From Martyr to Movement, Charisma to Community: A Proposal to Transform Current Social Change Leadership
by Dyresha Harris
Martin Luther King makes for great sound bites. When people want to talk about leadership and service, they often trot out a good 3-15 second clip of the March on Washington. I’ve seen it everywhere from high school assemblies and college volunteer fairs to the introduction to the most recent Superbowl. We get a close up of him sharing a few inspiring words and then a quick wide-shot so that we can see the adoring crowd listening below. We all know how the tragic story will end for MLK, and this adds to the overall allure of his greatness and sacrifice.
Many of us grew up with this representation of MLK Jr. as our model of leadership for social justice. However, this top-down image of an Christ-like leader and his nameless masses doesn’t do justice to King, the people he worked with, or those of us taking on this work. There seems to be a growing trend toward more communal and sustainable models of leadership—at least, in theory. Many of the non-profits I have worked in have begun giving employees training on empowerment models of service and advocacy rather than top-down models and more attention has been given to self-care. However, many of us (and the organizations we work with) still carry models of individualism and martyrdom in our daily lives. As young adults, there are particular ways that we are targeted by these messages. The good news is that our life-stage also makes us perfectly positioned to help turn this around.
Martyrdom
The idea that social justice should require sacrifice has often been used to defend unhealthy (and sometimes illegal) practices even in organizations whose mission statements tout a world that is “people first”. For example, I have seen nonprofits that use internships and stipend-based positions (typically filled by young adults) to skirt laws about hours and wages. I have seen many non-profits that don’t pay overtime or ask employees not to document all of their hours. Years ago, I applied to a very large, well-known nation-wide non-profit. When I asked about the fact that many of their young employees seemed to burn out after six to nine months, I was told that “the schedule was not for everyone.” They said that it wasn’t a problem though, because those employees would take what they had learned with them and there was always a new set of graduates interested in applying. Rather than investing in these young workers, this organization seemed satisfied to simply cycle through them. Needless to say, I did not take the job (though many of the other young adults in my interviewing cohort did).
There is also an assumption that young adults don’t yet have anything else in our lives that really matters. Aside from making a number of (often class-based) assumptions about young adults’ responsibilities, this also minimizes the importance of our friendships, family relations, and health.
The martyrdom model also creates the expectation that a leader should simply accept being targeted and isolated. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone defend the trashing of a public figure by saying that if s/he didn’t want that kind of attention, s/he shouldn’t have taken that position. This can leave us with leaders who are defensive, secretive, and unwilling to take risks. Worse yet, it can mean that many potentially strong leaders never come forward because they are afraid of being hung out to dry.
Isolation
Top-down leadership feeds into the idea that we can’t all be leaders. In a society where we are all pumped full of messages about competition, this makes working together very difficult. From a young age many of us were put into competition with our peers, even when it wasn’t necessary. We were ranked against each other (often by adults) in school classes, SAT’s, proms, and sports teams. Even when I work with young children, it is amazing how often I hear them talk about who’s better, smarter, faster, prettier, stronger, etc. As young adults the message is that not all of us will make it and we each have to get while the getting is good. This can be in relation to career (“That 25 year old already started her own non-profit? Oh my god, what am I doing with my life!”) or even our personal lives (“You’ve got to get out there and find a spouse before all the good ones are taken.”)
This kind of competitiveness can keep us from really backing each other in the work that we do and from asking for support when we need it. As young adults we are moving from youth when it was socially acceptable not to know things into the stage where we’re told we should be able to figure everything out for yourself. But the joke is on us, because there is really no such stage. Remember all those tests at school where you couldn’t have notes or books and definitely no help from anyone else? In real life, those situations almost never exist, though we are made to feel they do. In real life it actually makes sense to acknowledge that we are not omniscient and then avail ourselves of every resource (including other people) at our disposal.
