The Leadership of Water

Water, that most magical of substances! It has no shape of its own, yet it is instantly identifiable. It is everywhere life is. We know of no life without water; it is necessary for life to exist and for it to continue to exist. It was a major step in evolution when life discovered how to take water with it, so it could move onto land.

Water has memory. The wonderful work of Masaru Emoto (Messages from Water) showing how water changes when infused with spoken words, and the idea of Homeopathy that water can hold the memory of various pathogens are other ways that we recognize that water has memory.

Water has three, maybe four forms; liquid, solid, vapor, and the ‘fourth phase,’ sometimes called ‘structured/ describes water's ability to form a layer along water loving (hydrophilic) surface. No other substance has this variety of properties. What IS water?

In the work I’ve done on Earth’s Values, and the Global ethic that LIFE uses, I was encouraged by a friend, Ani Ahavah, to look at water through the lens of values. What can water teach us about living the values of nature?

Of the sixteen values I distilled from my research the first, and most important is the one first articulated by Jannie Benyus, All actions create the conditions that support life. Now think about water for a moment. Isn’t that all it does? That seems to be what water just does. When water is polluted – it didn’t do that, it is carrying the toxins to remove them, as best it can. When it’s raging, it is often because of our disruption of the balances the rest of life has created for it. Water holds memories of our pain and ugliness to each other, but cheerfully releases them when we re-infuse it with love.

I’m feeling a resistance to saying ‘it.’ Water is kin, water is more than kin, water is us. Our language makes it hard to speak of this closeness without generating the distance of separation. Water always has the greater good in mind, so water always manages the health and integrity of the whole, the second principle or value of Earth. Permaculture speaks best to this aspect of water, slow, spread, sink. From a leadership perspective this changes the act of leadership from one of aggressively forcing action to the Confucius approach best capitalized in the paraphrasing of the  saying “Effective leadership is achieved when participants say, we did it ourselves.” The slow spreading of understanding seeps into consciousness and becomes, simply, the way we do things.

Basic to the understanding of authentic effectiveness is the undercurrent of right-relationship, a third value of nature. Win, win, win is the metric of right-relationship, where all parties are benefited versus the old concept of compromise which suggests shared loss. Where life is concerned, all parties need to be better off for being in relationship, and that sometimes takes patience. There is no contest, but a desire to ensure the long-term benefits which may take time to see, understand and integrate. Patience is a virtue.

This also speaks t0 reciprocity and interdependence, two other Earth values as aspects inherent in right-relationship. For me, reciprocity speaks to the heart urge that forms naturally when a benefit is received, as the natural response to balance that gift arises for expression. Water certainly models these as well. An open reception to water is responded to by the gift of life and the giving of that gift requires the reception of that gift as an integral part. I think the welcoming reception is often overlooked and is corrupted by the shift in consciousness of taking. The humbleness of receiving is very different from taking, and that difference is the difference between being in relationship and being interdependent and a top-down control context. It is all in the attitude. That is why reverence is a key aspect of right-relationship. Water is incredibly generous, but at the same time, can be ferocious when denied.

The many forms of water speak to water's ability to manage energy economically, without waste. The generation of heat or the removal of heat are all done in ways that balance the climate atmosphere. There is zero waste. The structural changes are done to ensure balance, and disruption through storms and disasters come when that balance has been tampered with. Water's right-relationship with plants and soil ensure the balanced shift in structure, but when soil is killed to become dirt and plant life is replaced with asphalt and concrete and that balance is removed, then the excess energy must be expressed in ways that are often detrimental. This is at the heart of the bionic pump. The bionic pump is a description of the ways in which water finds balance and in which the natural cooling of the Earth takes place. Life needs water, and life – as we know it – needs a certain temperature range, as well. The bionic pump is the way nature and water created to maintain that special temperature range. We humans have tampered with that, and now we are seeing the results.

Dynamic stability, another value, is one that water does best. Waters need to shift from fast to slow, from narrow to wide, and from surface to underground all speak to the need for temporary changes without actually changing anything. The expansion of the riverbed prevents flooding. That temporary change must be included in an understanding of ‘normal’ to allow for the needed flexibility. Another way of saying this is that boundaries are not walls or fences, but ranges of acceptance. Working with that range save time, money and aggravation. The range is dictated by the entity needing the expansion, not by some outside entity. This is where respect and trust come in, from a leadership perspective. Listening to what’s needed and not second guessing or overriding are key.

Optimization, co-creation and agency are other Earth values that Water can be a model for leadership. Agency has two aspects, directive and responsive. When water takes its own agency, it is such a friend and supporter. It is the life giving support that is at the heart of water’s purpose. When water is being reactive in response to actions by others that are out of water’s control, then we shudder at the power and force of those responses. How often is this true of leadership? When the leader's hand is soft and gentle, then the receptivity of the followers is often spontaneous and seemingly invisible, but when the leader's had is harsh the reactions are often equally dramatic, even when hidden and behind closed doors. The dynamic, interdependent dance between leadership and the rank and file is very often overlooked. Leaderships agency is tightly coupled with the agency of the followers. It is the regenerative leader's job to release the follower's agency by making them leaders in their own right. It is by making everyone a leader that the organization is optimized. Optimization speaks to the health of the whole, and we are back to where we started.

Life is not about parts and pieces. Life is about ensuring that the life, through the love of life, continues. Life is about loving life, so keeping, engendering that joy is a key leadership role, one that few understand or accept. Leaders so often get caught up in the achievement thing that they forget about the journey to get there. Life is about the journey, not the result. This is another lesson from water. Waters ‘achievement’ is not getting to the ocean, because that is only one stop on its journey. Water’s achievement is the LIFE it brings forth on its journey from one form to another. This is a regenerative leader's achievement, as well.