Agency is a practice
Healing is vital to a liberated Self. When we are not moving toward a state of healing, we can’t see all the possibilities available to us, nor can we be fully aware of our agency. This place of limited knowledge leads many to follow the tour guide of fear, scarcity, and anxiety born from a linear, “united states” worldview. Our ability to see the full spectrum of choices is also hampered by our internal systems.*
I’ve both experienced and witnessed moments where folks move away from their power. They give way. Sometimes that’s the easiest route, the fastest route, the more familiar route. It’s difficult and very different to stay in your power, speak to your needs, boundaries, reiterate and, sometimes, be unmovable. And yet, we also need to know when to be moved.
Many of us are dreaming of other worlds. Other worlds and futures of option, choice, healing, sovereignty, liberation. If liberation were to fall on us right now, we wouldn’t be ready. We would default to top-down practices, supremacist logic. Maybe a kind of "apocalypse” not with zombies and airborne viruses and chaos, but unlimited choice, beautiful chaos, and expansiveness so big we may not know how to meet it.
For us to meet these new worlds, we have to practice now. Practice in moments when stakes are low, so when pressure increases, we’ve had some practice under our belt and that practice is a little more accessible.
Every relationship has two sides. Two acting beings on both ends. The metaphorical street between these two beings flows back and forth. White supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, and the myriad forms of power and control we swim in day in and day out erode our sense of agency and sovereignty. Our understanding and felt sense that we can shape, impact, try, make mistakes, and try again.
That erosion can render us feeling powerless, disempowered, hopeless. We’re left with a residue of feeling disconnected, unseen, or invisible. That our actions don’t make much of a difference. We might push away accountability, take on blame even when there’s no need, be on the ready, feel attacked, perform perfection, or personalize when accountability finds its way to us. It can make us feel untethered, bumping into things but still somehow moving forward.
I’m not saying we all experience this in the same way or to the same degree. Moving from a disempowered place in any area of our life to one of agency, choice, and self-determination is a necessary journey. It’s a painful one. A heartbreaking one. And these are human skills we need to feel in the driver’s seat of our lives and choices rather than a passenger. Subject rather than object.**
We often are told to keep our personal and professional lives separate. How can we? We come from many diverging and converging backgrounds, experiences, lineages, histories that shape how and who we are. We bring our so-called “baggage” into our everyday interactions.
What does this have to do with leadership development or organizational capacity building? Everything. It shows up in how we lead, how we offer or tolerate feedback, how we move with urgency, how we respond to mistake making, how we choose to show-up, how much of ourselves we reveal to others, and ultimately how we relate to power and authority.
If we dream of organizations that are more dignified and more humane, then part of the work is creating space that both honors folk’s brilliance and offers support for staff to practice and explore their agency, autonomy, and self-determination. Organizations are, after all, made up of individuals.
And for each individual, the work is self-work, healing, and awareness. Reflection, mistake making, practicing choice making, engaging in feedback, even when nervous or scared. That’s the leap.
Building a more dignified sector is a project. A project of we.
I wholeheartedly believe when power differentials exist, accountability is not neutral. Those with greater social, cultural, and systemic power have a responsibility to lead with a practice of transparency, honesty, and accountability. We need organizations willing, open, and responsive, that create policies, systems, and cultures of care, learning, autonomy and mutual responsibility. We also need individuals open, responsive, and willing to engage in care, learning, autonomy, and mutual responsibility.
And the organization carries the container. The resources, the consistency, and the trust building that make this kind of practice possible. Co-creating and shaping together.
* From Love Letter to the Movement: Using a Coach Approach for Healing, Justice, and Liberation by Sarah Jawaid and Damon Azali-Rojas
** Thank you to The NW Network of BTLG Survivors of Abuse for the deep and transformative learning I experienced while there. “Subject rather than object” was a phrase often used in trainings and conversations about intimate partner violence in queer relationships and supporting survivors.
The NW Network was on the forefront of moving the needle forward for queer survivors of intimate partner violence and developed survivor and queer centered tools, models, and skill building resources, including the Relationship Skills Class series. Their archived work can be found here.
