Who do you choose to be? An invitation to the nobility of leadership
- Agnes Eperjesy
- Jun 25, 2019
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 11, 2020
It is possible for leaders to use their power and influence, their insight and compassion, to lead people back to an understanding of who we are as human beings, to create the conditions for our basic human qualities of generosity, contribution, community. It is time to think together and learn from our experiences because we are naturally creative when we want to contribute.
Inspiring thoughts from Margaret Wheatley.
Photo: © Agnes Eperjesy
Several years ago, in the face of irreversible global problems and the devolution of leadership, I began to challenge every leader I met with these questions: Who do you choose to be for this time? Are you willing to use whatever power and influence you have to create islands of sanity that evoke and rely on our best human qualities to create, relate, and persevere? Will you consciously and bravely choose to reclaim leadership as a noble profession, one that creates possibility and humaneness in the midst of increasing fear and turmoil?
We live in VUCA World, defined by the U.S. military as Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous. Every day we experience disruption, swerves in direction, short-term decisions that undo the future, propaganda, slander, lies, blame, denial, violence. Communities and nations are disrupted by terrorist acts, cumbersome bureaucracies cannot deliver services, people retreat in self-protection and lash out in fear, angry citizens strike back at their governments, leaders stridently promise security and outcomes that they know can’t be delivered, tensions between people reach hateful proportions, and confusion and exhaustion sink us into despair and cynicism.
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People will withdraw further into self-protection and strike out at those different from themselves. Corrupt leaders will intensify their false promises, and people will subjugate themselves to their control. Probably the greatest sadness, especially among activists, is to recognize that the global problems of this time—poverty, economics, climate change, violence, dehumanization—cannot be solved globally. Even though the solutions have long been available, the conditions for implementation are not: political courage, collaboration across national boundaries, compassion that supersedes self-interest and greed. (These are not only the failings of our specific time in history; they occur in all civilizations at the end of their life cycles.)
Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical “On Care for Our Common Home” ( Laudato Si ) was a brilliant systemic analysis of causes and solutions to climate change. But these solutions require a level of cooperation between nation-states, dissolution of the huge egos of those in power, and sacrifice from developed nations that is not happening even though the consequences of self-protection rather than intense cooperation are terrifyingly clear.
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We need to turn our attention away from issues beyond our control and work with the people around us who are yearning for good leadership. We need to engage them in work that is within reach, that matters to them. We need to use our influence and power to create islands of sanity in the midst of this destructive sea. We can use our sphere of influence, however large or small, to do as Theodore Roosevelt enjoined us: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
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I know it is possible for leaders to use their power and influence, their insight and compassion, to lead people back to an understanding of who we are as human beings, to create the conditions for our basic human qualities of generosity, contribution, community, and love to be evoked no matter what. I know it is possible to experience grace and joy in the midst of tragedy and loss. I know it is possible to create islands of sanity in the midst of wildly disruptive seas. I know it is possible because I have worked with leaders over many years in places that knew chaos and breakdown long before this moment. These extraordinary leaders, with great effort, dedication and personal sacrifice, created islands of sanity where good work still got done and where people enjoyed healthy relationships in the midst of chaotic conditions, fierce opposition, heart-breaking defeats, lack of support, isolation, loneliness, and slander.
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Sanity is in treating people, as the great activist Grace Lee Boggs said, as human human beings. (The technical name for our species has another double descriptor: Homo sapiens sapiens. Seems we need the reminder.) Humans being human are wonderfully talented. Generally, people are internally motivated when they believe in what they’re doing. We are naturally creative when we want to contribute. All people want to belong and feel part of a community. And we want our children to be safe and healthy. It is for these reasons that high engagement leadership works so well: it engages people for a cause they care about, and relies on their hearts and minds to find ways forward to solving their own problems. This is the dynamic of self-organization, life’s wondrous process for creating order without control. People determine their activities and responses from a clear, coherent sense of who the organization is, what it values, and what it’s intent on accomplishing.
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The work of sane leaders is to ensure that the organization, community, or team stays open to information and uses that information to make realistic and intelligent responses. In our cyber-speed lives, people can’t help but hunker down as the only means to get through endless tasks and demands. But the busier we are, the more we close down to everything else going on, thus assuring our future demise. One result is obvious in our rapid-fire approach to solving problems that succeed only in creating more problems. Eric Sevareid, a famed newscaster, commented that “the cause of problems is solutions.”
As we speed up everything, we can’t help but descend into orthodoxy and certainty. We do what we’ve always done, using the same perceptual lenses, unable to notice what the environment now demands, what new information is of importance, uninterested in the impact we create through our short-sighted, frantic decisions. This is where good leadership is needed. Leaders must reclaim the very thing our culture has so casually given away: Time to think together and learn from our experiences. Without question, this is the most critical act of leadership. It is how we restore sanity and possibility to our work within our sphere of influence. It is how we work with the dynamics of living systems and use our intelligence in life-preserving ways as all other species do.
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This is difficult work whose rewards are not in some distant future. Right here, in the moment, we find satisfaction in what we’ve made possible for those we serve. We’ve done work we value with people we care about and for causes to which we are committed. Even if we fail to create positive change, we can be satisfied that we did the work well independent of outcomes. One CEO voiced her resolve to continue in spite of grueling opposition and pressures to give up: “We do good work because we do good work.”
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