Leader as Partner
Riane Eisler offers an appreciative emphasis on relationship and leader as partner that aligns with that offered by Teilhard.x Eisler proposes that seeds have already been sown for the movement of our society from a highly individualistic and competitive dominator model to a collaborative and more feminine model of partnership.xi She comments extensively on the reexamination of cultural history that is now occurring. This history, according to Eisler, shows that our world has known many eras when highly advanced civilizations have existed successfully with partnerships rather than domination. Eisler dramatically documents the destructive consequences of a world that fails to value the feminine characteristics of collaboration and colleagueship.
War, poverty, and ecological dislocation arises from an indiscriminate valuing and rewarding of more masculine characteristics: hierarchy and the use of force to establish status:xii
Drawing upon a wide range of relatively neglected old as well as recent social scientific studies—in particular, recent and potentially revolutionary findings by archaeologists in Anatolia, Crete, and Old Europe . . . Eisler proposes two primary models of social organization characterized by widely differing social guidance or values systems. The first, designated the partnership or gylanic model . . . is characterized by “soft” or stereotypically feminine values such as mutual accommodation, cooperation, and nonviolence. The second model is the dominator or androcratic model . . . with a characterizing value and social guidance system idealizing “hard” or so-called masculine values such as conquest, mastery, and force.
Teilhard and Eisler offer us rich, provocative food for thought, especially when their ideas are linked with processes of appreciation. The notion of appreciative leadership as synthesis and partnership is truly radical. Yet the seeds for an appreciative model of leadership have already been sown in the mundane and daily experiences of many contemporary leaders.
