Creative Leaders create leaders

This is a Short Story to describe the impact of reactive leaders on their teams and a possible way out.

The story begins with a briefing where a workshop on “Agile Leadership” is requested for the leadership of a “digitalisation program”, which was supposed to be an ‘agile unit’. Despite all the other systemic issues, it was clear soon, that the main problem was the culture, wrecked by their sponsor, who was also the sponsor of the workshop.

A messy situation: “A tyrant with crew living in an autocratic, imperium-like culture ordering to “do agile”, asking for a workshop on agile-lean culture & leadership to get the “others” (their Customers) in line, while being the actual “construction site” without knowing it.”

I sent them the design for a transformative event format,which we usually do for such an audience. Some days later I saw an email from Boris:

“Hi ,

We can base the workshop on this, but it is way too chaotic. We need an agenda in table format. Also, we do not need all this fluffy stuff about mindset and culture, but only the practical things. We better start working, because what I see is not meaning anything to me, but I want to be in control of everything. You should do this, that, and ……

Drive huge effort to fulfill my wishful-thinking!

Boris”

I felt a cage surrounding me. I realised that I needed to be very cautious now.. taking care of myself. 

Let’s confront the “Power-God”

After setting up a call with the whole team I got another mail from Boris, which striked me. At this point the impact on me was that I got very angry - attack mode!  

?You should have been able to write down a simple agenda and have a draft of the workshop by now. We need to be fully prepared in the most trivial details, as the date of the workshop comes closer. Set a call with me tonight, where you present me the thing. No call with the others needed. It’s a waste of time, because they have no brain. They are just my puppets and do the things that they can do. I am the genius here and you need to talk to me!‘

I sent him my “stance” on how I work as an answer - a summary of some values and principles. He called me the next day: “I read some of the things and I understood it, but I do not know what you want to tell me!”

Me: “This is the basis of our work. We work with these principles or we do not work. Either you can live with them or we need to seperate!

Boris: “But Randolf, it is easy! We just need to draft a simple Agenda. Look! You open Powerpoint, make a table and enter some clear, simple points. This can’t be such a difficult task. I really do not know why I need to have this call with you during my vacation, when you just need to write down this Agenda!”

Me: “Boris, you do not remember my message obviously. We have a proven workshop. We tested the elements of it around 70 times in the last 18 months and you have got the Workbook, a sample of a Post-Workshop Documentation and the invite for a Call with the team to get aligned on this event.”

Boris: “You know, I have met so many people in this world, and the quality is soo bad in most of the cases. I told you it doesn’t make sense to speak with my team. They can not think in these strategic things. I know what to do.”

Me: “Boris, this is a tested format. Have you understood it?”

Boris: “Just write the Agenda!”

Me: “Boris, have you read the questions which will be answered during the workshop? Which are the ones you are missing?”

Boris: “.... I do not know. “

After having spent an hour on the telephone, it felt like we had found some shaky grounds. At least I thought I was now able to move within a healthy working mode until the workshop.

Be aware of your own limits

Two days later, Boris’ “Inner Power God” strikes again: “Boris Coward! They will screw it, like you always screw it! Don’t you remember: ”They must squeal!!” Right now I hear nothing! And you will go down, if this workshop is no success. Your Being depends on it. Those people are not getting it!‘ 

And off he ran again, bullying everybody he could reach.

At any occasion possible Boris applied pressure and at every appearance his Ego was fed by his team members. An energetic disaster for everyone involved. 

At some point in the process, the only way forward was to ignore the Humping Jack and focus on the purpose of the event. Some “plasters” to keep him in the downloading bubble and quiet.

His team (of executives by the way) was pretty aligned about the situation: “That’s the way it is. You need to please Boris to be able to survive! If he is angry we need to do what he is saying. That’s part of life. Part of the job! We just wait until he’s gone! If we keep him entertained we can do our work. The extra hours, the extra purpose-less circles to fulfill some wishful thinking is part of the deal! We just ignore him, if it is possible! We learned to not “feel” it! We are professionals, but honestly: we hate it!” They were collectively ?absent‘ most of the time.

Get rid of or transform Reactive Leaders!

I hope I could describe, how a reactive leader feels like. They need to control, demand compliance and protect "their" kingdom at all costs. They certainly have passion and drive, they may be brilliantly intelligent, results focused and have impressing domain knowledge - maybe even more of these "non-differentiating strengths". 

The problem is, that their leadership style has a tremendously negative impact on the performance of an organisation. Enormous effort and energy is needed to serve their ego instead of generating value ...not to speak of the “path of destruction” through his own and people’s lives. 

“The collective level of play drops to the lowest common denominator to accommodate the limitations of Highly Reactive leaders.” (Robert Anderson and William Adams, 2019)

Boris is able to demotivate people no matter, if they think from a conformistic, rational, pluralistic or systemic worldview. He basically restricts the performance of his team to his world view and his thinking is the bottleneck for performance. His style of leadership does not scale. Instead of leveraging the creative potential of everyone on the team, the system is frozen.

Think about the tremendous effect of one powerful reactive leader, if this is multiplied through teams of teams of teams... 

Creative leaders create leaders

Creative leaders enable an environment for creativity and innovation, safety and trust. They create a “generative tension” which is driving the whole organisation towards highest possible performance.

This is through championing the conditions for transformative leadership: deep relationship, being radically human, being aware of the systemic dynamics of the organisation and fostering purposeful achievement.

Think about difference. On the one hand you have a ghost ship and on the other a living, self-organising, continuously improving organism fulfilling a higher purpose.

Now how about your chances, that you are one of those reactive leaders? They are pretty high, because Boris is inside of everyone! The only question is, if he is "in control" of ourselves. Among the Extended Leadership Team of corporations data shows that 28% of leaders are highly-reactive in their style. Most probably they aren't aware of it.

Let Ego go.

A creative leader knows, that it is his duty to create the holding environment for his people to develop. He would trust them to achieve the purpose, know how to motivate them, offer meaningful support and challenge constructively. People would know and approach him, when they need direction. In other words, his knowledge and skill would be multiplied through his leadership.  

He would go ahead in reaching new levels of consciousness in his own vertical development path, which leads him beyond power, absolutism and rationality. He would be aware that he is the bottleneck of performance and development. 

The Boris within us acts out of basic fears, which we either are subject to or let behind us at some point in our lives, as we grow. To grow beyond these existential fears, usually it means openness for self-transformation, daily practice of mindfulness and serious “shadow work”. Less than 10% of adults achieve this level of thinking and being during their life. It’s necessary, if you want to lead a transformation towards a agile-lean work culture successfully. 

Some of the people you serve will already be there, maybe on a level of consciousness more complex than your own. Find them and involve them to go ahead and show others how to master the challenges in a VUCA world. 

We know that, if only 10% of people of a social system play the game on a certain, higher complexity level, the others will follow intrinsically motivated. 

When the mindset of the individuals and the culture of the organisation has reached the complexity needed the practices and behaviors as well as the organisational architecture - the processes and structures - will arise naturally to support such a thinking and move to an authentic way of working, which fits. You can call it agile or lean, if you want to.

By the way: The workshop was a success. The whole team got the chance to bond, experience an opposite work culture, than they are used to and get aligned on how to change things. Boris was not joining the session.