Introduction to Marian Urquilla
April 26, 2008. Mebane, North Carolina.
It has been a long week for Marian. She arrived on Friday night and patiently waited an extra hour at the airport till I found my way on the highway. As she buckled her seat belt she told with an exhausted smile that she used the extra time to attend to some work related a major transition in her life from one work place of twelve years to another. This is signature Marian—ever resourceful. Marian has a well tuned natural ability to see opportunity even in mundane moments. I first met Marian through her reputation to be a fierce community advocate who did not take bullying or bullshit from anyone. The second time I met her was in person on the roof top of a building in the bustling and historical U Street district of Washington, DC. A group of people had gathered to honor the life of Lisa Sullivan, a dear friend of hers and a professional acquaintance of mine who had unexpectedly passed-on in October 2001.
In the assembly of community workers, Marian recited the Eagle Poem, by Joy Harjo. I remember being incredibly moved with her recitation, my chest aching from her delivery, my mind thinking about the river named in the poem; a river where on the day after my wedding my husband and I were blessed by eagle flying overhead as we sunned ourselves. I was taken by the potency of Marian's voice and the way it uniquely balanced her sorrow and respect for life. It was during that reading when I experienced first-hand the depth of strength in her humanity. On some level I knew her and I would become friends. It would not be till May of 2003 at the Stone Circles sponsored the Rigmor Gathering when Marian and I truly began to build our friendship.
Marian was born in El Salvador and immigrated to the United States in the 1980's. Marian is the oldest of three children she lives in a city with her brother and sister nearby, while her parents live across the country on another shore. Marian has a deep dedication to the wellbeing of Washington DC and the neighborhoods in which she has lived and worked in for 21 years.
Other than some of the basic and public facts about Marian's life, I acknowledge that there are parts about Marian's history, like moving to the U.S. in the 1980's, that I do not know too much about. We have never talked in any depth about how that particular experience has shaped who she has become. In the follow-up to this interview Marian noted this fact. As a researcher it prompted me to think about why I had not inquired about this. Why did I feel/think or not feel/think that this was important or relevant. Did it even matter for this research? And if it did, how and why?
As professional colleague I have never outright asked Marian about why her family came to the U.S. in the 1980's because I know about the history of military oppression and civilian massacres that occurred up until the early 1990's. I know that the neighborhoods in Washington DC where Marian has lived and worked for 21 years was a haven in the 1980's for many families from El Salvador and other war stricken countries in Central America. Many of the social changes Marian addresses through her work is rooted in the trauma of violence, depression, and mistrust of systems experienced first-hand by people who have been oppressed from many places around the world.
In truth, as a friend, I can recognize upon this reflection that my choices to know or not know are an exercise of holding a culturally learned tension between "respecting Marian's choice to talk about this subject and how it influences her life and work", "self protection", and "a deep held belief that when any person shares a profound experience there is a responsibility that I have as a listener to hold that information and the experience of the telling in a sacred way and I better be prepared in order to do that". In the end, this is a subject that perhaps Marian would feel very comfortable talking about but I may not be one that I would feel comfortable hearing about given my tendency towards deeply feeling and retaining the experiences of others. It occurs to me that there seems to be something in this written text about how I approach relationships that reflect a respect for the organic process of getting to know someone in a personal and/or professional manner; opposed to pushing or cajoling a relationship to happen, which I think I was more inclined to do in my 20's. There is more respect and capacity for silence, paradox, and the unknown within a relationship.
A self-described "'boundary crosser'" Marian "moves easily between institutions and communities helping people and systems achieve their vision" (AECF, 2007, p. 10). Marian's influence extends to the national level through her association with prestigious fellowship programs and her consulting efforts with national foundations. At a local level, over the last twelve years Marian has utilized "her experiences as a community organizer, nonprofit leader, feminist activist, writer, and policy analyst in her role as executive director of the Columbia Heights/Shaw Family Support Collaborative in Washington, D.C." (2007, p. 10). Marian has shaped and influenced the collaborative to be a network of community organizations that work towards integrity between their mission statements and the way they serve the community. This role provided her with an opportunity to work with "leaders that [strive] to provide responsive neighborhood-based services to families at risk of or already in crisis" (2007, p. 10).
