The Internet has rewritten the rules as nearly 1 billion people worldwide go online, their shared knowledge and online reputations rapidly becoming a collective force of unprecedented power. For the first time in human history, mass cooperation across time and space is shaping a whole new game, requiring a whole new set of rules. Welcome to the age of “open source leadership,” a new style of leadership designed for a new kind of world – one which sustains environments that are infinitely improvisational, where people do things they regard as worthwhile, and where their presence is valued.
In order to better understand the rules of the new open source game it is important to view leadership through a different lens. To view leadership as the act of opening to The Divine Universe of Pure Consciousness and making manifest opportunities through intention and engagement of others. It might be helpful to apply the lens offered by George Land who, in 1973, proposed a unifying theory of transformation in his book Grow or Die. According to Land, all things grow and develop in a four stages: gather, repeat, share and transform. For example, babies move through the gather phase by taking in nourishment and growing in size. This stage is marked by growth of sameness, simply getting larger without changing form. Once the first stage is accomplished, the second stage of growth can begin. In the repeat phase, growth is achieved by replicating. For example, at the biophysical level, cells do this by dividing, creating literal extensions. When two adjoining cells prepare for division, they condense their DNA into chromosomes. The membranes around the cell nuclei, together with protein structures called “microtubules” divide the cell’s genome into two equal parts and pull each part into the resulting daughter cells. In Land’s terms, groups that form around self-similarity are replicating themselves and are in the second phase of growth. Land’s third phase of growth, share, is the most mature stage and where Open Source Leadership plays an essential role because it enables people to grow through reciprocal interaction and form a larger whole, whether in a corporation, community or family. We see this theme repeated in the ‘Fibonacci sequence’ developed by Leonardo of Pisa (also known as Fibonacci), where the power of these reciprocal
interactions is a kind of explosion of emergent creativity. Fibonacci depicted this process mathematically in his 1202 book Liber Abaci where he introduced the sequence, which states that after two starting values, each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. So the first number of the sequence is 0, the second number is 1, and each subsequent number is equal to the sum of the previous two numbers of the sequence itself. For example, 0 + 1 = 1, 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 2 = 3, 2 + 3 = 5,
3 + 5 = 8, 5 + 8 = 13, 8 + 13 = 21 … to infinity. The Fibonacci sequence (see Basin and Hoggatt, 1963) shows how the progressively productive process uses what it produces and is a perfect illustration of the way open source leadership creates emergent products that are greater than the sum of the individual parts. In the repeat phase, the important message from Land is that we grow by maximizing sameness, but in the share phase, we grow by maximizing differences, so that a higher
social order or social system might thrive, giving way to transformation in phase 4, which, by its very nature, ends up succeeding and encompassing the former system.
So we see that the practice of Open Source Leadership is open to all who wish to make a substantial difference in the world and can apply to every walk of life including organizational leadership. In my practice I apply the tools and techniques of Open Source Counselling to help clients develop new ways to live their lives. Through applying the Open Source Leadership Model they are able to realize extraordinary results in situations of overwhelming complexity and ambiguity. They come to appreciate that the secret of their success is their ability to live their lives in the spirit of trust and openness. Our Open Source teaching offers a balance of intellect and intuition and is designed to help people achieve understanding, appreciation and openness to their magnificence and that of those with whom they come into contact.
In order to better understand the rules of the new open source game it is important to view leadership through a different lens. To view leadership as the act of opening to The Divine Universe of Pure Consciousness and making manifest opportunities through intention and engagement of others. It might be helpful to apply the lens offered by George Land who, in 1973, proposed a unifying theory of transformation in his book Grow or Die. According to Land, all things grow and develop in a four stages: gather, repeat, share and transform. For example, babies move through the gather phase by taking in nourishment and growing in size. This stage is marked by growth of sameness, simply getting larger without changing form. Once the first stage is accomplished, the second stage of growth can begin. In the repeat phase, growth is achieved by replicating. For example, at the biophysical level, cells do this by dividing, creating literal extensions. When two adjoining cells prepare for division, they condense their DNA into chromosomes. The membranes around the cell nuclei, together with protein structures called “microtubules” divide the cell’s genome into two equal parts and pull each part into the resulting daughter cells. In Land’s terms, groups that form around self-similarity are replicating themselves and are in the second phase of growth. Land’s third phase of growth, share, is the most mature stage and where Open Source Leadership plays an essential role because it enables people to grow through reciprocal interaction and form a larger whole, whether in a corporation, community or family. We see this theme repeated in the ‘Fibonacci sequence’ developed by Leonardo of Pisa (also known as Fibonacci), where the power of these reciprocal
interactions is a kind of explosion of emergent creativity. Fibonacci depicted this process mathematically in his 1202 book Liber Abaci where he introduced the sequence, which states that after two starting values, each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. So the first number of the sequence is 0, the second number is 1, and each subsequent number is equal to the sum of the previous two numbers of the sequence itself. For example, 0 + 1 = 1, 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 2 = 3, 2 + 3 = 5,
3 + 5 = 8, 5 + 8 = 13, 8 + 13 = 21 … to infinity. The Fibonacci sequence (see Basin and Hoggatt, 1963) shows how the progressively productive process uses what it produces and is a perfect illustration of the way open source leadership creates emergent products that are greater than the sum of the individual parts. In the repeat phase, the important message from Land is that we grow by maximizing sameness, but in the share phase, we grow by maximizing differences, so that a higher
social order or social system might thrive, giving way to transformation in phase 4, which, by its very nature, ends up succeeding and encompassing the former system.
So we see that the practice of Open Source Leadership is open to all who wish to make a substantial difference in the world and can apply to every walk of life including organizational leadership. In my practice I apply the tools and techniques of Open Source Counselling to help clients develop new ways to live their lives. Through applying the Open Source Leadership Model they are able to realize extraordinary results in situations of overwhelming complexity and ambiguity. They come to appreciate that the secret of their success is their ability to live their lives in the spirit of trust and openness. Our Open Source teaching offers a balance of intellect and intuition and is designed to help people achieve understanding, appreciation and openness to their magnificence and that of those with whom they come into contact.
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