Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Mind
(Gardner, 1993). Intelligences include the linguistic, logico-mathematical,
musical, spatial, bodily-kinetic, naturalist (about the natural environment), inter- and
intra-personal, emotional and existential (addressing the big meaning of life-type
issues). Intelligence involves fashioning products and solving problems. The more
of a person's intelligences a leader is able to engage or appeal to in fashioning an
argument, the more likely that leader will change minds and behaviour. And although
it is harder to change minds when views and perspectives are held strongly and
publicly, it is far easier when individuals find themselves in new or relatively unfamiliar
environments, when surrounded by people with different ideas and values, or when
confronted with transformative, perhaps shattering experiences. Being with persuasive
and charismatic others also helps. Leaders who tend to address large and diverse
audiences will frequently use a story 'serene in its simplicity' (Gardner, 2006: 88)
to explain or paint a picture of an issue, problem or aspiration. Leaders working
with smaller, more uniform groups will tend to use theories, or maybe stories,
exhibiting a high degree of complexity to enlist listeners' attention, interest and
appreciation. A form of dialogue will always be present. Leaders need to use their
linguistic skills, but also to avoid accusations of hypocrisy by actually embodying
in their actions the changes they seek to induce in others. For Gardner (2006), the
key attributes of an effective leader include:
•
excellent linguistic, emotional and existential aptitudes - they can fashion good
stories, understand people, and articulate the big questions or vision;
•
excellent instinct, intuition or 'gut feeling', meaning they are able to perceive,
and put into words, resemblances between present and past situations and
experiences; and
•
excellent integrity - usually the consequence of having the capacity for deep
analysis, reflection and self-knowledge.
Excellent leaders are often highly creative people, not necessarily artistically or
scientifically, but in the ways and means they deal with people and events. They
may initiate new strategies for change, like the Indian political leader Mahatma
Gandhi's advocacy of non-violent political action, relating the practical to the spiritual,
or, like Muhammad Yunus, developer of the Grameen Bank, devising a new micro-
finance model to encourage community engagement and business development among
poor people in India, or, like Al Gore perhaps, communicating a complex issue
simply, graphically, resonantly and powerfully in conference speeches, academic
seminars or political writings, or on film or popular television.
On the practice of dialogue
Sustainability leaders need to bring about ecological and sustainable
learning
that
is both social and dialogic. They need to communicate and persuade people with
all manner of backgrounds, understandings and experiences. This may mean acting
beyond one's authority, operating in the outer circles, moving out of familiar comfort
zones, challenging opposing views and starting up a conversation. As Bocking (2007)
notes, both Al Gore, with his film documentary and book
An Inconvenient Truth
,
and Rachel Carson (2000), with
Silent Spring
, first published in the US in 1962, are
regarded by many as two writers who have produced foundational texts of the