In May 2008 Marian began a new professional journey as the Director of Human Development with Living Cities, an initiative with a mission "to increase the vitality of cities and urban neighborhoods and improve the lives of people who live there" (http://www.livingcities.org/index.html, retrieved May 21, 2008). This change in organizations and role within the community takes Marian one layer away from the direct service work. It is a different kind of social activism. The stakes, however, are the same; and that is to create healthy and thriving communities where the struggle between life and death are in need of attention every day. During the interview Marian acknowledged that she knew it would take some time to transition into serving the community in this way but that in the end this new role afforded her an opportunity to breathe and reflect on the lessons she has learned over the last twelve years related to large scale social change work.
In many ways this was an incredible moment in Marian's life-journey to interview her because of this monumental transition. But I wanted to interview Marian before I even knew that she would be moving to a new organization. I have tremendous respect for Marian's ability to speak truth to power, her commitment to hold high expectation of those who work with and for her, her clarity to whom she is accountable, and her courage to do the necessary self work in order to be a holistically healthy person. Marian's experience to become a Life-Affirming Leader, by my description, has been a journey traversing over many years. Her transforming path is one that she purposefully enters into, daily. I knew she would be able to offer incredible insight into the experience of life-affirming leaders.
Insight on Being a Life-Affirming Leader
My interview with Marian took place in a cottage sitting on 70 acres of a retreat center for which Marian sit's on the board for the organization, Stone Circles, which stewards this land. The cottage overlooks a green expansive pasture surrounded by pine trees and various deciduous trees. At night deer cross the forest border and claim the pasture as their feeding ground. On the day we spoke it was sunny outside and quickly working its way to be a warm and humid Sunday afternoon for which North Carolina is known. We sat on a soft old sofa facing each other, settling into the crook of each corner of the couch, Marian on one side me on another. On this afternoon Marian looks tired and peaceful. An odd combination since these characteristics usually contradicts one another. Marian not only wears the paradox well, she fundamentally acknowledges the necessity to embrace and manage paradox as one essential characteristic of a Life-Affirming Leader. More on that later.
As our conversation moved into Marian recalling a moment or a time when she consciously decided to shift how she lead, Marian moves into a reflective state that spans from childhood to adulthood:
I had kind of a life time worry about sort of who I wanted to be and who I was able to be since I was a child. I really wanted to be one of those children who didn't lose things, whose shoes were tied, whose dress didn't get dirty, and whose hair was neat; and I never was (laughter). You know I always felt a little too much for the structure, you know, and just making my mother despair (more laughter). And so I think periodically I have had the insight of the awareness of the impact of self on others…[At the collaborative], I was a bit of a terror, I would like to think the first three years (laughter) but it could of been longer (more laughter). I mean it was not like I didn't get work done, and whatever, whatever, whatever. But it was like one syle. It was sort of this hard-driving, hard-driving, and then really compassionate, but really hard-driving and not in a way that was about…um, I don't know how to explain it. I was much less gentle. And I was much more expressive of anger, that's a nice way of saying I was just really a bitch. And I could go off. And people are very scared of me and then I stopped. I realize now, I didn’t realize then, but I realized in retrospect, because it had been years, [that to this day people are scared of me] and the' shadow' lingered.
Like other Life-Affirming Leaders, a significant turning point in Marian's step toward consciously shifting her leadership to a more life-affirming approach happened in 1999 with the death of friend and colleague Ingrid Washinawatok El-Issa. Ingrid was an internationally known human rights activist and citizen of the Menominee Nation of upper Wisconsin. Marian and Ingrid knew each other through the Rockefeller Foundation's Next Generation Leadership Fellowship program and were in the same cohort:
I think it was after Ingrid was killed, which was in 1999, the spring of 1999. And I really had such a hard psychological reaction to that; I realized I needed to do a different kind of work and that that couldn't spill… [Ingrid] is an extraordinarily special human being. I think that part of the impact was the loss of her and the loss of who she wasn't going to be and all that. But also part of it for me was that the part of my life that included people being killed for political reasons was over…and so really it was like the past had blown open in the present, and that was really quite shattering. Followed soon there after by 9/11 and all the other things that happened. I felt like the door had broken right open. And it made me really attended to the fact that under stress, in the face of violence I did not have full command of my resources. So I started to do the work. And I really started to shift.An underlying assumption I hold in telling the narrative about the transformation occurring in the culture of social justice leadership is the belief that without a coherency between practice and values genuine transformation is compromised. Marian's story speaks to this. As our conversation moved into recollections about her experience to intentionally begin practicing leadership in a way that would affirm life, she shares the initial feelings she encountered:
I think that for a long time [the shift] felt very silencing. So that my way of dealing as to be like, [making a muffled meowing sound], bite my tongue, you know, looking at your plate (laughing), eating a lot, and just suffering and that wasn't very helpful.When I asked her if it was suffering from what she was to what she was becoming, like birthing, Marian clarifies:
[The suffering] was knowing that I did not want to work a certain way and knowing that I had not assembled all the tools to do work in a different way. I feel that was a pretty harsh 2 or 3 year period. I got good work done but it was not without its pain.For me, Marian's revelation is an important one, in that when a person enters into an intentional act of changing their ways of being in the world, it is often not comfortable. Marian describes the disorientation she experienced not as a "block" but as a reminder of the intentionality behind her choosing to be in the world in a different way. Bridges (1991) explains that the transformation resulting from change does not happen overnight, the transition is a slow, often suffering felt, process because it is rooted in "the psychological process people go through to come to terms with [a] new situation" (p.3).
