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Lessons in Leadership
17
Nov 2022
Throw It Like Confetti
Aviva Walls
More than pre-Pandemic, I appreciate the value of getting closer to something in order to better understand it.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the global Project Kesher community has been organizing to support Ukrainian women and families. Operating in Ukraine since 1989, Project Kesher Ukraine (PKU) has a grassroots network of over 300 trained leaders from Ukraine who are originally from more than 40 cities. Now, though they are nearly all uprooted and moving around due to war, PKU-trained leaders are working to help others.
For me, the amount of supervision comes down to a formula I’ve developed over the years: What is my unique value added per unit of (my) effort?
Supervision is about developing a professional, collaborative relationship in which both parties share responsibility and feel accountable to one another as they both strive to meet the goals of their organization. Supervision is a skill and a craft – one’s title, salary, and professional portfolio do not automatically or universally make someone an effective supervisor.
When we can spring into action, through relentless trial and error to strive to adapt new methods for our current (and ever changing) reality, we will gradually empower leaders as agents of change in their environments, in order to develop the resilience to deal with future unforeseen challenges.
Judaism teaches us that within loss there is joy, and within joy there is loss. So, my friends, be kind to yourselves as we accept and mourn all of these losses, and take our first tentative steps towards joy, individually and communally.
Our tradition requires us to honor loss, to share loss, to memorialize loss, to let suffering speak and to build rituals around loss. And, at the right moment, to find hope despite loss, and even to find hope in loss.
