This quote is from a different Thread that has been archived,"Concepts:Democracy and Liberalism..."which I hope to further develop here. The short answer to the above is
Self <--->Family <--->Community <---> Nation <---> Human Social System <---> The
Universe. Let's see how far we can develop this schema, before it lays down and rolls over dead.

Continuing from above...Yes, there is a continuum of connectivity (within the Organism and between the Organism and its Family, Community, Nation and World). Reality is built outwardly
from each Person's Center, in words, images, sensations, etc., through social learning in the Social System...Home, School, Friendship groups, Church, Media and other manifestations
of Community abd Nationality.

This is such a broad topic One could start just about anywhere so I'm going to start with the concept of, "Leadership." To start this topic, let's skip down one level and substitute the more
concrete and specific term:Management. For our purposes of decreasing corruption and incompetence in goverment and increasing its responsiveness and effectiveness in helping the Nation set and achieve worthwhile Goals, we must replace the traditional Management Style
that is in place in most public and private Organizations which is about 180 degrees away from the way they describe it in most MBA Programs and the, "Research Literature."
There is a better way and some organizations do it much much better than others. As I see it,
one of the most significant problems is that the traditional model only has two channels of communication. There is a top-down Information Dessimination channel and a seeking input channel presented as bottoms up which is also managed by the central processor or Management.
The Progressive trend to democratize the workplace could have a strong positive impact here.

Continueing from above...come on in folks the water is not too hot or too cool...Let's explore this matter of the Person's Connectivity with Her, His or Other's World. Trust me, it has political implications. Let's make this a Group Essay. Write anything you wish and we'll edit it as we go.

As easy as it is to start with leadership, I would say that our level of trust and understanding of leadership is currently more of a problem than a solution. The world is more controlled by bottom up movements than most of the so-called leaders would like us to believe. The world evolves despite leadership, not because of leadership. This was obvious to me after reading the book Emergence by Steven Johnson.

I'm not saying that leadership needs to be overthrown. I'm saying that until most of us bottom-up contributors understand just how influential our bottom-up efforts are, we'll never elect the kind of leaders that nurture our bottom-up potential more than they stifle it.

Yes, we agree, "that our level of trust and understanding of leadership is currently more of a problem than a solution." We are both pointing to a methodology of observing and describing how the social system actually works as apposed to being guided only by folk wisdom or how
the professional/scientific Literature describes what in going on (wi-go). Emergent Evolution
is proceding (and I think its tendency is upward and outward and, "Manifested in a Thousand
Points of Light) and that there is also a critical need for the Top Down Portion of the Management
Process or Emergent Evollution. Organisms require organizing. This is true of both bilological
organisms including Persons and Psycho-socio-economic-political, cultural and spiritual Organisms (Organizations)In any social system there is always the Leadership that is actually
going on, usually being at least partially covered up by the accounts of an infinite number of observers. There is a top down emphasis when building structures to facilitate
bottoms up and lateral communication. The need is for better integration of communication
channels.

This is a good attempt to redefine what the role of leadership in a group should be. We already know that the authoritarian executive doesn't help in most cases. And yet, we also know that more big picture vision is needed to better integrate those communication channels.

More people at the bottom need to see the big picture. I know most people think that only a few of us need to see the big picture. They think that too many people seeing the big picture would lead to too many leaders and not enough followers. I think it would lead to more followers who know how to pick better leaders. You don't need to see every detail of the big picture. You just need to see what the real overall goals are, not just the goals of the individual job you've been assigned. It's easier to add your piece of the puzzle in the right place when you've seen what completion should look like from the picture on the box. This helps with motivation. Not everyone is motivated by this notion that we are somehow disconnected from "God" and that our ultimate goal is to re-connect in "Heaven".

We do have too many so-called "leaders" who take credit for other people's work while hindering progress. We have too few real leaders. More people seeing the big picture would lead to more real leaders. Jesus (the philosopher) said that he who is greatest among you will be your servant. More people are willing to serve than to be served. Most of us just don't know what it means to serve. Most of us don't know when we are opposing or contributing to the status quo.

What I believe is missing is the willingness to share knowledge from the top and, in some cases, the willingness to know from the bottom. For too many years the people at the bottom have had there self-confidence destroyed. This makes the average person overly trusting of individuals and high places, and lacking trust in themselves. The people at the top are the opposite, overly trusting self and lacking trust in the average person. This causes the people at the top to horde information, and at the same time, causes people at the bottom to ignore information when shared.

So I guess the ideal leader would boost the self-confidence of those at the bottom while facilitating and integrating communication channels. Not since JFK said ask what you can do for your country has there been much said to boost the self confidence of those at the bottom. The Bush administration is saying the opposite, "just trust us and we'll handle everything."

I agree that authoritarian and dogmatic leadership is to be avoided 100%. Openness and shared leadership is to be emphasized. (will pick up later, horse feeding time)

P1. We agree that there is some Role for Leadership in all groups.
P2. We agree about the need for all citizens to develop the concepts and operations refered
to as cognitive flexibility, shifting back and forth between a concrete and specific conceptualization to an abstract and general conceptualization. This is a serious deficit in our Education System and has been made worse by Bush II's No Child Left Behind Education
Law. But what might one expect?

Continued from above. After P2, the exploration seemed headed toward an analysis of
how development goes wrong. Yes, there is an infinite number of ways development
can go wrong. We're looking for a few ways it can go right and let's see how we can facilitate some of these. This is, I think, especially critical for taking systems language, and systems theory to the National and International levels.

On the subject of leadership, one of the few ways it can go right was mentioned at the end of the post in question:Aside from leader ship, there are many more ways that it can go right to include bottom-up movements and pivotal events. I figured we could explore them when we are done with the subject of leadership.

