How often are you told you need to work through challenges on your own? The “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” phrase is often thrown at people who could really benefit from a hand-up instead of receiving what originally was a sarcastic idiom, misremembered from the 1800s.

What kind of cultural shift would happen if following our development from very dependent children to independent adults, we then aimed to transform into interdependent colleagues who model healthy and sustainable leadership practices?

“It’s not only OK, but necessary and great to need each other,” says Community Change Electoral Data Manager Gilbert Nuñez. “And we are at a time when a lot of things get in the way of that… We need to be able to work and help each other be connected, getting what we need from each other and giving what we have to each other. This is the very base of Interdependence.”

In the latest episode of “And How Are the Children?” podcast, former public school teacher Omar Marquez continues exploring Interdependence – this time outside of the classroom setting as he sits down with Nuñez and Community Change’s Regional Director of State Power Building Ben Hanna to discover how their interdependence practices have changed the way they lead. Listen for the steps they are taking to replace rugged individualism with interdependence, including modifying how they hold space, give and receive feedback, and ask for support.

Hanna and Nuñez are part of Community Change’s Leadership for Staff development program, one of the organization’s investments in shifting leadership culture towards a bold collective effort to benefit the sustainability and success of our organizing work.

A special thank you to Community Change Leadership Development Program Manager Aida Cuadrado Bozzo and Sr. Leadership & Capacity Development Strategist Bethel Tsegaye for originally bringing the Interdependence practices to the Leadership for Staff program and other Community Change leadership programs, including Power50 and the Women’s Fellowship.

Together we can move from fear and isolation to leadership that is daring and actionable.