Enabling is not Ennobling

One of the key tasks of leadership is to bring forth the best of what those who follow the leader are capable of being. By this, I don’t just mean the development of their professional competencies, though this is no doubt important, but more fundamentally, the formation of their character that will provide them with a firm foundation for leading themselves and others as they progress along their life journey. This quality in the leader can be characterised as ‘ennobling’, which is a term that in my opinion isn’t used enough in modern leadership discourse. Perhaps why this is the case is because in more recent times, we have become more sensitive to and cynical of the power that leaders have in relation to those who follow them. The term also sounds rather highfalutin, as if reference was being made to a monarchy or the nobility.

Regardless of this, I don’t think we should let it scare us off expecting our current leaders to embody this quality. The other day I came across a term that I have never heard before, being ‘leanability’, which was used to denote a leader who fosters the dependence of their followers in order to fortify the power inherent in their position. So rather than making their followers more self-reliant and competent people who will grow their own leadership capacity, these individuals tend to encourage their people to lean on them as they go about the process of performing their work, with the effect that they aren’t forced to grow beyond their current levels of capability or comfort. Whether such leaders do this consciously or subconsciously is up for debate, but no doubt, leading in such a way furthers the leader’s personal interest in entrenching themselves as the central node in the network from where they derive their authority.

I suspect that in a good many cases, it is the ego of the leader that is reflexively driving their practice of this leadership style. What makes this all the more insidious is that this way of leading to the untrained eye can take the guise of benevolent care or even love for those being led, when those who are meant to be cared for or loved are essentially just being smothered, or actively prevented from flourishing in the way they would desire to if they were allowed to spread their wings and taste how enriching it is to their sense of autonomy and confidence to move beyond the boundaries of their coddling. In one of its most malevolent forms, we see this dysfunctional leadership style being practiced by cult leaders who claim to be the point of salvation for their devotees against the evils of the world that lurk behind the walls of their commune. While they may profess to their followers that they desire to be a channel only for their followers’ enlightenment or connection to the divine, in reality, this is the last thing they want because were their followers to achieve that state/connection, they would become redundant as that bridge, and with that would come the loss of power to manipulate and exploit those who are so frequently abused in these sects.   

Taking this back to an organisational context, whatever shortcomings or deficits in ability that followers may have are effectively enabled in such a system of operating, which is highly problematic because an entity cannot logically be expected to grow if those who work within it are being stifled as they go about the process of making their contributions to its functioning. Instead of enabling in this sense, leaders should be equipping and empowering their people to make the contributions that they genuinely desire to make, but for this to be discovered, the focus has to become those others rather than the leader and their ego.

When I was doing my research about individuals living their calling or life purpose and how that shaped their leadership behaviour, it was very noticeable how they took steps to ennoble the people who worked with them. While they may not have described it that way, it was clear in its effect that this is what they were doing. Being more evolved in their self and spiritual awareness than the leaders described above who are more egocentric, they practiced in their own way a form of subsidiarity that distributed their power in a decentralised manner to uplift and enhance those who they felt they had a stewardship responsibility to help grow into their fullness. Bringing us back full circle to our premise of ennobling those who we lead, those who understand the idea recognise as an orienting principle that the role of a leader is to create other leaders who can succeed them and expand the horizons of what is possible, not to entrench as followers those who would seek to actualise their innate potential for leadership.

Meritocracy without the Mirror (Part 1)

The idea of meritocracy says that in order for people to advance in institutional and social life, they should earn that privilege through applying their means of contribution in the domain that they inhabit. The benefits that accrue from this system include having the best and most qualified people in roles that meet their standard of competence, the building of character in the journey of becoming a person who deserves the success they achieve, and the pushing back of our limits of human potential as people strive (and are incentivised by this system) to become all that they can be. In this way of thinking about how we organise our institutions, there is no room for nepotism, tokenism or flawed attempts at ensuring equity such as ‘equality of outcome’ initiatives.

Despite the clear progress that such a system enables, in the age of entitlement that we live in, the idea of meritocracy has become unpopular. The argument against it goes along the lines that it is in effect a façade beneath which structural and other societal barriers exist that prevent individuals from advancing in the way that equality would demand. In some ways I am empathetic to this view. In the world of work, there are no doubt institutions that are run dysfunctionally to limit opportunities for a range of people who would otherwise be qualified for roles or deserving of an opportunity based on some other qualities that they possess. In some of these organisations, what is playing out is a mirror-tocracy. So what do I mean by that term?

