A Good Driver.
A good leader is like a good driver.
As aware and considerate of those behind as of the task of navigating the road ahead.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Eager to resolve your itch of doubt?
Follow a good decision making process to finality.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
One Second.
On average, a teacher allows students one second ‘pause time’ to answer a question posed by the teacher.
We’re trained from an early age not to Step Back.
Token Gestures.
The bad boss creates the conditions of worker uncertainty, lack of information, and loss of control that lead to stress.’
Then exploits this vulnerability to appear benevolent and pastoral by offering token gestures of ‘wellbeing’ respite.
Another sin of positional power.
Footnoting AI.
How long before there is a convention allowing footnoting an Artificial Intelligence as a source of authority?
Footnoting books and scholarly works relies on the integrity of human authors’ and researchers’ collation, conclusions, and opinions.
An AI proven to be sufficiently reliable to do the work of a diligent academic, journalist, or historian could be accorded the same authority.
Stability Boss.
The essential rhythm in organisations is, therefore, an alternation of long periods of stability with very short periods of crisis and change. - Michael Crozier, ‘The Bureaucratic Phenomenon’
Organisations appoint bosses based on the skills needed to boss for the long periods of stability.
Stability bosses are not equipped to do more than muddle through the very short periods of crisis and change.
The longer the stability boss remains, the more frequent the periods of crisis.
Until crisis becomes the norm.
Ready. Shoot. Aim.
You make - or don’t make - a decision.
Shoot.
Somebody says ‘Hey! I’m unhappy with your act/omission because of [insert reasons here]’.
New information.
Adjust aim.
Shoot.
Somebody says ‘Hey! …’.
Adjust aim.
Shoot.
Bullseye.
A God-Like Power
The intoxicating thrill of knowing more about something than another person.
A god-like power.
Addictive.
Seeking, maintaining, parading, asserting, and dominating through the use of this mighty potency are the primary motivators of all bad bosses.
It follows that the bad boss will destroy anyone who threatens the boss’s exclusive access to information and sole discretion as to when and to whom it is disclosed.
Don’t Confuse Me.
Often we don’t speak up because we’re afraid what we’ve always assumed is wrong.
My mind’s made up.
Don’t confuse me with the facts.
Even Bob is Okay With It.
A forcing function is a deliberately designed step in a process forcing us to pause and be conscious of a task. For example, a child proof cap on a pill bottle.
Other people often serve as forcing functions.
Their response to our ideas involving or affecting them can force us to review, modify, or stop a process.
It follows that anything weakening another person’s ability to independently influence or impede our progress can mislead us into proceeding as if we have their consent or at least neutral non-objection. Our response can be sincere. Or it can be our wilful blindness. Especially when we have contributed to their weakened position. We can tell ourselves and others a story - ‘We’ve got the whole team on board. Even Bob’s okay with it!’
Another person’s forcing function capacity can be affected by a power imbalance. Being their boss, is a common example. Gaps in information is another. Do they have a fixed or ongoing contract? How secure is their position? More practically, illness, Life distractions, cognitive impairment, or even alcohol consumption can lower a person’s ability to push back and give us pause to review our decision making or behaviour.
It is very dangerous, negligent, and reckless for us to tell ourselves a story that we’ve recruited other people’s voluntary consent to our cause when we know we’ve denied them permission to freely express any reservations they have about our decision. Our coercion can be as subtle as the hype many workplaces engage in about being a ‘team’ or the rah-rah team building hype nonsense that goes on. It’s a form of intoxication reducing the capacity for the mental and spiritual effort often required to dissent. It’s bad for them. It’s bad for the organisation or team. It’s bad for us.
And yet it’s common in workplaces.
Hiding our Shame.
The reason many people seek positional power is to hide their shame.
Shame at how shallow, empty and without virtue they are.
Without positional power, we are forced to justify our thinking and opinions and decision making. We must show our working out to persuade others to our point of view. We develop and exercise our thinking muscle. But we also expose ourselves to being found wanting. To criticism. Of being wrong.
