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I - Leadership Authenticity
"Both/And" v. "Either/Or" Thinking
I have a friend named Ron - a change management consultant - who had an interesting comment from the CEO of a company that is worth between $70-100 million. Ron has known this CEO for many years and, at one time, the two of them had actually worked together. For the past 8 years, the CEO has been "successfully" running his business.
Ron's business is "the people business" and involves helping companies and their employees go through change successfully. Ron has the traditional academic smarts - well versed in financial and human resources management, excellent at group dynamics and labour relations - and good business sense and experience. But he also understands the psychology of people and can help senior executives embrace the vision of that value. Ron facilitates change by showing managers and executives how ROIR (Return-on-Investment-in-Relationships) is the key to the bottom line. In other words, as I have stated in The 7 Pillars of Visionary Leadership series: the "top line" (vision) drives the "bottom line" (profits).
The comment that his friend the CEO made was the following: "If I buy your stuff, I might as well flip you the keys."
That was a very interesting comment because it showed the "either/or" thinking that is so prevalent in making choices and decisions in organizations.
In problem solving situations, "either/or" thinking has 2 options: "Either" solve the problem this way, "or" solve it that way. Either/or thinking is exclusive. There is no middle ground.
Either/or thinking worked well in a time and a workplace where everyone knew where they stood. A job was a job was a job. Things were predictable; everyone knew his/her role; cause-and-effect were in and working well; and 10 and 20 year strategic plans were common.
But the world has changed.
The issue of either/or and both/and raises the age-old philosophical tension of what the Syntopicon to the Great Books of the Western World's calls "The One and the Many." History is filled with the dead bodies of people from wars and conflicts where a religious zealot wanted things as "One" (a religious vision, for example) or a dictator wanted things as "Many" (communism, for example).
It takes great maturity not to be seduced into "either/or" thinking, but instead, to embrace" both/and" thinking. So often as people we want life to be cut-and-dry. We are lazy intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. Choice is what we yell and scream about, but choice drives us "nuts" as well.
The danger happens when a zealot or autocratic manager then imposes his/her "solution" on the choice-making dilemma. The further danger is when people or employees quietly acquiesce with the choice. To take a stand against the popular or "superior's" choice could mean death, imprisonment, isolation, conflict, or firing.
How many of us are prepared for that part of the human journey? Not accepting the popular choice opens many people to ridicule. There is nothing new historically to this situation of ridicule. Power and twisted logic have always been the tools used as coercion.
The new challenge in the new workplace and in the new economy is both/and thinking, which embraces the tension of the opposites. Making choices and making decisions are not simply reduced to "either" this value "or" that one.
Rather, the decision now often has to embrace "both" this value "and" that value as well. For managers trained in simplistic either/or decision-making, this new emphasis will demand increased competency, for instance, from their emotional intelligence skill set.
Both/and thinking also takes the onus off a manager always being the reference point. We work with teams today. Teams work in a both/and dynamic context. Again, history is replete with examples, from Pearl Harbor to the Bay of Pigs, for instance, where a group mentality - or "groupthink" -- imposed itself with only one possible choice. Again, an either/or option, and again, a disaster.
Ernest Hemingway remarked one time that "nobody knows what's in him until he tries to pull it out. If there's nothing, or very little, the shock can kill a man."1 For the manager or CEO locked into either/or thinking - as in the example of the CEO at the beginning of this article - perhaps his resistance to exploring people issues in his company was his unspoken fear of what we could call "the Great Nothing." In the children's video, "The Never-Ending Story, Part I," the little boy asks for help, but the personified mountain says that the Great Nothing is taking over. The little boy, in panic, says, "Don't you care?" The mountain answers, "I don't care that I don't care!"
How many managers are like the mountain? The only thing that matters is their either/or mindset: either shareholder profits or we're out of business! They don't care that they don't care about how employees feel about this kind of work environment. The stock market ticker price is their guiding vision.
Psychologist Paul Wieand2 says that strong leadership begins with a clear identity -- knowing who you are and what your values are. Either/or managers are managers who are 'self-referencing," that is, all roads lead back to them and their ability to make the decision. Wieand maintains that many of these high achievers often have distorted self-images: either thinking too much of themselves, or simply not knowing who they are. The net result is that they come across as weak, phony, or untrustworthy.
The big question is: why is it so hard for either/or leaders to be themselves?
Wieand offers three explanations:
- Leaders resist soul-searching precisely when they need it the most.
Today's leaders and managers need highly developed emotional competencies like flexibility, adaptability and interpersonal relationships. Yet, emotional intelligence - popularly known as EQ -- may be the very competency that is lacking, or at least, undeveloped, in managers past the mid-'30s. To achieve a flexible-yet-resilient identity demands a willingness to look inward. It can be done, but it also demands a real sense of humility and a serious willingness to be a "leader learner."
- At some point, strengths become liabilities.
Dr. Carl Jung was correct when he pointed out that the "afternoon of life" (post-35) demands different "enthusiasms" if we are to navigate well on our human and corporate journeys. The skills and competencies that served us well in our '20s are no longer useful in our '40s, '50s, and '60s. Different enthusiasms call for our attention. It is safe to say that if IQ (or mental smarts) guides us in the morning of life, then EQ (or emotional smarts) must more often guide us in the afteroon of life (post-'35). If IQ tells us that we are smart (and, of course, this is how we get our jobs in the first place), then EQ tells us how we are smart. In a world where the new currency is relationships, to be deficient in EQ competencies is a real, bottom-line liability.
