Be the Change
Today, we hear from Bela Bhasin, a brilliant, brave, and badass human who is an educator, consultant, and business owner working in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.
We are in the middle of a series unpacking L3 Catalyst Group's 3 L's: Learn, Lead & Liberate. We are sitting at the feet of wise and amazing humans describing why they value and how they define, understand, and love learning and leadership toward liberation.
At L3 Catalyst Group, we believe that leadership is intention in action. Everyone can be a leader, irrespective of one's formal position. Leadership is significant and complex. Leaders embrace conflict and are grounded in personal and organizational commitments, values, and vision for change. Addressing complexity requires everyone's engagement to do their own work for the collective whole.
I deeply thank you, Bela, for sharing your thoughts about leadership.
Fellow leaders and learners, I wish you courage, rest, and beloved community along the journey.
My entire adult life, I have been inspired by Gandhi’s quote, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Like many of us, how I show up as a leader today is deeply connected to many of my life experiences. As I reflect on my memories of growing up in India, it is clear to me that my early experiences with gender, caste, colorism, and colonialism instilled in me a need to “be the change,” which led me to believe that being a leader meant making a difference in the world.
This still holds true for me today. Adrienne Maree Brown reminds us that “You’re always practicing something. So you’re either practicing upholding the world as it is, or you’re practicing shifting into the world as you want it to be.” I envision a just, inclusive, and liberated world. This is the change I wish to see in the world, and being a leader means working toward collective liberation for all.
The systems and institutions in this country have been built with racism, colonialism, white supremacy, and patriarchy at the core. And because they are so deeply built into the very fabric of our society, they are often difficult to recognize. Collective liberation is possible only if we as leaders identify and interrupt centuries-old systems of oppression within ourselves and our organizations to reimagine and recreate equitable systems, structures, policies, and practices that allow us all to realize our full brilliance and potential.
Creating a just, equitable, and inclusive world and working toward collective liberation is not for the faint of heart. It requires us to lead with courage as we continuously straddle the tightrope of who we are and who we can become. It requires us to recognize the complexity of the challenges we face and meet them with optimism, flexibility, and compassion toward ourselves and others as we work to liberate ourselves from oppressive ideologies so that we can all thrive.
Creating a just, equitable, and inclusive world and working toward collective liberation requires us to lead with humility and center the needs and voices of those furthest from power when designing spaces and solutions. I believe people are resourceful and brilliant! Given the proper support, people have the capacity to solve their own problems. My goal as a leader is to intentionally seek out and listen to diverse perspectives and multiple stories to better understand the lived experiences of those inhabiting the system, particularly those who have been, and continue to be, marginalized and oppressed. It requires us “doing with” rather than “doing to.” This allows leaders to transform power – by shifting the relationships between those who hold power to design and those impacted by these designs.
Working toward creating this just, inclusive, and liberated world inspires me as a leader because I know that until we all experience the world as such, my work is still incomplete.
What Bela is Reading/Watching/Listening to:
- The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves by Dr. Shawn Ginwright
- Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown
- Do Better: Spiritual Activism for Fighting and Healing from White Supremacy by Rachel Ricketts
- Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger by Lama Rod Owens (about to start this soon)
Bela's Questions for Consideration Regarding This Topic:
- What inequities are you noticing in your system?
- Who might you engage in your system to better understand the needs and experiences of those most impacted by these inequities?
- What small actions might you take to try to learn more about contributing factors of the inequity & what direction might be promising to move toward?
- As you begin to reimagine your system, what could be possible in terms of how you approach your work differently?
Other L3 Catalyst Group Blogs Related to Learning:
Comments