title: "Spiritlinking": a key to dynamic change. Fostering chaos enables leaders to form the networks and unity needed to fulfill their mission.
abstract: To contend with the anxiety and chaos inherent in rapid change, leaders can turn to ¿spiritlinking,¿ the deliberate and untiring act of building the high-energy networks where new ideas are born and new ways of delivering service take form. Spiritlinking leaders are able to envision and promote the paradox of disequilibrium. They seek truth, pushing the organization into a condition of imbalance where staid settledness gives way to new paradigms founded on constant transformation. Spiritlinking leaders are not bound by organizational charts. They have discovered that the greater the participation in the organization, the greater the access to vast amounts of information and insight, which will ultimately lead to profound transformation. Spiritlinking is directed toward networking, community forming, and coalition building, often across chasms of ideological differences. Leaders must have the skill to manage the vision, which entails generating courage and belief through the cloudiness of ambiguity. Spiritlinking leaders must also create synergy from conflict, gathering strong-minded, self-assured persons who perhaps hold vastly differing perspectives, yet, in working for the common good, arrive at surprising, wonderful decisions. Finally, spiritlinking leaders assist the organization in working through resistance by identifying the mode, motive, and meaning of the resistant behavior and determining the action the organization is willing to take to move beyond it.
authors.affiliation: Southdown Institute, Aurora, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Markham
mesh_terms: D002170:Canada; D002410:Catholicism; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D007857:Leadership; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D011361:Professional Competence; D014481:United States