On the Qualities of Distributed Leadership
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#### A Provisional Statement on Trustees

*It’s about something
Much bigger
That encompasses all
They say
“It’s not about me”
So show it
And then,
It isn’t about them.*
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There are always individuals that take on greater levels of responsibility to tend to the commons and the systems held in common. They do this on behalf of their own personal agency. They do this on behalf of the purpose of the systems. They do this on behalf of those who have chosen to participate. These individuals:

- Seed vision for change
- Inspire new systems to form
- Help clarify unambiguous statements about what an ecosystem seeks to become
- Help clarify how one should conduct themselves in pursuit of becoming
- Cultivate relationships of trust
- Manage critical operations
- Maintain essential communication systems

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- **Most importantly – they demonstrate an extraordinary degree of care for the commons, the systems-in-common and the participants of those systems, nurturing their growth and constantly anticipating their needs and challenges**
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*Ultimately, these individuals cultivate the conditions for ecosystems to thrive.*

They may be called Stewards, Custodians, Caretakers. We choose herein to call them “Trustees”, but the designation is not about the name, but about our relationship with them and what they do:

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**To be a Trustee is to partake of the art of assuming accountability for an endeavor while sharing that responsibility completely with others.**
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The assumption of accountability vests them with power, but in a healthy system this power is diffuse – anyone can demonstrate Trustee behavior from wherever they are, in many different ways. This inclusive understanding of the role inspires self-organization and provides a source of creative potential that can help make Catalyst a powerful vehicle for innovation and transformative change.

To capture this understanding we must recognize the reciprocity of a community’s relationship to its Trustees, the roots in trusting relationships, collaboration and shared responsibility; these relationships are adaptive, facilitative and grounded in the wisdom of living systems.

### We recognize common forms of these reciprocal relationships:

**Catalysts** – the crafting of vision and inspiration to action
**Facilitators** – the guiding of participants through group processes to find common ground for collaboration
**Integrators** – the fostering of new connections and deepening of relationships
**Coordinators** – the organizing of internal systems and structures to allow participants to share information and advance collaborative work

The underlying principles of Trustees are discovered by tapping into ideas at work in all adaptive, living systems. From the mangroves to the intertidal reef, from the murmuration of swarm intelligence to the distribution of the neural network we see that which is chaotic and complex reduce to the simple: survival, decision and action.

In acknowledging these principles we engage in the language of *reciprocity*, establishing *accountability*, and methods by which to distribute *responsibility*. Via these principles we can transform raw power into diffuse webs of trust.

## Principles of Trustees

### Foster Self Organization

This captures the ability of leadership to evolve into new forms, such as bridges or deep pools, and adapt to changing conditions, such as scarcity or increased risk. Distributed leadership amplifies the gifts and creative potential of each person involved, which increases motivation to contribute. Swarm intelligence is the aliveness of combined wisdom.


Distributed leadership could come from anywhere at anytime, manifesting in ways that stretch imagination. Localized or entrepreneurial efforts are celebrated as long as they are transparent, collaborative and in alignment with purpose and principles.

Every participant has shared opportunity –and shared responsibility– for supporting the systems-in-common. This level of personal agency matters because in complex environments it is often unclear which actions will make the most difference.

### Promote Emergence

Scientists have shown that a murmuration of starlings changes direction based on distributed decision-making among select individual starlings and their immediate neighbors, perhaps five or six other starlings. Our communities can find their direction and change their actions based on who-knows-what-to-do-next, but only if we treat our connections and communication as critical.


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*Emergence is the recognition that we cannot predict the future, and must learn our way forward.*
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In a complex, unexplored environment a compass becomes more important than waiting for a map. We can promote this emergence via:

- Prioritizing connections – the most biodiverse, survival-aligned areas of any system are found where the different parts intersect. In humans, interactions between diverse actors yields new ideas and possibilities for action. Rather than multiplying connections indiscriminately, priority should be on diversifying and strengthening connections. Even the simplest systems are already filled with exquisite connections: prioritize relevance and significance.
- Sense into the future – Sensing is a tuning of awareness, and the key to tuning awareness is to first ask good questions, and then to listen deeply. Questions spark conversation, and being listened to provides motivation to share more nuanced and intimate perspectives. It can be said that “networks know where they want to go” and we can know too, if we listen.
- Engage in experimentation – This is the ultimate practice of emergence. One must recognize and accept the existence of uncertainty, go beyond reliance on overtly simple indicators and develop the flexibility to act, learn, fail and do better. Deep understanding of complex things only emerges through action →reflection→more action. Starting in the right place is less important than just starting somewhere, and then learning and adapting, while scaling promising results

### Embrace Change

A mangrove forest can remain resilient in the face of complex challenges by maintaining a dynamic diversity of development stages within their ecosystem, with some parts of the forest in mature stages of growth while other parts are in earlier phases of growth. Survival in any system is intimately linked to adaptation and evolution, and “resilience” is the concept that describes and measures this link.