In a mirror-tocracy, the people who get ahead are not those who work the hardest or care most about the clientele they serve. Instead, those that advance are individuals who most remind the leaders and decision makers of themselves. In this ego driven system of promotion and succession, those who are selected for greater opportunity share at least one, and often many, of the identity markers which characterise those who are in charge. Among these identity categories are gender, race, political affiliation, religious beliefs, educational lineage, membership to other elite institutions, or more broadly, social class. In the legal field in which I work, it is not uncommon for hiring partners at firms to give preference to graduates from the same university that they studied at. Perhaps part of their justification for that is familiarity with the standard of education that they have attained, or a nostalgic kinship of sorts that draws on shared relational ties, but at the deeper level, it is likely that less flattering vulnerabilities are animating those unconscious biases and selection decisions. 

Some of those vulnerabilities can include a false pride in the superiority of one’s pedigree, or the fear of losing power to a group of outsiders. On this first point, I recall former US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia remarking (quite publically) that he wouldn’t have hired one of the best law clerks he ever had if he had known of the law school that the clerk had attended (Scalia attended two of the finest law schools in the US: Georgetown and Harvard, and inherited the clerk – from the less prestigious Ohio State law school – from another judge). On the point of fearing the loss of power to an outgroup, we see this quite clearly in the politicised nature of the judicial selection process in the US. Whether those in power are Democrats or Republicans, a prerequisite for those who are selected for judicial positions will be the sharing of the fundamental ideological or philosophical perspectives of the party in office (so as to preserve their balance of power in the court that allows them to enact their policy objectives through the judgements made). While the executive and judicial branches of government are meant to remain separate to preserve independence, accountability and credibility in the decisions made, in a co-opted and thus corrupted system, the tendrils of one organ will inevitably find permission to extend its reach to the heart of many others.

Through overreach such as this, and other abuses of power to increase the amount of it that can be wielded at the expense of others, the cultures of these institutions erode to attract those who have the same self-serving motivation to manipulate others or the system in order to enrich themselves. No matter what the domain, a broken system is the light that entices the moths who desire to game it for their own purposes. I would be willing to bet that where you work, there will be a handful, and often more, of disengaged individuals who are working to a personal agenda that doesn’t coincide with the collective mission that they signed up to advance. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take many of these people to have a pervasive negative effect on the people around them and sabotage their morale or the larger Esprit de Corps. So how did these malcontents get to where they are in the first place?

Boundaries for Beginners (Part 3)

In this important domain of relationships, the metaphors of doors and walls can also be instructive in teaching us about healthy personal boundaries. I have already talked about holes, being the unformed parts of our identity that prevent us from growing into our fullness and possessing the solidity of an individuated character. Doors are those parts of our developed psychological skin that we control by determining whether and when to open them. With the handle for this door being on the inside of ourselves, we are able to preserve the power to influence what comes into our lives and what we don’t have to internalise. Just like the saying that says, it is not what happens to us in our lives that determines our course, but how we respond to those circumstances that makes the difference, the difference that having this type of door makes to our life is significant because it allows us to self-determine what we will allow to shape and impact our inner life.

In a world in which we are constantly being bombarded with messaging and susceptible to experiencing overwhelm, this is no small thing. Having this door in place is like a resilience shield that provides a barrier to those harmful or discombobulating influences, while preserving our focus and energy for those people and things that are most pivotal to sustaining the vitality of our lives. Contrast this to the type of door where the handle is on the outside and it becomes clear why the feature of autonomy is so important if we are to preserve our sanity. When the ability to close this door is beyond our control, then effectively we are relegated to the role of marionette that can be manipulated by the whims of others puppeteering tendencies. This is especially dangerous if those with a psychopathic or sociopathic profile sniff out this weakness and put us in their crosshairs, for we will be like putty in their hands to be depleted and disposed of without mercy.    

Walls are something different altogether. These are places in our psychological skin that have been impenetrably calloused over due to the experiencing of a series of hurts. One of the forms in which we see this is the person who swears they will never love again because they have been burnt by their prior relationships not working. Not wanting to open themselves up to having to experience that pain again, they erect a wall to protect themselves from that outcome eventuating in the future. While this may sound like a justifiable decision in light of what has occurred, it is actually detrimental because it closes off the possibility of encountering and engaging in a genuinely loving relationship. Not being given the room to enter their heart, it is the one who hides behind the wall that is effectively kept prisoner until the suffering inherent in that role leads them to want to break the wall down and pursue something more life-giving to their soul. Some people arrive at this place at the cost of healing their trauma, while others never do, and often it is difficult work that requires the intervention of a psychologist or counsellor. But this work is always worth it because it facilitates an unburdening of negative past emotions that no longer serve who we seek to become.

