The purpose of this blog is to share my journey of learning how to become a leader capable of navigating the significant challenges of changing times. Or, as my wife, Sara, puts it so succinctly, to become a leader for the 21st century.
That may seem pretty simple. Perhaps to you, it is. But to me, it is not. Here’s why. When I confront the brutal facts, here is what I see:
1. The planet is running a fever. Everywhere around us is imbalance—global warming, water shortages, food shortages, diseases, pollution, erratic storms, erratic financial markets, incompetent government, warring religions and idealism, more demand for energy than there is energy, etc.
2. We are adding more load on a planet that is already overheating. When I was born in 1960, there were 2.9 billion people on planet earth. September 2008, 6.7 billion. By 2040, try 9 billion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
3. Individual actions are causing the imbalance. The problems we face—these imbalances—isn’t the result of the religions, the governments or any other institution(s). The problems we face are the cumulative effect of individual actions of 6.7 billion people—including me.
4. Nature has the capacity to absorb a lot of imbalance. In fact, it has.
5. Nature has its limits. At some point, the fever planet Earth is running will spike. And when that system begins to deal with the causes of the dis-ease… well, isn’t that us?
6. Leaders have an obligation to point a way out of this. I passionately believe we leaders must wake up and acknowledge two things. First, the old form of leadership is contributing more to the imbalance than it is to the solution. Second, like it or not, leaders are going to have to deal with the implications of this anyway.
These realizations have brought me to a point of personal crisis. Why?
- As a leadership consultant: I work with leaders and I don’t have the answer. That troubles me deeply. Because if I don’t know where leadership is headed, what do I really have to offer? How can I authentically say I have anything to offer?
- As a husband: I do not know how to provide for and protect my wife in these times. That troubles me deeply. I have never seen times like these. And no one else I can find has either. There is no road map. And I am not the kind to get by on faith alone.
- As a human being: I do not know how to make a difference and whether I even can. I am one person amongst billions. What can I possibly do? What should I do? Not knowing troubles me deeply.
- As a person: I have all these feelings, I have not acted, and that is causing me angst. I guess you could say I have now reached my personal tipping point.
So, this blog is about all that. It is about my journey to become a leadership consultant relevant to times I cannot even foresee, to become a husband worthy of this wife I care for with all my heart, and to become a human being worthy of having been given the gift of life in these times.
If you are interested in this, you may be interested in this blog. And if you are, I hope you will share this with your friends, and that you will comment on the content. Your comments are critical, because while I do not have the answer, together, individually, we do.
And what of the name of this blog, The Fires of the Forge? I see it this way. There are basically two camps in humanity today. Those who will wait to see if the fire of change reaches them, as perchance they can avoid it. And then there are those who will willingly, proactively, step into the fire because they see or sense that the only way forward—the only way home—is to forge themselves in that fire, through that fire. I want to work with and to travel with people who have that fire. Because I think that is where the type of future I want to be a part of lies—in a new form of leadership, in a new way of relating to one another, and in a new way of relating to earth. I think we not only face very challenging times, but an opportunity of epic proportion.
Otis Woodard, October 6, 2008
