Dignity, Identities, Leadership, and Peacebuilding

Part 4/4

The beauty of being 1
Photo by Claudia Costa Moreira

“Peacebuilding is the creation and nurturing of constructive relationships across ethnic, religious, class, and racial boundaries.”
From Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies // University of Notre Dame website

In this journey of learning about peace and justice, one concept has especially gained my attention: Dignity.

In 2016, I was introduced to Donna Hicks’ mind-blowing book Dignity, Its Essential Role in Resolving Conflict. Hicks starts the preface with a quotation that couldn’t be more relevant to leadership and peacebuilding:

“Treat people as they want to be and you help them become what they are capable of being.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a writer and statesman from the 18^th century

My perspective of dignity comes first from my faith and understanding of God. I believe that every human being is created in His image; therefore, every human being on Earth has inherent dignity.

Hicks adds that dignity is more than fulfilling the principles of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights. It is also different from respect. Every person has inherent dignity, whether or not one’s actions deserve respect. Honoring the dignity of others is not based on their qualities or accomplishments.

The author proposes very difficult and important questions:

What would it be like if our inherent dignity were recognized on a daily basis?
What about the way we treat one another in everyday interactions?

And I have also wondered…

How can we establish relationships, systems, structures, and decisions that honor human dignity and work against its violation?

Hicks affirms that offering care and attention is at the heart of treating people with dignity. Everyone matters and wants to be treated as if they do. She says that “if indignity tears us apart, dignity can put us back together again.”

What came to mind? Jesus’ Golden Rule: “As you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.” – Luke 6:31 ESV

Personally, I don’t need deep self-assessment to see that I have both the potential to acknowledge human dignity and to violate that dignity, in myself and others. It is a daily battle.

These questions are always with me:

Recognizing my potential for good in spite of my instinct for violating dignity, am I also able to recognize the potential for good in others who do evil?

Can I stop the cycle of dignity violation in myself, restraining my instincts to react with anger and upholding my potential to acknowledge others’ inherent dignity?

I think this is one of the hardest challenges we are facing as individuals, communities, organizations, and governments, regardless of culture, faith, belief, or interest. The result of our failure in this challenge has been the spiraling violence we are witnessing and suffering every day on many different levels. The violation of dignity leads to suffering and breaks relationships.

Wow! I need a deep breath here, don’t you?

If you have been walking the leadership journey, you know how all this is connected to our daily life in any work environment.

How then can we lead the way in honoring dignity and modeling this value during difficult changes, tough decisions, under competition, times of high pressure, lack of resources, conflict, polarization…? How can we lead people to recognize that they were born worthy and others were as well?

Recently, another book from Hicks came to my attention – Leading with Dignity, How to Create a Culture that Brings Out the Best in People – and a missing piece fell into place in my thoughts on leadership for peacebuilding: anyone attempting to lead must deepen their understanding of dignity, and how to embody, model and make it work for others and for their organization.

Let me share a few helpful insights:

Often the very culture of an organization violates dignity. Unspoken and unaddressed norms determine how people interact. Leaders must learn about dignity and how vulnerable people are of having their dignity violated. With this knowledge, leaders are more mindful of how their decisions affect the morale of the team

Exercising dignity in leadership is not a one-way street. It is a shared-responsibility! It requires everyone to make a commitment to one’s own dignity, the dignity of others, and the dignity of the organization

Inspiration does not provide a solid foundation for accomplishing meaningful change! What is needed is insight that comes from knowing how to develop healthy relationships and how all of us can flourish

Dignity and Identities

The beauty of being 2
Photo by Claudia Costa Moreira

The first element of the The Ten Elements of Dignity presented by Hicks is the Acceptance of Identity. I have especially reflected on the fact that we all are a combination of several overlapping identities. I am not woman or white. I am woman and white and many other things. I have many questions in my mind on this topic, among them:

How have my lenses as a Brazilian, white, middle-class, highly educated, Christian, able-bodied woman informed how I define and practice leadership?

How can I, as a peacebuilder and leader, establish and nurture healthy relationships where:
- I consider others neither inferior or superior to myself?
- Each one is encouraged and free to present one’s best self?
- I interact without prejudice or bias, and accept that characteristics such as race, ethnicity, citizenship, religion, gender, sexuality, social class, age, and disability are at the core of people’s identities?