When I think of these walls, I often think of communist countries that have at one time or another isolated themselves from the rest of the world. In the process of them doing this they deprive their citizens of the best the world has to offer them, while also denying the world the best of what their unique national culture has to offer. It should hardly be surprising that such a state leads to depression in economic activity and the suppression of the human spirit under totalitarian rule. Similarly, when an individual allows their trauma to rule their daily experience of life, that is when severe mental health conditions such as depression are given licence to occupy their mind and have an insidious broader working on the circumstances of their life.

While of course this condition can be genetically or biologically rooted in an individual, to the extent that we can develop our boundaries to avoid its onset or other negative internal states, we should do so. Wellbeing and the building of confidence to successfully navigate the world comes from the healthy development of boundary function and the attendant competence in knowing when to open doors in the different areas of our lives and when to close them. Fostering also a wisdom of discernment and the preservation of our rich inner resources, we should not squander these gifts, for only when we know the source from which they come can we deliver them effectively where needed.

Letting Go of the Imposter Syndrome (Part 2)

If we care to reflect on why it matters so much to us to not be perceived as an imposter, we will come to see our deep longing for integrity, acceptance, competence and evolution in our personal and professional lives. No matter who we are, we want to feel that we belong in the world and are validated by it. With those whom we interact, we want to be seen for who we really are and valued at that foundational level without condition. But in order to receive that acceptance, we must meet the world with openness and be vulnerable in showing it who we authentically are. Only after we do this can we occupy a place in the world in any meaningful sense.

To languish under the weight of feeling like an imposter should be the first sign that there is a part of ourselves that we are suppressing or holding back. It might be the case that in the domain where we are experiencing this dissonance, we aren’t on purpose, occupying a role that inhibits our ability to bring our highest gifts or abilities to the world. Lacking the integrity or wholeness in being able to make this contribution, it is only natural that we will feel like we are living in someone else’s skin. As uncomfortable as this feeling is to endure for any lengthy period of time, it carries with it a powerful message that nigh is the time to replant ourselves in a garden that is more fertile in its constitution. Who are you really? When you feel the pangs of discomfort in feeling like an imposter, imagine the life of your spirit asking you this question. How you respond might just lead the imposter to retreat into the darkness.

Feeling like an imposter can also tell us a lot about our innate yearning for competence, or dare I say mastery in a domain that is meaningful to us. Whatever it is that we are involved in, for work or leisure, we want to feel that we are up to the task and won’t make a fool out of ourselves by our involvement. So how do we avoid this fate? Well, firstly we can take conscious steps to develop this competence through educating ourselves and hard work. While our native abilities are in some respects less pliable than the skills we are able to develop, we can still effect progress by applying ourselves to the task of getting better at the things we are involved in. Here, it is vitally important that we push through the inertia that the intense feelings of the imposter syndrome bring about. If we can move beyond the initial fear that wells up within us to lead us to feel helpless, we will come to see that there is a lot that is within our control to quieten these feelings of inevitable future failure.

Some of the most amazing feats of human endeavour across a number of fields have been achieved by individuals who admit to being consumed by the fear of failure. These individuals, who equated failure with losing face in front of those who looked up to them, didn’t allow this fear to paralyse them in moving towards their goals. Using it instead as a powerful form of motivation and focus, they allowed it to spur them on to heights that arguably would not have been reached if they weren’t possessed of such a fear in the first place. As admirable as this is in its own way, what shouldn’t be lost in this drive for results is the accompanying quality of the journey that is taken to get there.

Even if we allow the imposter syndrome to drive us forward to higher levels of accomplishment, we can’t escape the reality that in this process we have contaminated our present moments with high levels of stress and trepidation. With the outcome of failure not yet being escaped at the time we are doing the said activity, what still consumes our present moment experience of the doing is the concern of not measuring up to our own and others expectations. Quite simply, white-knuckling it is not an enjoyable experience. While we might make it to the end of the proverbial roller coaster ride, if our principal relief is that we managed to survive, can we really be said to have taken pleasure in the ups and downs of the ride? No matter what it is that we are involved in, I don’t think we should ever lose sight of the positive and nourishing things that we can derive from the process to getting where we want to go. Whatever it is that spurs us to get there, some things just aren’t worth being compromised on the way. So you want to learn said subject so that you can speak confidently about it to a group of employees or potential investors? Great. Why not revel in that journey of growth and discovery. If where you are currently gives expression to your calling or vocation, that path to unfolding your innate abilities and connection to what it is that you love can be one of the most rewarding things that a person can achieve personally and professionally. Trust me, I have experienced it, and seen that tasting enrich the lives of others who are living their calling.