Luckily, as the leaders of tomorrow (and today), young adults are in a prime position to change the culture of leadership particularly in the field of social justice.From Marytr to Movement, From Charisma to Community
Another Way: Young Adults as Trailblazers
Young adults are in a prime position to change the culture of leadership particularly in the field of social justice. As a group, we also have certain strengths in regard to moving towards sustainable, collaborative leadership.
Strengths
Youth has been demarcated by our society as the stage for developing relationships. As children and teens we often make friendships and socializing a top priority. As we get older, however, we receive more pressure from adults and peers to prioritize career and a nuclear family over broader connections in the world. This is particularly true in middle class, white cultures, and because these cultural values are held in esteem in our society, we are all affected by this norm. As young adults we live in a liminal space where we have much more power and autonomy than we did as children, but still recognize the importance of connections. For instance, it’s no coincidence that teens and young adults are almost twice as likely as people over 30 to use social networking sites like twitter, facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.i. Though others sometimes trivialize these media as being a distraction, or pure entertainment, this kind of communication (and the new technologies based on them) are a huge asset that we possess. Just look at what young adults using social media were able to accomplish in Egypt.
In the United States, our generation is also the most ethnically diverse that has ever existedii, with the census bureau suspecting that we will be a majority non-white country by 2042iii. Partially because of cultural norms and partially out of necessity, many communities of color and other marginalized groups have historically been more likely to view themselves as part of a group than their white counterparts. Thus our generation holds the potential for a more diverse group of leaders who bring with them new perspectives on leading without isolation.
Finally, because our youth gives us “permission” not to know everything, we may find it easier to ask for help than older adults and can model leading without having to have all the answers.
In Practice
There are many ways to put the above strengths to work in places where young people take leadership or support leaders. For instance, if a current leader is doing things in a way you disagree with, bring the issue to his or her attention, but try offering help instead of criticizing or leaving the person to figure out how to fix the issue alone. In addition to being more humane, it’s also more practical since it helps leaders grow and makes leadership look more appealing to those who might be considering it.
If you’re in a leadership position make a list of everything you do and all the other people you are working with. Then match tasks to people who might grow from or enjoy taking each thing on with you. Don’t forget to include less concrete items like “plan agenda for meetings” or “keep co-workers from killing each other”. If everyone around you is already swamped, reach out to the broader community you work with and find people who aren’t usually asked their opinion. It may sometimes feel like this is more effort than doing it alone but in the long run, this is precisely the work of social change—getting more people involved with each person shouldering less of the burden.
In my own life, I have made a decision that I refuse to take on any new project without a strong group of people doing it with me. I also refuse to sacrifice my health or relationships in the process, because I know the causes I work toward need me well rested and well connected.
My new approach has been playing out in an adult class that I teach on peer counseling. Though I am the teacher, I have asked other people in the class to help me make the class go well in all sorts of ways from bringing snacks to coordinating rides to checking in with students when they are absent. I also ask lots of questions about how they think the class should go so that they get what they need and I don’t have to figure it out by myself. So far it has been working really well. Taking responsibility for the group has made people more invested in it.
In the end, sustainable, communal leadership is not just a warm and fuzzy notion. Isolation and exhaustion are tools that many institutions have used throughout history to thwart efforts for social change. From creating laws that forbid gatherings to using long work-hours to stifle labor rebellions, individuals and organizations have effectively undermined many progressive movements with these tactics. So, If we want to be the change we seek in the world, then our own lives need to reflect precisely the kind of community and sustainability we’re fighting for.
- Social Media and Young Adults, Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Social-Media-and-Young-Adults.aspx, Mar 10, 2011.
- “Millenials,” Pew Research, http://pewresearch.org/millennials/, accessed Mar 10, 2011.
- “U.S. Minorities Will Be the Majority by 2042, Census Bureau Says,” 2008, http://www.america.gov/st/peopleplace-english/2008/August/20080815140005xlrennef0.1078106.html, accessed Mar 10, 2011.
