Recently, a client shared with me her thoughts on why her organization had received round two “consolation” funding instead of “continuance" funding for a large initiative.  She said,  

I guess we were so good at including [the other partners’] components of this project that the funder didn’t realize our contribution.

Sound familiar? Have you ever been such a team player that your contributions were almost entirely overlooked? Her story definitely resonated with me. I felt frustrated, thinking; the funder doesn’t see the forest through the trees.

Strong leaders in this work know that our role, our real value is to elevate the whole over the parts, to contextualize within the bigger picture, to include the stories, the metaphors, the meaning of each data point. To keep the focus on the end user—our participants.

Of course, it’s helpful to break down data, analyze the numbers, and get to the cause…but then we must bring that information back together to inform the bigger picture.  To help us create meaning in our work.

If we only look at the test scores or workshop feedback, we miss the buzzing energy of what is possible. What we are on track to shift, to create, to actualize. If we stop at the data, we lose where this is all going. 

We lose young people’s voices.

We lose families’ dreams.

We lose subtle community shifts.

We lose the look in our leaders’ eyes when they have found possibility again.

I was recently introduced to the work of Iain McGilchrist, a British psychiatrist and literary scholar who speaks about current research on left brain/right brain. Nowadays, we know the brain functions fully, as one integrated system. But, the hemispheres of brain do differ in their focus. 

The left hemisphere focuses on

• explanation

• cause

• analysis

• reduction

• detail

• specificity

• number

The right hemisphere prioritizes 

• meaning

• holism

• narrative

• comparison

• metaphor

McGilchrist argues that Western culture places more value on the left hemisphere over the right. And that is dangerous—because while the right side can include the the style of the left, the left side is exclusive. The right side can speak for the whole whereas the left cannot.  The right is actually “the master” and the left side is “the emissary”. (McGilchrist’s book is titled, The Master and his Emissary. Here’s a summary as an animated video.)

In effect, we as leaders of this work, are like the brain’s right hemisphere.  (Ding, ding— a simile!) In a world that currently over-values the breaking down of our work, our leadership, our programs and our communities to parts, characteristics and measurables… we must continually be the voices that bring perspective and make meaning.

So here we are—right hemispheres in a left hemisphere-valuing world:

• Includers in a world that continues to exclude

• Connectors in a world that continues to isolate

• Strategists in world that jumps to tactics

It’s lonely being a leader with such deep heart, such holistic vision and hope. Where, your commitment to this work is enmeshed with your self. Where, being a team player and elevating the whole is far more important than being recognized for your individual contributions.

What do we do with that? How do we move forward? I can’t help but look to Audre Lorde for advice. She says,

In our community service, nonprofit, education, social justice work, as leaders we must define and empower. We need to speak up. We have to lift up the value of the individual parts by bringing it all back to the whole. We have to show how the data knits back together to inform the greater meaning of our work. We have to say: each contributor is valued here—even when it is not always clear how. We must empower each voice and celebrate how each of those parts come together as our collective vision—The vision for a truly better world.