The Founders’ Story

The three Founders of the Personal Leadership method: Sheila Ramsey, Gordon Watanabe, and Barbara Schaetti. Taken on Whidbey Island, Washington, U.S.A. in 2015.

It was a hot and sunny day in beautiful Portland, Oregon. Delegates from all over the world were enjoying the stimulating environment of the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication. But on that lovely July afternoon in 1994, Barbara Schaetti and Gordon Watanabe were frustrated.

In fact, we were so frustrated that we were ready to quit.

As professionals in the field of intercultural relations, we had worked together for several years at the Summer Institute. And we were becoming increasingly frustrated by the fact that, in spite of our best efforts, the incoming group of interns we mentored each year had such a hard time becoming an effective team.

The interns were smart, educated, experienced and caring people, many of whom taught and advised others about how to communicate across difference. Yet in the press of the moment, all their best intentions seemed to go out the window. In spite of everything they knew intellectually about working well with others, they argued about the “right way” of doing even the most seemingly inconsequential tasks.

As Barbara and Gordon sat under a tree that afternoon, Sheila Ramsey happened to walk by. She too had worked at the Summer Institute for years. Barbara and Gordon invited her over, and found out that she had been wondering the very same thing: How could people who know so much about how to work with others manage to apply so little of it?

In that moment, Sheila, Barbara and Gordon moved from judgment and frustration to inquiry. In that moment, we stopped focusing on all that did not work. Instead we became curious about what people did when they were able to interact effectively across difference, when they were able to respond to change and uncertainty with resilience and creativity.

In that moment, Personal Leadership was born.

Over the coming years, we viewed our work, both together and in our individual professional lives, through the lens of this question: What specifically were people doing when they worked well across difference, and in times of change and uncertainty?

In 1996, we added a second question to the mix. All three of us had very strong meditation practices. That summer, on the way from a meditation retreat to the Summer Institute, Sheila leaned forward from the back seat of the car and asked: What relationship is there between our work in the intercultural field and what we are learning through meditation?

Good question. Transformative question!

With time, we began taking the first tentative steps toward an answer. We found that what we had been thinking of as two separate, although parallel, dimensions of our journey together were actually intimately connected.

From the pursuit of effective intercultural teams, we learned how critical it is to be able to reflect on our cultural programming. From the meditative practice, we learned how to still our minds to enhance that reflection. From both, we learned about the critical role of self-awareness in transformation.

By 1998, we had articulated the method now known as Personal Leadership.

We introduced it to the Summer Institute and to the Masters in Teaching program at Whitworth University. Personal Leadership has served as a core curriculum for both programs ever since. Four years later, PL was also integrated into the core curriculum of the Master of Arts in Intercultural Relations, sponsored by the Intercultural Communication Institute and its accrediting university.

In 1999, we began introducing the method to private clients. All three of us continue to coach, train and consult using the principles and practices of Personal Leadership.

In 2004, upon request, we developed a training protocol for those interested in facilitating Personal Leadership with their own clients and in their own communities. We have offered the Training of Facilitators seminar every year since. In 2015 we updated the Facilitator Program that leads professionals to formal recognition as PL Facilitators. Also in 2015, we set-up an online Community of Practice, open to anyone interested in deepening their practice and being inspired by other PL practitioners. Over the years, members of the PL Community of Practice, including the subset of PL Facilitators, have met in regional gatherings across the US, in Europe, and in Japan. The last Global Gathering was in California in 2019.

In 2006, in response to the increasing interest in Personal Leadership, we incorporated as Personal Leadership Seminars, LLC. In 2008, we published Personal Leadership: Making a World of Difference to make the specifics of the practice accessible to everyone.

By 2010, with ten cohorts having completed the annual ToF seminars, we recognized that PLSeminars was more deeply involved in the training and development of facilitators than it was in client services. This launched iterative experiments in business models and organizational structures, and launched a global learning community predisposed to self-organizing. In 2019, the Community of Practice and PLSeminars formally disentangled. The Community of Practice continues, with the Founders as Senior Facilitator members, as an independent and self-organizing community of PL practitioners and facilitators. The Founders grant Senior and Associate Facilitators the right to use PL materials in service to their work and greater purpose in the world.

Practitioners and Facilitators around the world are integrating Personal Leadership into leadership training; executive, expatriate, and life coaching; team development projects; international student services; and study abroad programs. PL is part of international development projects throughout the corporate, nonprofit and academic sectors. In 2020, we built on our work of decades training and developing PL Facilitators to write and publish a series of Facilitator Guides. These are available for each of the core curricular components of Personal Leadership or as a comprehensive compilation.

Personal Leadership continues to be a focus of research studies at the Masters and PhD levels. And it is the subject of articles, and the topic of presentations at international conferences.

The framework of Personal Leadership has taken its particular shape and form because we have always sought to walk our own talk. Indeed, we have typically walked a concept through, practiced the steps, and lived the ideas before we have had the words to talk about it.

As we have practiced Personal Leadership in experience after experience, we have felt the power of engaging a learning orientation. We have learned to trust our own creative possibilities, and to have faith that the journey will take us into a place of clarity and appropriate action. This has become easier for us over time, and the benefits, insights, and guidance are ever more pronounced.

We invite you to join us personally and professionally on this most fascinating developmental journey.