- Leaders tend to define themselves by their work, rather than by who they are.
It is so easy to get caught up in what we do and ignore who we are. We begin to define ourselves by external accomplishments and neglect the inner tasks that life calls us to, especially in the afternoon of life. This neglect of our inner life is the recipe for disaster. Dr. Wieand says, "To be a great leader, you not only need a deep knowledge of yourself; you also need to accept your limitations. If you do that, you can't lose." How often do we see this in the corporate boardrooms - strong leaders, well versed in IQ subjects like finance, market analysis and strategic thinking issues - but perhaps also driving the company into bankruptcy, or downsizing an already demoralized workforce. Intoxicated by success, says Wieand, such managers begin to think of themselves only in terms of their role at work. Thus they lose sight of their weaknesses, they don't tolerate criticism, and eventually they lose their ethics -- doing whatever seems expedient. I can personally recall sitting with a workshop participant many years ago who worked for the Correctional Services. He was trying to figure out why his 2 teenaged boys resented and disliked him so much. After I probed a little, he told me that when he came home each day, he frisked his boys as he entered the house! He brought his role home - disastrously so!
Leadership authenticity, then, is the ability to be exceptionally honest with ourselves. It demands doing a personal self-inventory, not only of our thoughts and actions, but especially around our feelings and emotions. Feelings are the core energy points in the human psyche, and include such realities as mad, sad, happy, glad, etc. These realities are fundamental to the human person. Emotions are the ways we express our feelings. The work I do with the EQ-I (or Emotional Quotient-Inventory) measures a person's capability for coping emotionally with their environment. Another way to say this is that the EQ-I emotional measurement tool profiles how well you and I connect our core feelings with their appropriate emotional expression so that we have life-giving and positive results, personally and professionally. For instance, how many people might be experiencing a core feeling such as anger, but emotionally express that anger by disruptive actions or rage at home or in the office? The spate of killings in schools and offices speak to that "disconnect" all too often. As a matter of fact, violence in the workplace (U.S.) is the #1 killer of people! We have a long way to go to develop emotionally robust people in our world!3
If we are operating from an either/or emotional framework, we, therefore, have only 2 options. A both/and emotional framework gives us flexibility and emotional breathing room precisely because we now have multiple options. We don't have to say, like the CEO above, that if I look at personal issues I, therefore, might as well throw in the towel.
Incorporating a personal and emotional both/and frame of reference will be, for many managers and CEOs, "the road less traveled," as Robert Frost once wrote about. But it is the only road to the most important task each of us has anyways: self-actualization or individuation.
Other articles on CanadaOne.com by Michael Rock:
The
90% Factor: EQ (Emotional Intelligence) and the New Workplace
The Right Stuff (Part
1 of 5)
Take Charge -- of Yourself!
(Part 2 of 5)
I Count -- I Count
You! (Part 3 of 5)
Stress EQ and Unstress
You! (Part 4 of 5)
It's All in How You
See It! (Part 5 of 5)
PILLAR
I: Visioning: "Doing More With More: Unleashing a Future"
(Part 1 of 7)
PILLAR II:
Mapping: "Globalizing the Mind: Charting a Future" (Part
2 of 7)
PILLAR III:
Journeying: "Parting the Mindsets: Sharing a Future"
(Part 3 of 7)
PILLAR IV:
Learning: "Building the New Architecture: Sustaining
a Future" (Part 4 of 7)
PILLAR V: Mentoring:
"Sharing Knowledge: Empowering a Future" (Part 5 of
7)
PILLAR VI: Leading:
"Inspiring a Spirit of Enterprise" (Part 6 of 7)
PILLAR VII: Valuing: "Return-on-Investment/Integrity-in-Relationships
(ROIR)" (Part 7 of 7)
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- Michael Kesterton, "Social Studies," The Globe and Mail, Wednesday, July 21, 1999, A16.
- I am grateful for some of the following ideas from: Pamela Kruger, "To Thine Own Self Be True," Financial Post, Tuesday, June 29, 1999, C15. This article first appeared in Fast Company, Issue25, 116.
- See such articles as "Murder Found Leading Cause of U.S. Deaths in Workplace," The Toronto Star, Monday, November 29, 1993, A18; John Hiscock, "'Work Rage' Is Taking a Heavy Toll on U.S. Firms," National Post, Monday, November 2, 1998, A1; Trevor Cole, "All the Rage," Report on Business Magazine, February 1999, cover, 50-52, 54, 56-57; Jennifer Lewington, "Workplace Violence Hard to Predict, U.S. Expert Says," The Globe and Mail, Wednesday, April 7, 1999, A2; Malcolm MacKillop, "How to Approach Workplace Violence," The Globe and Mail, Thursday, April 15, 1999, B13; "Identify Troubled Employees to Prevent Workplace Crisis," The Globe and Mail, Tuesday, July 13, 1999, B12.
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Dr. Michael E. Rock, co-author of The 7 Pillars of Visionary Leadership (Dryden/Harcourt Brace Canada, 1997), holds 6 degrees, is a professor of business ethics, values and organizational behaviour; a Jungian-trained adult educator and counsellor; a certified EQ-i coach and facilitator; and an author of nearly 150 articles, books, CDs and cassettes on human development topics. He is a noted public speaker and gives exciting and inspiring presentations for organizational rejuvenation. 