Comments on: A Live Meeting of Global Evolutionary Leaders

By: Russ Volckmann

Russ Volckmann — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:27:26 +0000

Enough re integral leadership? Nils, I would argue that the term has multiple meanings and applications. Isn’t it time we began working with those in the world, rather than dismissing them?

By: Christina Johnsson

Christina Johnsson — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:42:18 +0000

Thank you both Steve and Joel for your comments, I realise that there is much more to this than I grasp. I will certainly read the articles and come back on the matter.
See, I work as a leader in a human rights research environment and give lots of thoughts to a human rights based approach to leadership and to state organisation. Add to that that I am a Quaker European style, meaning spirituality without leadership. I bring this with me as I come here. I have seen so many human rights experts, government officials, academics and all leaders, harassing women, behaving rude and unfriendly, and I am on the search for another kind of leadership tactics not so focused on a particular individual. And I am skeptical to the while idea leader/follower, in particular ‘follower’. That compelled me to respond to Nils’ comments.

By: Steve Haase

Steve Haase — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:24:11 +0000

I’d like to suggest a “both/and” to your point, Christina. True leadership is essential in any field. Whether it’s in business, the arts, or spirituality, there will always be people charting the next frontier and showing the way. And what a wonderful thing that is!

At the same time, each authentic contribution from individuals, wherever they’re at, fleshes things out, and adds richness and veracity to the vision of the leader. What’s a visionary composer without performers who can meet his or her passion? What good is a spiritual teaching if there aren’t people to put such noble principles into practice in their lives? That’s the beauty of the process of discovery and creation, in self and culture. Each part is necessary to the whole.

By: Joel Pitney

Joel Pitney — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:05:22 +0000

Hello Nils and Christina,

Thanks for your comments. It is interesting that you are both responding to this issue. The German Integral Forum recently put together some guidelines for spiritual teachers to address many of the issues that Nils raised in his comments. In response, EnlightenNext founder and spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen wrote a very inspiring treatise on the importance of spiritual hierarchy in the genuine quest for Enlightenment. I think you’ll both find it very interesting. You can read it on his blog:

http://www.andrewcohen.org/blog/index.php?/blog/post/the-ever-unreasonable-nature-of-spirit/

By: Christina Johnsson

Christina Johnsson — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:58:11 +0000

Hi Nils, I absolutely agree with you. It is crucial that leadership lives that what it teaches. I would like to add that in a sense I think that spiritual leadership is a contradiction in terms. In my view we all have to find the leader within instead of outside of ourselves. It is the moral obligation of those who claim spiritual leadership to make themselves unnecessary in the long run.

By: Nils Montan

Nils Montan — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:20:55 +0000

I absolutely want to applaud these meetings of Evolutionary Leaders. One topic that us followers would like to see raised and prominently featured in any outcome statements from the meeting is the issue of the relationship between “leaders” and their “followers.”

In the old days this used to be termed the “Guru/Student” issue and many of us who were students of spiritual teachers over the past 40 years have directly experienced or heard of some fairly strange behavior by the teachers, often of what might be termed to be inappropriate sexual or “influence” abuse.

Please, Integral Leadership – we’ve had enough of that stuff already. The new spirituality can only thrive in an open and transparent environment. Any higher teaching that can’t deal with this doesn’t deserve our attention.