The beauty of being me
Photo by Claudia Costa Moreira

Intersectionality, noun
“The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage”
The Oxford Dictionary

The intersectionality framework has helped me to better understand and analyze the complexity of the world, of people, and of human experience. It takes into account people’s overlapping identities and experiences in order to understand the complexity of the prejudices they face. A good reading on this is Intersectionality by Patricia Collins and Sirma Bilge.

Some would say that intersectionality is important to those in the field of social work, but I have no doubt this lens is fundamental to the practice of leadership.

How do all these influence recruiting and hiring processes, working conditions, salaries, work environment, and career opportunities?

Inequality in the workplace, for example, is not only about gender differences. In her article Working Life Inequalities: Do We Need Intersectionality?, Paulina de los Reyes talks about how age, nationality, race, sexual preferences, bodily impairment, and class background are crucial factors in the opportunities and obstacles that people face at work. She shows how an intersectional perspective can deepen our understanding of the informal hierarchies that create and preserve work life inequalities.

To lead with dignity, we need to acknowledge, stop and replace patterns of oppression with new ones that honor human dignity. Leading with dignity requires us to live in the truth that we are all interconnected. Leading with dignity requires us to alter our own behavior in the system.

How is this related to peacebuilding? I will let Leymah Gbowee answer this question:

“…the defenders of peace and justice are those who understand what it means to be a part of the collective humanity, that regardless of your skin color, the way you pray, we all breathe the same air.”
EMU 2018 Commencement Address

There is much more to talk about… I will come back!

The beauty of leading with dignity
Photo by Claudia Costa Moreira

References

Bible Gateway / English Standard Version. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+6&version=ESV

Collins, P. H., & Bilge, S. (2018). Intersectionality. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity Press.

Gbowee, L. (2018, May 6). 2018 Centennial Commencement [Audio blog post]. Retrieved May 9, 2019, from https://emu.edu/now/podcast/?s=leymah

Hicks, D. (2018). Leading with dignity: How to create a culture that brings out the best in people. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Hicks, D. (2013). Dignity: Its essential role in resolving conflict. Yale University Press.

University of Notre Dame. (n.d.). Strategic Peacebuilding // Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies // University of Notre Dame. Retrieved from https://kroc.nd.edu/research/strategic-peacebuilding/

Reyes, P. D. (2017). Working life inequalities: Do we need intersectionality? Society, Health & Vulnerability,8(Sup1), 1332858. doi:10.1080/20021518.2017.1332858

Leadership and Peace: what it has to do with you and me

Part 1/4

*The beauty of our interconnectedness*
*Photo by Claudia Costa Moreira*

The violence, injustice, polarization, and hate on our dear planet Earth in these last years has unsettled my soul. I began to wrestle with many questions:

How can I contribute to peace in a polarized world, at least in Brazil?
How can leaders be better equipped for peacebuilding, and assist others in developing those skills?
Is peace even attainable, or will my work only be a drop in the ocean?
What is peace?

My faith was central to the journey I began, confident God was calling me to go deeper in this topic. In 2016 I began studies at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding of Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) to pursue an MA in Conflict Transformation.

Helping people develop skills to make the world a better place, beginning right where they are, is a great passion of mine. My career in international corporations and non-profit organizations has allowed me to work cross-culturally. I have been able to coach diverse groups through the processes of change in adverse situations. Travel has allowed me to dig into many issues and experience leadership, social change, and empowerment on a deeper level.

In this four-part series, I will share some of my reflections, discoveries, and remaining questions on Leadership for Peacebuilding.

What is Peace, and what is Peacebuilding?

Peace. When we reflect on what is happening in our world, peace seems to be an abstract idea in the future, a quite intangible and impossible goal, a task for the United Nations and humanitarian organizations. On the one hand, the absence of peace affects all of us. On the other, peace can be perceived as far away from our daily routine and decisions.

There are several definitions of the word peace. Johan Galtung defines ‘negative peace’ as the cessation of direct violence and ‘positive peace’ as the overcoming of structural and cultural violence. I will anchor this conversation on the concept of Justpeace, which is a peace with justice. Justpeace meets human needs and protects human rights.

Justice. Lisa Schirch says that for justice to exist, people must be able to shape their environment and meet their needs. There must be respect for human rights and processes of accountability in place for those who violate them.

“It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

Peacebuilding, like peace, does not have a single, simple definition. Lisa Schirch says the “peacebuilding field is wider and more complex than most people realize.” She and Michael Shank wrote Strategic Arts-Based Peacebuilding, describing a “wide range of efforts to prevent, reduce, transform, and help people recover from violence in all forms, at all levels of society, and in all stages of conflict.” These efforts –on the community, national, and international levels– are made by diverse members of government and civil society, including those that may not use the term “peacebuilding” to describe themselves.

