Passages (a leadership poem)

Nar­ra­tive

Lead­er­ship is an odd quan­ti­ty, isn’t it? No one seems to know what it is, but we seem pret­ty sure we can fig­ure it out. As a sub­ject, lead­er­ship nev­er sits still long enough for its essence to be grasped, and yet it seems to promise an essence. Despite the sub­tle changes, it seems to have at its core some kind of know­able struc­ture, and so we seek to name that struc­ture and pin it down, like an insect in a dis­play case. But then we find that essence, what­ev­er we think it might be, as tem­po­rary as the grass, as day­light, as dreams. 

Ear­li­er today, I was talk­ing with a friend, and we decid­ed that there is a cri­sis going on in lead­ing. What we have done to fos­ter lead­er­ship in our orga­ni­za­tions in the past no longer seems to be work­ing, or is not work­ing near­ly so well as it used to. The world is matrixed, net­worked, con­di­tion­al, and very, very demand­ing. Is this just the reces­sion, we asked our­selves, or is some­thing a lit­tle larg­er at work?

The larg­er thing no doubt, but it, too, is an escap­ing essence. Changes keep com­ing. The scene is con­stant­ly drift­ing else­where. We can’t even seem to hold onto our own souls and keep them safe. They are like the paper used to wrap fish that some Japan­ese poets were said to favor for their work — know­ing that every­thing is tem­po­rary and every­thing will be thrown away, too soon con­sumed by the fire. Actu­al­ly, I’d say we are lucky we can’t hold onto our souls in any per­ma­nent way. Then they, too, might end up as a com­mod­i­ty, and com­modi­ties can always ulti­mate­ly be bought and sold

So what can we hold onto? I think that was the theme my friend and I were dis­cussing, although we used dif­fer­ent words for it. He, too, is a change agent. He, too, wants to find an impact and a lega­cy. It’s iron­ic isn’t it? Two change agents talk­ing about what is unchanging.

Inevitably, our con­ver­sa­tion drift­ed to the hounds that are bay­ing these days for per­for­mance, per­for­mance, per­for­mance, and the how large orga­ni­za­tions seem to be scoop­ing us away from hon­or­ing what is small­er, clos­er to the heart, and maybe more thought­ful or per­son­al. A com­mon lament! 

And a use­less one. The tide keeps turn­ing, the day keeps turn­ing, the grass, well, you know the grass…

I was out for a walk and it occurred to me the lead­er­ship jour­ney has always been like this — this insta­bil­i­ty and ambi­gu­i­ty at the core. It seems eas­i­er at the start, the grass is green, the light is fine right here, even if the for­est in front of us is dark. But it doesn’t stay that way. Sud­den­ly, things are alto­geth­er dif­fer­ent from what they seem. The weath­er changes. Snow falls. Sud­den­ly the rooms we once felt com­fort­able with­in are filled with smoke and mir­rors. The deci­sions come hard and fast, until what once was day­light becomes dream­light — except we still think we still know what’s true and real and what’s not.

Well, as they say, per­cep­tion is real­i­ty. Per­cep­tion and rep­u­ta­tion, that is. Per­cep­tion and rep­u­ta­tion are what’s real. How you are viewed and what peo­ple think of you. You have to deal with that, no get­ting around it. You might be able to ignore it for awhile, but not for­ev­er. One day you are in, the next day you are out. And some­how there’s a belief that’s going around that in and out are the result of your per­for­mance. Of course, the slip­pery part is…that’s true…in part, just as its oppo­site has some truth in it, too. The sys­tem, events, cir­cum­stances, coin­ci­dence and syn­chronic­i­ty also have some­thing to do with it. Your life thread. An age ago some­one said to me the rea­son mid­dle man­agers find it so hard to change is that they didn’t real­ly know the rea­son for why they are where they are — there­fore, because they don’t know the rea­son they are afraid to change the for­mu­la, and they and the orga­ni­za­tion are stuck. 

I think that’s a harsh and cyn­i­cal view and dis­re­spect­ful of those who have the job.

And respect, ah now there’s an intan­gi­ble, yet it doesn’t seem to change much, does it? Along with rep­u­ta­tion and per­cep­tion, respect seems to have a per­ma­nent place in our view of what effec­tive lead­er­ship is all about. Respect for what is wor­thy of respect. And I would add to the list, the inner strength of one’s val­ues and also the capac­i­ty to be vul­ner­a­ble. Peo­ple won­der what will cre­ate engage­ment these days. Engage­ment has always been attract­ed by lead­ers who have a healthy respect for per­cep­tions and who can express some vulnerability.

Maybe the truth about us change agents is that we are not inter­est­ed in change at all, but sim­ply in things that are intan­gi­ble and that last, that have mean­ing, and every­thing else, every oth­er fad of lead­ing, every new piece of jar­gon, new twist, is some­thing we just use as a tool to get at the under­ly­ing things, those uni­ver­sals, far­ther down in the matrix, at the foun­da­tions of what is tru­ly important. 

Well, you can’t reduce lead­er­ship to your rep­u­ta­tion or whether peo­ple respect you, can you? Nor to under­stand­ing oth­er­s’ per­cep­tions or your own val­ues or your own vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. But I guess com­ing full cir­cle to the green grass of a new day, it cer­tain­ly doesn’t hurt to con­sid­er those things and the learn­ing they may bring, the pas­sages they have to offer.

Technorati Tag: Reflections and Poems. Link to blog posting. Link to Oestreich Associates website.