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*Resilience is the capacity of a system to absorb shocks and use disturbance of equilibrium to spur renewal and innovation.*
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This is often a tradeoff with “sustainability”, and balancing these two ideas quickly becomes a critical consideration. Where possible, we should err towards resilience, as sustainability more or less maintains a current form, whereas resilience withstands disruptions and shifts course.

Ways in which we can approach resiliency should include:

- Decentralizing connections – Where there are dominant hubs at the heart of many critical connections, there is risk of single points of failure. Move past a hub-and-spoke model by reducing dependencies on any one person. Always be mentoring and sharing responsibility
- Creating redundancies – While redundancies are normally seen as superfluous or unnecessary wastes of resources, they can act as distributive resiliency for when important functions are identified. Wherever critical functions and connections are found, they should be duplicated or “widened” to allow more information and resources to flow across them

### Hold Dynamic Tension

Disagreement is the most common and natural dynamic tension we encounter: “dynamic” because the situation is always in flux, “tension” because they signify a relationship between ideas or qualities in seeming conflict. To understand why we should strive to hold these tensions, imagine a rope across a chasm, and a tightrope walker approaching the rope. If the rope is slack, it will not be possible to walk across it, but if we stretch it until it is taut, the tension created by our pulling energy is the same energy that supports the tightrope walker.


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*The dynamic tension of disagreement and conflict offers a similar kind of energy. Tension, at its root, means “to stretch”. Stretching creates flexible strength that allows us to manage pressure without breaking.*
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The sources of dynamic tension can be described as polarities, and these polarities are a powerful source of natural energy, and in fact, their absence signifies a lack of aliveness, a lack of learning and a lack of evolution. We WANT to see disagreement and polarizing approaches. Common forms faced by evolving communities are:

**Building Trust < – > Taking Action
Participation < – > Pace of Progress
Self-Interest < – > Shared Interest
Parts < – > Whole
Planning < – > Emergence
Divergence < – > Convergence**

Tension doesn’t exist solely as an indicator of discord. Rather, it offers an opportunity to shift our thinking. We tend to simplify and see these things as zero-sum opposites, for every winner, a loser. But every aspect of life consists of interactions between seemingly opposing yet complementary forces. No up without down, no light without darkness, no life without death. We are seeking trust to provide structure, and diversity of thought to engender innovation.

The dynamic tension indicated above between Divergence < – > Convergence is a prime example of this principle. It is natural to focus our energies and attention on finding ground where we can agree and work together. This is the process of convergence – the act of bringing ideas together, finding overlapping perspectives, and making selections and decisions. But facilitating disagreement is how we discover the new – new insights, new innovations. This is the process of divergence – of differentiating, of asserting independence, and of expressing multiple, valid perspectives.

By holding this tension, we avoid the stifling of new ideas, and people are willing to express new points of view (divergence), and a fuller spectrum comes to light. From this place, participants can begin to see how everyone fits together (convergence), and this causes new possibilities to arise (emergence) that did not previously exist.

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*This virtuous cycle is central to how we come up with ideas, weigh options and make decisions. **This is how Catalyst thinks.***
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As can be seen, these dynamic tensions are not problems to be solved, but signals that evolution is possible, and they are to be held with care and listened to deeply, as pointers towards new views and relationships that are inspired by the wholeness of that which encompasses us all.

The above Principles are the qualities we can and should seek of our leaders, whether Trustees, Custodians or Stewards.

***Being a Trustee is about leading in partnership with others and in the service of the commons and systems-in-common. It is about leading to lift others up so they can lead too. It is about contributing to an ecosystem, and a world, that works for all.***
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*Note: [See the original version of this document, here.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oaSgZdZnQR_EKUgtFszTnyLlvq45HFEvAVdcv8bRLkQ/edit) It contains a list of acknowledgements and references for anyone wishing to follow up, or dig deeper, into many of the ideas presented here.