I believe that AHIMSA (literally means "do no harm"), the philosophy that advocates nonviolence and respect for life of every living being, is the key principle if we want to have peace at all levels. As a philosophy of Integral Peace, Ahimsa doesn't just stand for "not killing" but also for not causing physical or emotional pain to any living being, either through thoughts, words, or actions. Mahatma Gandhi said "True Ahimsa should mean a complete freedom from ill-will, anger, hate and an overflowing love for all."
Regarding community peace and leadership, again, I would like to quote here the saying from Mahatma Gandhi: "A sign of a good leader is not how many followers you have but how many leaders you create." Real power comes by empowering people, thus, "leaders become great not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others".
Trust is empowerment. Connection and trust are the foundation of any relationship, as well as leadership and building community. I've learned that building trust, building community is a 2-way process of mutual respect, active listening, compassion, inclusive walk and communication, sincerity, transparency, even opening to vulnerability, keeping one's integrity, constructing safe place for sharing, holding space for dialogue, sharing meals, embracing diversity, story telling, togetherness...
I've learned that being model is important. We have to be what we want our community to be. And building community is like constructing a garden. We should be patient, have adaptive leadership and smart flexibility. Community is evolved along the journey, organically. We hold space for emergence. We do our best, our job is planting seeds, no forcing and let time ripen them.
I've learned about collective leadership - diverse and inclusive leadership at all levels of the ecosystem versus individual leadership. It is a shift from "leader of followers" to "self leader", from setting vision and directing to aligning purpose and action, from control and planning to adaptive action learning, from exercising power to transparent power sharing, from leadership hierarchy to relational shared leadership, from centralized decision making to collective input and process, from personal claim or blame to group reflection and learning, from individual responsibility to group accountability, from individual intelligence to group creativity and wisdom. Collective leadership can take advantage from the gifts of all members in the community. I guess this collective leadership model will be more and more popular in the new age, as public awareness is more and more enhanced.
