Dancing with Communities

Reconciling our need for personal alignment with our need for harmony.

As individuals, we express our individuality by choosing to join, or distancing ourselves from, communities. At the core of this ‘dance’, is our need for alignment with our own values and our need for harmony with others.   

The tension created by the fact that we are collectively responsible for behaviors that we don’t control, and sometimes don’t approve of, has been at the heart of community dynamics for a while. Still, the increasing expectations from our professional communities that our personal values be aligned with theirs has been documented as a sign of the times. 

It is up to us to decide how to navigate such expectations: whether we take them as invitations to denounce or leave communities that we don’t approve of in search of personal alignment, or as an opportunity to contribute to improving them in search of harmony.  

Current events illustrate that our need for alignment is strong, and that communities shrink more and more to reflect the views of a few instead of the shared purpose of many. 

As a result, many leaders are being challenged. Politicians are perceived as lacking credibility, religious leaders as lacking legitimacy, scientists as being partisans, and intellectuals as being inconsistent. 

Wise is the mouse who can tell the best course of action in such circumstances, as it contemplates another possibility:

“What if we were to accept that “our” leaders can be wrong or not always know what is best?”, asked the Mouse. 

Indeed, without giving leaders a license to fail, one can understand that leadership choices are so complex that mistakes are always a possibility. Similarly, accepting that leaders may not always know does not relieve them of the accountability of the decision. 

The possibility of imperfect leadership is not less demanding on leaders or their communities. Leaders themselves need to be able to recognize their own limits, empowering those who aspire to be of service. In turn, communities need to be forgiving in good faith, for they are responsible for the leaders that they serve.   

Of all the leadership qualities, forgiveness may be one of the toughest ones to practice as it cannot be outsourced. Tough as it is, we desperately need it to reconcile our need for alignment with our need for harmony, and the possibility to express our individuality while being part of cohesive communities. 

After all, whether they choose to defy gravity with ballet or celebrate it with contemporary dance, all dancers have gracefulness in common. 

Baptiste Raymond - 04/2022.