Collaboration and Body Language

In Fullan's book LEADING IN A CULTURE OF CHANGE, there is this feeling of leaders as needing an elevated personality who have emotional intelligence, an intuitive nature, self-awareness, intrapersonal skills, and social awareness, plus more. This is a tall order and for someone who has done a great deal of self refection and growth.

Last night at our last skype tele-conference with my group 23 I was hoping we were out of the chaos and moving into a clear path. Both Melanie and Rachel had been in touch with me and they were quite exciting about the direction we were headed. Helen, the scientist, remained silent. As soon as I turned on my computer, I realize we were far from chaos. Helen had revised the whole powerpoint from a more scientific point of view. I could hear frustration, especially from Rachel who was happy with the previous new direction. She felt we were close to closure and wanted to go back! Melanie also was questioning our new direction. I was fascinated! Here was our resister. Not in the true sense of the word, but it was almost as if Helen thinks on another level. Not a higher or lower level, just a different level. I was interested in trying to understand and listen to the resister and use some of the skills in Fullans book. I tried to mediate a conversation forward. On skype teleconference you can not see each other. I found it very difficult to gather information about the group without seeing body language. Garmston talks about body language being 80% of what people say and words are only 20%. How can you really collaborate when we can't see this most important aspect of peoples communication. I went into a cognitive coaching mode and asked clarify questions of Helen to help me understand. As we moved s-l-o-w-l-y forward it seemed that slide by slide we were moving in a direction back to the old way that the three of us were happy with. We didn't get far and it is a grueling process of inquiry and advocacy, but I are seeing and understanding the resistor and realizing that consensus takes time and energy. The process here is really what is fascinating and the end result, the powerpoint is secondary. Of course we all know this but it is something to embrace.