This is the price of connecting with others.
With positional power we can simply impose our will. We say ‘Thus is so,’ and move on.
Escaping scrutiny and responsibility.
And our humanity.
The Lasting Lesson.
One of the longest lasting lessons from my six years of University was taught on the first day.
We First Years assembled in one of the larger lecture theatres and waited for the lecturer.
My eyes wandered around the hushed space to the graffito scrawled diagonally across one of the large cork pin up boards on the wall at the front of the room in thick marker pen:
China in Vietnam. The beginning of the end …
The one month Sino-Vietnamese War was four years earlier.
The world had not ended. It still has not.
I’ve forgotten 99% of what I read and heard at University.
But the memory of that false prediction by some anonymous anxious undergraduate remains. I think of it each time some pundit predicts doom.
What Ism?
There was a time when we’d were raised in a religion or belief system inherited from and propagated by our parents.
The mere fact our family advocated the belief gave it value and authority and permanence.
It gave us a story, a language, routines, and rituals. Community of like-minded believers.
A frame of reference that transcended and explained the day to day, often extending the consequences of our actions, including any reward, beyond our life and into eternity.
It was our stability.
It was our Cosmic Widget.
As religion and belief have lapsed, what are we left with?
What is filling the God-shaped hole?
How do we express our virtue? Our goodness? Our concern for others? Our identity beyond the superficial trappings of ‘happiness’? Our desire for immortality?
What ‘ism’ or ‘anity’ fills the vacuum?
Distribute, not Direct.
The boss is a distributor.
The government uses its authority to collect tax. Then uses its overwatch position to distribute funding to points of local execution in the community.
The boss’s currency is information and responsibility.
The boss’s main job is not directing, but distributing.
Then to get out of the way.
And watch what happens.
360 Degree Leadership.
A driver stops to allow another car in from a side street.
Another brakes and waves a mother and child across a busy street.
A car pauses on the road while a driver reverses out of a car bay.
The courteous driver feels virtuous and the recipients of their consideration feel grateful. Waves and nods of appreciation and acknowledgment are exchanged. Two parties benefit and feel that life is fair and kind.
Meanwhile.
Cars bank up behind.
The consequences of two people’s decisions cascade beyond them to a handful, a dozen, or more.
Expectations and understanding of road rules and conventions and etiquette are confounded.
New, risky expectations are created in a child and other observers who may act on them in the future.
One driver makes a decision on behalf of others to inconvenience them without consultation or benefit.
One of the jobs of a boss is to have situational awareness. To have a 360 degree view and understanding of the consequences of their actions. To weigh up a decision in favour of one with the adverse consequences for many. To sacrifice the immediate feel-good of the grateful nod or wave, for the greater good that may never be recognised let alone acknowledged and thanked.
To drive on and leave the car in the side street to wait longer for a natural break in traffic. To compel the mother and child to walk further and cross at the lights or crosswalk. To prioritise the traffic flow over the reversing driver.
To serve the common good.
So much of leadership training focusses on serving the person in front because there’s an immediate payoff.
A good leader - like a good person - is also aware of the consequences of their actions for everyone. Front, side, rear. Fifty metres back down the road and fifty years into the future. In both space and time. And is willing to accept that their awareness and consideration will most likely force them to sacrifice the feel-good praise and gratitude today, for the greater good.
Good leaders - like good drivers - are rare.
It’s All Step Back.
Step 1 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision is Step Back.
So are Steps 2, 3, 4, and 5.
Consciously and intentionally attending to a process forces our onward rush towards an instinctive and thoughtless decision to slow down - to a leisurely stroll.
A Sixth Sense.
SEAWARD J: And you say they were more concerned about it from - are you saying [their decision was biased] from what they said in the hearing to you or are you saying that based on what they wrote in their decision?
GODDARD, MR: It was - it was a sixth sense, so to speak, in the hearing, plus what they wrote.
We should pay attention to our instincts. Our sixth sense.
Then apply the five senses of a good decision making process and test if it survives.
If it does - we have a language in which to communicate our concerns.