Civil disobedience as a leadership strategy: Housing Works' Charles King on using every tool at your disposal to influence change

Charles King has been arrested more than 300 hundred times. Not because he's reckless – quite the opposite, in fact: because he's strategic. As the CEO of Housing Works, he's spent 35 years cycling between courtrooms, legislative offices, protest frontlines, and memorial services, doing whatever it takes to pull whichever lever of power any given moment demands.His thesis: it's all advocacy. It's just “in front of different judges.”Topic Highlights:– Why civil disobedience is a calculated leadership tool, and how to know when to use it – The "different judges" framework: how to map your forms of influence to the situation– What the Housing First model actually does for drug users– How Housing Works landed the first cannabis store license in New York – Why Charles, now 70, still lives in one of Housing Works’ residential facilitiesGuest BioCharles King is a lawyer, an ordained minister, an activist, the co-founder and CEO of Housing Works, the nation's largest community-based HIV/AIDS and homeless services organization.Episode LinksHousing WorksACT UP Oral History ProjectJust Mercy by Bryan StevensonFull ArticleConnect with Ustheliftpod.comLet’s stay in touchSubscribe to The LiftFind Ben online: LinkedIn | InstagramSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.