In the spirit of the guidance offered in The Activist's Ally: Contemplative Tools for Social Change (2007), Marian speaks to the role and power that contemplative practices represent in the life of a life-affirming leader.
I think that what shifted for me…was when I went from really studying Buddhism to practicing meditation. And that I learned, literally, to hold less judgment of myself. Just a lot more patience about what arose. Less identification with the anger. Less identification with the impatience. It wasn't like this little girl who's sad because she spilled things on her dress and lost the barrette. It was like, shit happens and move on, it was that kind of thing, of not having rage for perfection and rage with imperfection.In my mind, Marian's description of her meditation practice as an act of mindfulness demonstrates moving from a place of self-destruction to a place of self-realization (May, 2004). In this sense, Marian's transformation leads her to see the "resplendent, inexpressible beautiful, and…completely loveable" (2004, p. 180) self that she is.
Insight on Organizational Transformation
Sitting on the sofa, the conversation seamlessly moved from Marian's ongoing experience of personal transformation to the influence of her transformation within the organization she was leaving after 12 years of dedicated and respected work. Three specific experiences stood out about Marian's insight on organizational transformation as it relates to her journey of life-affirming leadership.
Clarity of accountability
Marian reveals that a big shift in her leadership occurred when she gained clarity about to whom the organization was accountable. When she began to share this information her body slightly shifted, back straighter, focused eyes, and not much pausing in her sentences. I recognized this stance from when I experienced her facilitation. It was one that claimed her authority of hard earned knowledge from life-experience, dedication to learning, and commitment to integrity to creating spaces that optimize learning.
I realized that, this is a hard thing to say…my loyalty in my role as executive director was not to the staff, it really was to the clients; and once I got that straight, it wasn't even to the clients today, it was to the clients who would come or who through our actions would not come; and once I got that straight, I was much less conflicted. And I think that I felt kinder but I think at some level my implementation of that was harsher. Much sharper boundaries with staff aboutI took Marian's commitment to her clarity about to whom the organization was accountable as a significant example of life-affirming leadership, because fundamentally she was promoting deeper thought and more precise actions built on the premise of asking "what does it means to be in the world with responsibility?" (Vaill, 1998, p. 13), a question fundamental to affirming life on many levels and completely congruent with the fourth path, right action, in the Buddha's teachings to diminish suffering: abstaining from taking life, abstaining from stealing, abstaining from unchastely.
expectations, results, and insistence of [high performance]...[Knowing to whom we were accountable] felt clarifying, it felt focusing, and then that was really my compass, and so I did not feel a lot of things that had been fraught for me before. Where I felt like that I had a split loyalty or this split sense of priorities and entanglement, it just went away.
Parallel process internal and external of the organization
Another example of the influence of "right action" in Marian's leadership was when she deliberately sought out to join ethics and practice by creating a parallel process between the internal and external expression of the organizations mission of leadership development. For her this meant building coherency between the performance of the organization in the community and the performance of staff within the culture and structure of the organization:
…parallel process was really about capacity building and leadership development...that [the work of the staff] was not just a performative piece that it was about the maintenance and reproduction of the daily life of the organization.Marian verifies later in the conversation that the internal work she was doing for herself was the beginning of being able to bring transformation to the structure and culture of the organization; an admission that demonstrates consistent with the value she places on creating parallel processes as a leader.
