“I just think this community is so powerful.”
We were sitting around a retreat cafeteria eating breakfast – myself, my partner Jamie, and four of our five collective children. That weekend, my kids and I had been invited to join Jamie and her boys at an annual camp for families with a loved one who suffered from Type One diabetes. Type One is an incredibly complex medical condition. Before Jamie and I came together and became close with her creative and brilliant 12-year-old son, I had been completely ignorant of Type One and all its complications. Insulin pumps, blood sugar levels, ketones – it had all been terminology that had no meaning to me beyond what I’d perhaps seen depicted in television.
That weekend, my kids and I learned a ton more about the condition, how to support loved ones who were dealing with it every day – and most importantly, the need for and power of a loving community for those dealing with Type One diabetes every day. To see my 13-year-old embrace the power of this community was inspiring, and it spoke to a fundamental practice of impactful leadership – leaders in organizations, communities, or families are always contributing to and creating community around them.
Communities are where we turn to tackle the biggest challenges that we collectively face. When we elect to advocate for a new policy, to provide better services to those we need, or when we are personally struggling, we turn to the communities around us. It is through community that our biggest obstacles – both personal and collective – are tackled. The individual struggling with trauma turns to a loving community. Those struggling with substance use turn to communities that are centered on recovery. Parents turn to the community of parents around them for support. Our kids reach out to communities that possess shared interests.
In 2013, I found myself in an inpatient treatment facility in Kirkland, Washington. I had come to the end of my rope, beaten down by alcohol and gambling addiction and facing felony charges. Reading about my actions in The Seattle Times not only evaporated any hope I had to continue working in my field – but it also, as I saw it at the time, meant the end of the very community I had been a part of for so many years. However, it was another community – that of other individuals who had struggled with addiction but found a way to move forward in life without alcohol, drugs, or gambling – that became a new centerpiece in my life. It was the community of recovery that gave me hope and provided that roadmap for living. It was that community of recovery that provided me with a place to turn both when times were tough and when success was to be celebrated. Simply put, it wasn’t an idea or a concept that allowed for the rebirth that was recovery – it was the community.
Several years into my journey of recovery from addiction, I began working in the world of recovery advocates and organizations nationally. After entering this particular field, it didn’t take long to see the community that serves as the foundation of the entire field. Individuals from across the country would become acquainted through social media or attendance at national or regional events. The position I had at the time afforded me the opportunity to build national coalitions around resource development and federal legislation.
It was through a combination of this work as well as participation in a leadership development cohort that The Communities Project, the national initiative I developed five years ago now, began to come to fruition. To continue growing this community of recovery warriors, we had to invest in leadership.
Communities are built by leaders, nurtured by leaders, and maintained by leaders. They grow because of leaders. When we invest in leaders, we invest in communities. To invest in leadership, we must center that investment in core practices. Notably, we must recognize the ability of anyone and everyone to step fully into their own leadership. The question is not whether or not someone is a leader – the question is, what is stopping us from fully embracing the leader that lives within each of us. The Communities Project focuses on building leaders by centering their practice in responsibility, self-reflection, and speaking to everyone as leaders.
Leaders who lead from a place of responsibility focus solely on their contributions to the results they produce. They never lead by blaming others, shaming themselves, or victimization. They simply start by being responsible – and therefore powerful – for everything they are producing. To understand their contributions to the results they produce, their investment in leadership requires a focus on self-reflection. Self-reflection involves examining, from a position of non-judgment, what precisely their contributions are to their results. And when that contribution is not clear (as we are not always the most objective observers of ourselves), leaders must be willing to seek feedback from those around them. And finally, if we can recognize that leadership lives in everyone, then we must speak to that part of everyone. If we speak to everyone as a leader, we create a powerful new dialogue with individuals that allows us to form partnerships.
Stefanie Robinson is one of my favorite humans. She’s determined, bright, compassionate, focused – and an incredibly powerful leader. I first met Stefanie nearly eight years ago now, as she partnered with the organization I worked with at the time to build a rally supporting recovery on the national mall in Washington, D.C. I was immediately drawn to what Stefanie was determined to build – a community for those in recovery in her hometown in northeast Ohio. A community that collectively could advocate for change in the local response to increasing overdose rates, where individuals could find the housing and other resources they needed to sustain recovery, and perhaps most importantly, a community where they can converse and care for one another. There are few things more important to sustain recovery than a community to which one can turn. Stefanie envisioned that community – and through sustained leadership development, visioning, and goal setting (and a tremendous amount of hard work), she has created it.
Stefanie’s organization, Hope Recovery Community, would not have come to pass had it not been for her leadership. And her leadership is always centered in these core practices. And of all the results she has produced, perhaps most notable is the powerful COMMUNITY she has created.
Families are communities; common causes or similarities make communities. Our organizations can both be a community AND support communities. To continue building these communities, we must invest in leadership.