I like to think of peacebuilding as supporting the development of constructive relationships between individuals, families, communities, organizations, governments, as well as cultural, religious, economic, and political institutions and movements at all levels of society, as Lisa Schirch mentions in her book Strategic Peacebuilding.

Peacebuilders work to address the economic, social, and political root causes and impacts of conflict. They also work to transform systems, relationships, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors to build peace. Short-term, immediate actions are taken as part of a long-term, dynamic process.

Developed by Barry Hart, professor of Trauma, Identity and Conflict Studies in the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University (2008)

What is Leadership?

Author Joseph Rost identified over 100 definitions of leadership after searching 450 books, chapters, and articles. That was back in 1991 – many more definitions of leadership have come out since then, no doubt!

Why is it important to consider how we define leadership? Peter Northhouse, author of Introduction to Leadership: Concepts and Practice, provides a straightforward answer: the way we think about leadership influences the way we practice leadership.

There is no need to propose a new definition of leadership. Instead I will share a few concepts that have been useful for myself and others as leaders.

TEDxToronto 2010, September 2010

Drew Dudley gave an inspiring TED talk, “Everyday Leadership,” giving the simple definition of leadership as “the everyday act of improving each other’s lives.”

“Leaders are the ones who will stand up and speak when no-one else is willing to speak up… People who will take a step back and say, ‘Though I’m sleeping in a comfortable bed, but I’m not comfortable until someone else out there is comfortable… A leader is that person who really and truly decides, ‘We’re doing this and we will never rest until we see it come to an end.”
Leymah Gbowee, activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner and EMU alumna speaking at Women in the World Summit 2018 in New York City

What can leaders do? The answer seems complex and vast, but Daron Acemoglu, MIT, and Mathew Jackson, Stanford University, in their study History Expectation, and Leadership in the Evolution of Social Norms, provide perspective. They affirm that social norms shape beliefs, behavior, and human interaction. Social norms change over time in response to individual behavior and the actions of leaders.

Peacebuilding and the Implications for Leaders

Later I will talk more about the role of leadership in sustaining peace long-term. For now, I close with Leymah Gbowee’s call in her EMU 2018 Commencement Address (you can hear the podcast here):

“Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, there’s an urgent need for individuals to rise up for the cause of peace and justice… Whatever your calling may be, defend peace and justice with your actions, your interactions and your attitude.”
Leymah Gbowee, EMU 2018 Commencement Address

Let’s keep this conversation going…

References

10 Inspiring Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes. (2018, August 27). Retrieved from https://unfoundation.org/blog/post/10-inspiring-eleanor-roosevelt-quotes/

(n.d.). Retrieved from https://emu.edu/cjp/resources/genealogy

Acemoglu, D., & Jackson, M. (2015). History, Expectations, and Leadership in the Evolution of Social Norms. The Review of Economic Studies, 82(2 (291)), 423-456. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43551536

Alexgibbsy. (2018, April 13). Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee defines what it means to be a true leader. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/13/nobel-peace-prize-winner-leymah-gbowee-on-what-it-means-to-be-a-leader.html

Dudley, D. (2010, September). Everyday Leadership. TEDxToronto 2010. Retrieved April 27, 2019, from https://www.ted.com/talks/drew_dudley_everyday_leadership

Gbowee, L. (2018, May 6). 2018 Centennial Commencement [Audio blog post]. Retrieved May 9, 2019, from https://emu.edu/now/podcast/?s=leymah

Northouse, P. G. (2012). Introduction to leadership: Concepts and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Ramsbotham, O., Woodhouse, T., & Miall, H. (2011). Contemporary conflict resolution: The prevention, management and transformation of deadly conflicts. Cambridge: Polity.

Rost, J. C. (1991). Leadership for the twenty-first century. Westport, Con.: Praeger.

Schirch, L. (2004). The Little book of strategic peacebuilding. Intercourse, PA: Good Books.

Schirch, L. (2013). Conflict assessment and peacebuilding planning toward a participatory approach to human security. Boulder, Color.: Kumarian Press.

Shank, M., & Schirch, L. (2008). Strategic Arts-Based Peacebuilding. Peace & Change,33(2), 217-242. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0130.2008.00490.x