First Workshop with Disaster Survivors: Example of Fluid Leadership During the Storm Surge

Throughout the workshop, we helped the teachers see their Typhoon experience through the lens of the Heroic Improvisation workshop exercises:  1.  Alert, 2. Ready, 3. Connect, 4. Focus, 5. Move.  And the bonus was we generated fun and laughs along the way.

In Step 4, Focus,  we guide the participants to experience fluid leadership.  The concept is leadership passes around the group depending on the action needed.  One teacher told the group that her shy, silent son arose as the leader of her family’s survival during the storm surge.  He kept the family calm and came up with solutions like hanging onto cables and use large water containers as floation devices.  She used him as an example of fluid leadership.  In regular life, the teacher was the leader of her family.  But during the storm surge, her quiet son helped her family focus on the actions necessary to survive.

At the end of the day, we travelled back to Tacloban.  Our JCI hosts organized a meal for all of us at the best fish restaurant in the area.  You come into the restaurant -- pick out some fresh fish from the selection on ice -- and then they cook it for you.  Per usual, we ate family style, so our host picked out great fish made broiled and in soup. Yum!