Women's Ways of Leading invites the reader into a journey of self-discovery informed by a fresh definition of leadership that transcends position, role and hierarchy and proposes leadership as reciprocal learning in purposeful communities.
Cairo Diary: An Egyptian Fable is a tale of two women 2000 years apart: the Virgin Mary, living with her family in Old Cairo; and Dr. Justine Jenner, an anthropologist. During a violent earthquake, Justine becomes trapped in the crypt under St. Sergius Church, the cave that served as the Egyptian home to the Holy Family. When the shaking stops, the diary of the Virgin Mary lies at her feet. When Linda visited this ancient crypt, she was inspired to write Cairo Diary: An Egyptian Fable, her first historical novel.
Welcome to Lambert Leadership & Literature
So what does it mean to re-imagine the world of learning and leading? On this website, I will strive to answer that question in a myriad of ways. For more than 30 years, I have been re-imagining these vital forces. In the last five years, I have added historical fiction to my collection of passions. My novels reveal the values and themes that occupy my life: liberation, compassion and empathy, feminism, democracy. By re-imagining and intertwining my work in learning and leadership with literature, a new paradigm emerges: a three-way drama in reciprocity with one another.
Maxine Greene, educator and philosopher, reminds us to “ensure that imagination will always, always be free to light the slow fuse of the possible.” When written words form images in our minds, images not known or thought possible before, we are imagining. I will describe this new paradigm from many different perspectives, hoping to form these new images.
Empathy must be front and center to the leaders we are and the leaders we select. George Lakoff argues that empathy is the core expression of a democracy. Such consciousness would imply a different political landscape: “We would understand that our brains evolved for empathy, for cooperation, for connection to each other and to the earth. We cannot exist alone…We would embrace the fact that empathy is at the heart of American democracy…It is why we care about fundamental human rights.” Democracy and empathy are at the core of what makes us human; therefore, they are deeply embedded in both learning and leadership–and in the literature we create.
So read on–and write to me. On this site, you will find several tasty morsels: more information about me and the work that I do; those who work with me (referrals); details about books, especially two new titles, Women’s Ways of Leading and Cairo Diary; book club discussion questions for the two books already in print; and, of course, my Blog.
Enjoy, Linda