reflected on there was: What might seem like good leadership in the short term might turn out to be horrible leadership in the long term, and vice versa.

However, by continuously talking about 'seeking leadership', we inadvertently reinforce the expectation for more 'vision statements' and hero leader worship.

Thanks for the reflection and the prompt that I really should update that article and republish it here!

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Alexandra Mateus's avatar

Thanks for sharing your process! Your framework suggests a real shift in how leadership summits can evolve to meet the needs of modern, interconnected, and diverse communities. By fostering a community of practice, you are empowering leaders to support and elevate each other, moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach that often fails to address specific challenges and opportunities.

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Scott Ko's avatar

Bang on. It's always struck me that people don't often get the opportunity to practice in a safe-enough environment the actual 'doing' of what leadership entails, so it becomes easy to forget all the ideas and theories they learn.

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Hans Jorgensen's avatar

Thanks. From Minnesota I find this helpful, especially #2

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Scott Ko's avatar

Love to hear it. I’m glad it’s helped!

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Ian Haycroft's avatar

Thanks Scott: There is SOOO MUCH good stuff in here that is solid, down to earth, how do we actually find a way to work together information. Thank you. You make it sound simple, but the level of insight into how humans work is really really important I think. Thank you.

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Scott Ko's avatar

Thank you Ian! Glad that came through!!

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