Good leadership is a channel of water

I just got back from breakfast with a good friend. I was excited to tell him about my first lecture on leadership, which I delivered yesterday. When I got home I sat down to read a chapter from The Message of Leadership, by Daniel Southern (2007). The very first Proverb grabbed my attention:

"Good leadership is a channel of water controlled by God, he directs it to whatever ends he chooses." (Peterson, 2003, p.1129)

This Proverb ignited my imagination. At one of my previous jobs I was often criticized by my superiors for not getting worked up over 'crisis' situations. They thought that I remained too calm in the face of calamity. When they thought I wasn't doing enough they would whip up a frenzy of activity to show that something was being done to confront the crises at hand. In the end, none of this activity every really proved fruitful. All it really accomplished was to increase anxiety and stress levels among the staff. I have always tried to act calm in the face of crisis. Leaders who are able to keep their heads in times of crisis usually prevail and are able to make sound decisions while everyone else panics. It's kind of like Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life. He makes out like a bandit during the depression while everyone else panics. In the flurry of activity, people end up further behind then when they first began. Funnily enough this echoes another Proverb I read today:

Careful planning puts you ahead in the long run; hurry and scurry puts you further behind." (Proverbs 21:5, The Message)

My supervisor's worried because they couldn't see 'the plan'. But from my own experience in that particular context, I knew that plans were often abandoned in favour of spur of the moments ideas from the top. I adjusted my behavior accordingly, and threw out written plans so that I could focus on making sure that the team was prepared to go in whatever direction we were pointed. When senior management doesn't have a good plan for their organization to follow you often find 'hurry and scurry' behavior taking place. If you know, however, where you're headed, then the path to getting there may not be clearly defined, but you'll still have a good chance of reaching your final destination. Think about an airplane. They know their final destination and they lodge a flight plan before they take off. But their course is often diverted when they run into turbulence (or ash clouds). They end up where they intended, but not necessarily via the plotted course. 

Having a written plan is a good thing. But in the absence of a written plan it is vital that you know where you are going. In the context I've describe I believe our department had a firm grasp on where it was that we were expected to go. Because we believed personally that God would ultimately direct us to 'whatever ends' he chose, we were happy focus on doing the best work we could with the resources we were given.

If you don't believe in God don't dismiss this point outright. Consider this. As managers, business owners, and CEOs of whatever company you run, have you ever had your plans changed by shifts in the wind? Global recessions, budget announcements, and other unforeseen circumstance or event that impact on the plans you've made have caused you to recalculate your modes and methods? You may believe that God has nothing to do with what happens or where you end up but you would be hard pressed to deny that circumstances (or fate) have certainly played a role. My point is simply this, we can make all the plans we want to get to wherever it is we decide to go, but in the end where we end up isn't always up to us. Other people, businesses and organizations, and even 'acts of God' intervene. We are left to respond to what has happened. When faced with a crises sometimes you have to act right away, but in my opinion, action is only required in these circumstance when the crisis is real, and not manufactured for the sake stirring up activity.

I'm fascinated by complexity theory. I am not an expert on complexity, but I am constantly reading any material I can find on the subject. The reason the theory resonates with me is because I don't have to worry so much about predicting the future. Rather, I need to focus on doing the best that I can do in my current role, while at the same time continuing to learn, adapt, collaborate, and shift my skills to the changing environment in which I find myself. If all my work is done with the knowledge that it is done so in relation to others I'll be more open to partnership and collaboration with them. Therefore, I never operate independently from them, nor am I threatened by their experience or expertise, because our combined knowledge and effort is required in order for the organization to operate sustainably. I should expect that there will be harmony within the team as we collectively adjust our work patterns to accommodate the constantly changing environment in which we work.

How does this play out practically? In experience described above, the roles within my department were constantly changing and evolving as the team trained and up skilled in the areas that would prepare us for the changes we anticipated through the relationships and connections we had with other members of the organization. If a staff member came to me and asked to do training in an area outside their current job description, I would often let them do so as long as they could make a connection to where this training might lead us as a department in the future. This was not often understood by senior management, who would have preferred that we just up skill in our current area of responsibility.

In the end, senior management was not ready to play a different game. They wanted a detailed plan for everything to ensure that what we were doing was going to guarantee success. Management's obsession with reliability is discussed in Roger Martin's book, The Design of Business (2009). Martin states that:

The goal of reliability is to produce consistent, predictable outcomes." (Martin, 2009, p.37)

Martin contrasts the goal of reliability with that of validity, which is to have a result that meets a "desired objective" (p.37). Martin argues that a company must have a balance between reliability and validity. In order to find this balance Martin suggests that the organization be:

Open up new definitions of proof, embrace some degree of subjectivity as not just inevitable but valuable, and acknowledge that getting the right answer is worth taking a little more time." (Martin, 2009, p.54)

Good leadership is a channel of water that makes way for this balance to be found. In the end, we don't really control the outcome of our planning and decisions as much as we poke and prod them in the direction we want to go.

Work Cited

Martin, R. (2009). The Design of Business: Why design thinking is the next competitive advantage. Boston: Harvard Business Press. 

 Peterson, E. H. (2003). The Message Remix: The Bible in Contemporary Language. Colorado Springs: Navpress.

Southern, D. (2007). The Message of Leadership: 31 essential insights from Proverbs. Colorado Springs: Navpress.