Affirming the life of staff
Marian speaks often about the importance of clarity between boundaries, authority, role and tasks (B.A.R.T.) in relationship to leadership and staff development[1]. I sense that for Marian her ability to affirm the life of staff within the organization is closely linked to supporting them in clarifying their B.A.R.T in relationship to the context of their work. I ask Marian what it feels like to affirm the life of a staff member and though I feel she does not answer directly, she offers me an example of a recent incident in which she felt the staff performed brilliantly during a community crisis. For me, when she shares this example, Marian speaks fluidly and radiates satisfaction. I press on and ask her "What does an affirmed life look like?" she easily describes that for her it looks like a person:
Being able to ask questions that are uncomfortable…being able to use their own creativity to solve problems…an ability to string together pieces to make a whole new solution and to mobilize other people.She does not say this, but I intuit that she profoundly understands that the cultural, structural, and performative shifts in the organization were initiated by her intentionality to lead differently. This transformed leadership in essence became a critical part of a conduit for the staff to begin claiming their authority in the role and task during times of crisis for the purpose of serving others. She quickly reveals, almost in passing, that the way the staff handled this community crisis was one of the moments when she knew that it was ok for her to leave the organization. For me, Marian models what Cloke and Goldberg emphasize in their book, The Art of Waking People Up (2003):
The goal in waking ourselves and others up is not about some abstract, idealized managerial model of the perfect employee. Rather it is to assist ourselves in becoming more fully, deeply, and authentically who we are, so we can bring more of ourselves to our work. It is to creating relationships of trust, environments of learning, and organizational structures, systems, cultures, and process that allow us to self-correct and achieve balance in our lives, and be able to learn from every work experience in ways that improve our capacity for perception, understanding, growth, learning, and change (p. 31).Insight on the Transformation of the Field
Shifts in awareness, attitude, and practice
In 2007, Marian was chosen as one of the fellows in Annie E. Casey's prestigious Children and Family Fellowship program. This initiative focuses on developing the leadership potential of visionary leaders at the helm of public and nonprofit organizations working to improve outcomes for children (AECF, 2006). The fellowship is an opportunity for such leaders to gain "confidence and competence to create supports and systems that help families make positive choices and to lead and sustain major system reforms and community change initiatives that benefit large numbers of children and families" (AECF, 2006, p. 4). During our discussion, I asked Marian how she knew the culture of leadership in social change work is shifting and she quickly responded.
So, this is how I know things are changing, right. Is that when I did my 360 for the Casey fellowship, the area I scored the lowest on was self-care. And it wasn't like, "Oh, she works so hard; she's so self sacrificing; she's amazing." It was like, "Oh, were concerned". I remember being 20 something and that the thing was to work the most hours, and you know, I think because we were all in the shadow of larger movements that involved much greater, greater sacrifice and our sacrifice was time and self.
Marian is able to see her own transformation in a larger social discourse influencing that is renovating social change work and that it is a narrative that includes the necessity of accounting for the human development process, creating opportunities for life-work effectiveness, and addressing sustainability issues of multiple factors (Wheatley, 2002, 2005; Horwitz, 2002; Cloke and Goldsmith, 2003; May, 2003; Brown, 2003; Vaill, 1996, 1998; and Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, 2002, 2004).
For me, I think some of it is maturity, personally, right, but I see younger people having a different balance or idea about balance. But, I think that we are in a frame, a change frame where we know we are talking about long-distance running not sprinting, and that there is just a different type of conditioning that you do. One is anaerobic, one is aerobic and all that…I think maybe that, that's what we are moving into, and then that what do we as people doing this work, how do we have to manage our relationships, how do we have to manage ourselves, our institutions, our networks because we know they and we have toMarian's analogy of the long-distance runner and the sprinter sent chills up my arm. Although I had heard this analogy before, I had never heard it applied to this topic. For me her comments hold an implied responsibility by individuals, organizations, and stakeholders in the field of social justice work to find innovative ways to broaden and deepen the discourse of leadership wellness and organizational sustainability over a long-period of time...in a way that reflects the social change for which we are working. This is an area to which this dissertation begins to address but there are many other topics in the field of organizational development and leadership development that can attend to this opportunity to build knowledge.
exists for the long-haul.
Advice for Emergent Social Justice Activists: The Wrong Question?