Question: What are the most promising ways for Human Development to go right in our Current Social System? Quality Leadership at all levels & domains...Quality Education and Training at all levels & domains...Individual Personal Awareness...Individual Personal Connectivity at all levels & domains...Community Out Reach, Maintainance and Growth of Person-centered Programing...What
Others???...

Reform, starting with the way we use media, and starting with the most important medium, the medium of exchanging information about debt, the dollar.

Would you develop this a little further?

Put simply, money is too smart for the good of people who use it. Paper money is too stupid to correct it's corrupting problems and yet collectively too smart to allow us to correct them. Electronic money has much more potential to carry out our collective good will.

We can start by making money more effective at allowing us to do the good things that you mention. If we could simply see a history of where the money we earn comes from before we accept it, and place restrictions on how money that we spend could ultimately be used at any point in the future, then we could reverse the corrupting effects of money. We already have the technology. All we need is the will.

Show a detailed Budget with penalty-based time-frames before you get the money.

The forces that support the status-quo (of allowing the Social System to operate on its Default
System, except for top-down initiated incremental segments of, "social engineering" to make it look like the best of all possible worlds)...systematically stamp out Emerging Leadership that is indigeonous to those lead. This has been our failed strategy at home and abroad. Our current
paradygn shift to a more enlightened, science-based perspective has brought with it a more liberal and progressive body politic...

Delete the above paragraph. It is too hard to read.

From a Social System's perspective we must learn to better Manage Technology and the Human
Factor of Technocracy. Otherwise, the cure may be worse than the desease. In order to integrate
Merriotocracy into Democracy we must also integrate Technocracy into Democracy. Note: Use Bill's
contribution without being affraid He'll take the keys away from you. Don't just leave your keys
laying around.

How Bottoms-up, adaptive processes in the Social System get pirated away and controled by the Management Structure--A Short Story

When I joined the University-based, Federally Funded, Rehabilitation Research and Training Center,
in 1975, I was marginally involved with one of the Center's on-going Projects to support the Institute on Rehabilitation Issues, which went on during the 20 years I was with the Organization.
Every State has a Rehabilitation Agency which puts Professional Counselors in every community in
the Country. The Heads of these Agencies are members of the Governor's Cabinet. At the time
I was introduced to the Institute on Rehabilitation Issues, their procedure for identifying issues to be studied was to solicit issues from practicing Counselors and with a progressive group editing procedure, it was eventually narrowed down to one issue and a group of Experts and representatives
from various consummer and professional constituencies are brought together to study the issue and produce a Document. Needless to say, there was continous pressure from the National Bureauracy to influence this process and initially a very hard Professional push-back. The Professional/Scientific push back was too tepid and upper level Agency Management had complete
control of the process by 1985.

The big point of where I'm trying to go with this is, How can we effect and affect what's going on?
We need to actually look at what services are being rendered, how, and to what effect. Legislation
with social goals that cost money contain, within them, prescribed Program Evaluation Procedures
that are either carried out successfully or not. It is Legislatively proclaimed that data from such
program evaluation will be used to improve the program and to inform consumers of the service. This is a big Lie. It is not being done sufficiently. On the contrary, tax dollars are too often used
to turn away the prying eyes of Citizens. This is the corruption and incompetence in government
that the Democratic Party is pledged to Change...

Relative to the more abstract and general notion of building Conceptual Models, the approach
to describing Personing that I am exploring, tends to minimize State and Regional Differences.
I am not unaware of such differences. Personaly, I followed my lineage, and that of
the country, in general, pushing Westward, avoiding Alabama and Mississippi, and getting as far as Fort Smith, Ar. Pausing there, feeling a little uneasy...after a couple of over-nights in Oklahoma City,
it was back to either Fayettvile or Hot Springs, Ar. People generally get meaner from around Plains,
Ga. to Oklahoma City. Of course, with a larger perspective one can take a train ride to Chicago, Il.
or a plane ride to any place in Calif.

We are affecting what's going on, just not at the pace we'd like. Bottom-up progress always happens despite top-down efforts to control it. And it's rarely the kind of progress those at the top imagined or hoped for. There's only two things I can think of that would speed the rate of progress of bottom-up efforts. One is leadership with the goal to facilitate bottom-up power and communication as mentioned earlier in this thread. The other is emergence education. The biggest obstacles to either of these is the lack of willingness due to the greed, love of power, and a simple lack of interest from those at the top. Those at the top see no personal benefit in empowering those at the bottom. So the next questions are: what are the personal benefits of empowering those at the bottom to those at the top, and how do you sell them?

Fortunately, I am not still in southwest ga choppin cotton, though I have been there doing that.
An Evolutionary View of Human Experience can be more elevating to the Human Spirit than
any of the previous accounts of creation stories in the various Scpiptures that have been handed down. I think it is time that all adult Citizens become aware that this choice is to being made and that the train will go in the direction of the majority...Evolutionary Democracy is a good thing. It prevents Revolutions in the same way that advoiding unwanted pregnacies prevent Abortions. And
yes, I do believe there is Human Spirit. It is the Extention of the Energy created with the Integration
of perceiving, conceiving, feeling, intending and acting purposefully in your situation. It is what runs
Feed-forward, in the Information Processing Model of Personality...your individual Self-awareness.

The Holding Company that owns the grocery chain my wife works with and several other chains and Drug Stores, is presently getting rid of all its red managers and keeping its green managers and hiring green types of persons and training them. Red and green refer to
particular types of profiles. Fortunately, my wife is very green, or she wouldn't be on
the company's regional Culture Council.