When there are no words

There are moments in teaching adaptive leadership that take me so by surprise in their elegance and beauty that there are no words. I have been teaching the capstone class in our Leadership Minor this semester,which means that I have the absolute honor of being able to work with the students who committed four years of their lives to our program. This semester, we tried something new. Their final project for the Minor was their choice. They got to decide how to leave a legacy in their own way, on their own terms, and in their own authentic voices. The projects were revealed by the students this week and what they allowed to be brought into this world through their humility, integrity, intention, and power was so wholly authentic that I could not speak. I could only sit in silence with them for several moments and join the weeping faces of acknowledgement that what they did was sacred. They have documented some of this journey at their own blog site: whatmakesyoulegit.blogger.com; however, what isn't captured there is the essence of who they have become. These are the people I want to work with, these are the people I want saving my life when I enter an emergency room, evaluating securities and trading companies, administering my medicine when I am in a nursing home, teaching my children to read and think, running my country, flying my plane, inventing the solutions, finding the cures, opening a door for me when my hands are full. These are the people who are holding the world in their hands along with us and I am glad to call them colleagues.

To teach with intention and to be present to what emerges within that context, to know that I am nothing and everything to the group around me, and to deeply connect with the unknowable in order to allow it to bring us all to a higher level of understanding is beyond words, but is clearly a gift from everyone involved. I thank my students for holding that intention with me this semester and co-creating the learning that we all took part in.