I was pacing my office, pulling books by Neruda, van Manen, and Markova off the shelves that surround me as I tried to write this section. I was seeking inspiration on how to write about what Marian has shared with me regarding essential characteristics. On one hand it would be simple to create a list from the information she offered along with her description of each one, but somehow that does not feel like it would do justice to what I feel her lived wisdom offers about Life-Affirming Leadership. As I reflect back on this part of the interview by listening to that portion of the interview and pertaining notes, I decide that I have posed a question that might not have really evoked what I am trying to learn about or as Marian pointed out in our reflection of the interview, maybe it created entry ways to other areas for inquiry.
The question I asked a Marian was, "What would you say is essential for [a social justice worker] to have to not just be an effective social justice worker, but to be one that aligns themselves with what they are trying to achieve?" When I listen to the interview it is clear how the question I posed reveals my own assumption that to be an effective social justice worker means to conduct oneself in a way that aligns values of a social justice frame and actions working towards. Not to mention how my question glosses over the supposition that an effective social justice worker is inherently a life-affirming leader. This observation is not about being hard on myself, I am just mindful of how unaware I was about my own beliefs compromised a learning moment.
In the reflective state that accompanies the transition Marian is in with her career and the life-style it will enable her to have, I experienced Marian's answers to the question as if I was hearing a master key note speaker giving a PowerPoint presentation; meaning Marian spoke with what I took as authoritative wisdom, illustrated by the tone in her voice (which I interpreted as confidence), and offered a description of each characteristic as if she had shared them many times before. When Marian got to the second to last characteristic she stopped and said with a slight chuckle, "I don’t know. That feels like a long list." I commented that this was quite a substantial list and "that [the list] was really good", she said, "Thanks" with a hearty laugh as if it were no big deal, and then a subtle "Ya" that for me, suggested a healthy sense of self. Then she paused and we moved onto the next question; Over the years, I have come to experience Marian's "pause and move on" after a compliment as an endearing sign of her modesty about her wisdom and brilliance as a life-affirming leader. Embedded in this very subtle act is Marian's not only a reflection of her cultural upbringing but of her work ethic to reflect, celebrate successes, and move to the next needed action needed to create a better society.
The six characteristics Marian offered during this part of the interview reflect, for me, characteristics from other parts of her narrative that describe where she has experienced the significance these characteristics played in her own leadership and that of the people whom she has mentored. The following is a summary briefly describing each essential characteristic that Marian named.
As the interview ended, we both expressed surprise that the amount of time had passed that did. Marian excused her self to go and finish some work before she flew back to DC. I pulled a saffron colored wingback chair to the nearby window and sat down. As I contemplated the beauty in life Marian had revealed over the last few hours I looked out onto the green pasture and the shifting sunlight and felt like I was being supported by a gentle and firm hug.1. Paradoxical stance. The ability to care about more than just yourself. The ability to give all but to keep some for yourself; the ability to extend but to ground. One might not need to come with a paradoxical stand already developed but they must have a tolerance for paradox. Social justice work requires working with chaos.
2-3. Ability to envision change and believe in solutions. Being able to envision change and believe in solutions are related. A person has to be ale to see that could be. They have to believe that things can change and that there are already strengths in the community that can be part of the solution. If they do not exercise this social justice is futile work. Learning how to focus on what has worked, verifying that it actually does, and then applying that knowledge to situations that are not working is incredibly important. Inherent in this strengths based approach is the idea of having the ability and stamina to test, try, experience possible solutions—and then modify and test, try, experience again until things change.
4. Connect with others. This means that a social justice worker has to be able to see other people as real. That the people they are working for and with in the community have feelings, joys, sadness. They are more than a label or a role. As such, the ability to authentically and compassionately connect with other people is paramount to the work.
5. Ability to love. The ability to love is vital to being able to connect with others. Of course this includes the ability to love your self. It is love with arms wide open—it is not a clutching or smothering love.
6. Learn from experience. This might be the most important essential characteristic of any social justice worker. The ability to learn demonstrates that you are reflective, it helps you keep track and see what you're bumping up against; learning from experience gives you ideas on how you can do better and shows you that it is your responsibility to move in that direction.
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[1] Marian is well schooled in the Tavistock Institute approach to human development. She has great mastery about how the concept of role plays an important part in someone's development as a leader. The boundaries of this inquiry do not permit me to fully explore her knowledge of this subject with her or to demonstrate in writing her deep level of understanding in any significant way.
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