Cooperative Leadership
We learn to lead by doing things together.
Leadership here isn’t a title. It’s what happens when people listen to each other, decide together, and follow through. Every shared project is a chance to practice it, and to give more people a voice in what happens next.
Five practices
We’re developing these across CooperationEngine and HumanismOS. Nobody starts out good at all five. We get better at them together.
Listening
Start with what people say they need, in their own words, before deciding what would help.
Bringing people in
Notice who isn’t at the table yet, and make it easy for them to join.
Making decisions together
The people affected have a real say in what happens, including in the tools we build.
Keeping commitments
Say what you’ll do, do it, and close the loop with a thank-you.
Helping others take the lead
Hand over the next project. Leadership grows when it’s shared.
What is a Laulima?
laulima: “many hands,” Hawaiʻi Say it lau-LEE-mah.
When one group can’t do it alone, many hands can.
A Laulima is a group of communities on CooperationEngine that choose to work on something together. A food bank, a clinic and a school serving the same families. Congregations, businesses and neighbors gathering around children’s needs. Each brings what it does best.
We borrowed the word with gratitude because Hawaiian names this better than English does: the value of working together, many hands on one task.
How a Laulima works
- 1
One community starts it
It gives the Laulima a name and a purpose, then invites other communities to join.
- 2
Each community says yes for itself
Every invitation is a choice: join or not now. A community can step away at any time, and what it gave stays in the record.
- 3
They share what they choose
Members can share requests, gatherings and boards with the Laulima. What’s shared is seen only by its current members.
- 4
They count it together
The Laulima keeps one combined record of what it made possible, in numbers, never names. Each community keeps its own credit too.
No one sits at the head of the table. When a group with more resources works alongside a group with more need, both names go on what they accomplish together.
A Laulima this season
Light a Lamp: Laulima for Kids
Schools and nonprofits that serve children bring forward what a child needs. Congregations, businesses and neighbors nearby choose a need and meet it, alongside them. It begins November 8 across Central Texas.
Explore Light a LampA community’s organizer can turn on Laulima for their community from its admin.
Where these ideas come from
Cooperative Leadership grows out of the HumanismOS vision, and out of three books that ask how comparison, shame and the systems around us shape the way we treat each other.
Read the HumanismOS visionThe best place to practice is with people near you.
Look around without an account. Free for individuals.