Program Information

Program Faculty

Embodying Power and Love: Two Essentials for Effective Leadership

with Adam Kahane & Wendy Palmer

"Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love with out power is sentimental and anemic." — Martin Luther King, Jr.

In this new module, social change facilitator Adam Kahane and Conscious Embodiment teacher Wendy Palmer will help participants build their capacity to work with the two fundamental drivers of social change and leadership: power and love. The module will bring together theory and practice, concepts and stories, dialogue and experimentation.

Adam will contribute the approaches he has developed over his twenty years as a leader of innovative multi-stakeholder processes to address complex social challenges. He will coach participants in reflecting on their own experiences of trying to effect social change — in communities, organisations, and societal settings — and in crafting new ways forward.

Wendy will lead the group through experiential exercises to examine and practice these new ways of working. Participants will have an opportunity to experience the energy patterns of reckless power and anemic love. Then in contrast they will have an opportunity to experience power that is effective and magnetic — empowerment — and love that is enhanced and supported by the wisdom of the collective — inclusiveness.

Together this exploration will build the participants' capacity to combine power and love to work more effectively in and with social systems of all scales.

In preparation for this module, participants are encouraged to read Adam Kahane's Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2010) and Wendy Palmer's The Intuitive Body: Discovering the Wisdom of Conscious Embodiment and Aikido (Berkeley: Blue Snake Books, 2008).

Adam Kahane is a partner in Reos Partners, an international organisation dedicated to supporting and building capacity for innovative collective action in complex social systems. Adam is a leading organizer, designer and facilitator of processes through which business, government, and civil society leaders can work together to solve their toughest, most complex problems. He has worked in more than fifty countries, in every part of the world, with executives and politicians, generals and guerillas, civil servants and trade unionists, community activists and United Nations officials, clergy and artists. Adam is the author of Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2004). Nelson Mandela said: "This breakthrough book addresses the central challenge of our time: finding a way to work together to solve the problems we have created."

Wendy Palmer is the creator of Conscious Embodiment a profound approach to personal and professional development using embodied practices. She has been teaching classes and workshops in Conscious Embodiment for over twenty-eight years. She is a sixth degree Black Belt in Aikido and she teaches Aikido at Tamalpais in Corte Madera, California. Wendy is author of Aikido and The Practice of Freedom: Aikido Principles as a Spiritual Guide. She offers coaching in embodied leadership for individuals, groups and teams. Her clients include, Genentech, DaimlerChrysler, Oracle, McKinsey, NASA, Pfizer, Old Navy, The US Forest Service, and John F. Kennedy University.

Module List

Action Inquiry: Transforming Leadership in the Midst of Action
with Thomas Arthur, Mary Stacey & Bill Torbert

Adaptive Action, Artful Perception
with Glenda Eoyang & Wendy Morris

Building Capacity for Wise and Skillful Action with Circle, Brush, and Sword
with Barbara Bash, Toke Moeller & Bob Wing

Catalyzing Organizational Change
with Art Kleiner & David Sable

Embodying Power and Love: Two Essentials for Effective Leadership
with Adam Kahane & Wendy Palmer

Leader as Shambhala Warrior
with James Gimian, Jerry Granelli & Margaret Wheatley

Solving Tough Problems: Co-creating New Realities in Complex Systems
with Mille Bojer & LeAnne Grillo

Women and Leadership: Life Cycles, Power, and Work
with Dorian Baroni, Barbara Cecil & Yolanda Hegngi

“Attending the Shambhala program was a great experience as it helped me open up my mind to new possibilities and helped me understand how we create our new realities.”

—Anil Nayar, Director - Chairman's Office, Bharti Airtel Limited, New Delhi, India
2006 program participant

Sustain and integrate the learning, deepen the impact. Pathways for Authentic Leadership is a nine-month course that begins with the Summer Institute and continues in your home organization.