FAIR PROCESS LEADERSHIP: BRIDGING THE SOCIETAL GAPS

COVID have tested all of us in all possible directions. Anxiety, constant surprises and excessive problem solving are new normals of this fast evolving VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous)?world.

Key challenge for majority of us is to envision rapid innovation under stress embedded environment which is often filled with fear. Well the good news is that, this crisis have made all of us come closer and more connected network than before.

Teaming?i.e., collaborating and coordinating across boundaries in different expertise is specially needed in such scenarios when the work is?complex?and?unpredictable. The biggest challenge is to aim for high accuracy with both limited information and technology related resources. Since we hardly have a fixed set of deliverables or roles, it's essential to develop a growth mindset for gaining fresh perspective. This style of rapid problem solving can only be achieved by engaging creative brains together in leadership roles to develop/set a culture of innovation for the organization. Although agility candidates are passionate individuals with god gifted leadership skills but as a side effect it's tough for them to be trained as followers within large corporations. Setting an adequate work environment for them is mandatory now as the world demands it.?

For agility teams to navigate uncertainty it's crucial that:

• They must be allowed to focus on process instead of solution i.e., learn as you go attitude
• Distributed leadership with hard power should be provided because they need to solve the complicated puzzles together by engaging with multiple stakeholders at various ends & frankly speaking it's a painful process
• Although they have in build resilience for coping with failures still, trust and transparency are their key tools for keeping their team spirit upfront
• Psychologically safe environment, a belief that the context is safe for interpersonal risk taking, speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes will be highly valued and in my opinion acts as a catalyst in such cases.

Usually majority of structured smart employee working in traditional large corporates are often trapped in hierarchy hence are suffering from corporate Stockholm syndrome which have unfortunately murdered their self confidence by compensating their creativity with optimization based model.

SIDE EFFECTS OF CORPORATE STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

Let's take a small step forward to evaluate how this phenomenon effect professionals. Well, based on my understanding, people usually start feeling trapped which often leads to mutual shutdown after certain time interval. In order to avoid such situations of mutual shutdown its important to consider some concept for bridging these gaps among our workforce. Let me elaborate this concept of mutual shutdown first.

MUTUAL SHUTDOWN AT WORK PLACE:

Like being infected with the deadliest virus, mutual shut down usually starts small, slow and unnoticed. It can start the day you get hired, the day you were suppose to make some long term crucial decisions as a team, or not start until you've completed 25 years of service with the same organization. All it needs to get going, through, is a small hurt or disappointment. A slight coldness at work or difference in decision making style strongly accelerates the situation. The attempted clarification that's pushed away. A put down when you're vulnerable. Something big can start it too, like organizational/cultural disruptions. But something incredibly small can start it too, like feeling under appreciated or disrespected despite of your hard work.

Here's how it kills our mutual connectivity. Before mutual shut down starts, individuals come together there's the sense that "I'll make a hundred percent effort to contribute my full fifty percent of the connectivity and we'll make a hundred percent effort to contribute to full fifty percent. We each do our best to give our all."

But if we do something do hurt someone or disappoint them, even if its unconscious and inadvertent, if we do anything to make it seem as though we are trying hundred percent and not contributing fifty percent, than its natural that the other party will pull back, too. May be right away. May be they'll put up a fight. But eventually it's going to be impossible for them to continue working on this issue alone with same enthusiasm after noticing unfair responses over time.

WHAT KEEPS MUTUAL SHUTDOWN GOING?

If this were a world of fair people, we'd see our opponent pull back, we'd see their complaints and coldness, and immediately realize what we'd done to make that happen. We'd immediately start giving back to make them willing to give to us again. But unfortunately, currently we don't live in that jolly fair world.

Instead what we do is all too often respond to hurt and anger with hurt and anger on our own. If someone is going to give less, we'll give even less than that, is in effect what we say. This mutual shutdown is a pure psychological reflex.

Its rare and honest personally I've never encountered a human connectivity trouble where mutual shutdown wasn't working its evil magic. But like most of the viruses that are in our bodies right now, mutual shutdown is not inevitably fatal. It wont stop all by itself, but it can stop if we do something constructive to stop it. What that something is and weather its enough is the issue we all need to address and brainstorm together about.

In the same direction, I would like to introduce this concept of fair process leadership which I have learned from one of my executive education course. This is one of the effective tool for desired result attainment, hence I strongly recommend it for everyone.

MYTHS & FACTS ABOUT RESPONSIBILITY & HIERARCHY

One of my favorite quotes by Sir Elbert Hubbard is,?"Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them."?Hence, in my understanding taking extra responsibilities is like giving oneself a promotion but with high responsibility comes high accountability too hence again self awareness and unbiased self evaluation is the key.

Although hierarchy is taken negatively in the current world but I think we all can agree that its an essential fundamental part of our human connectivity so what we need is simply some reframing.

Traditionally based on ancient Indian thought process, we believe that the basic preference of responsibility prioritization is primarily towards community, secondly toward our family and finally towards ourselves. And whenever this hierarchy is reversed, a society will automatically start degenerating itself.

Social responsibility is indeed a moral obligation for mankind but remember responsibility and freedom go hand in hand.?

Societies aren't destroyed by evil brains but rather from the silence of the good people. What a paradox. If good people can tolerate destruction by being inactive, how can they be good? The question is, are they really contributing towards their social responsibility?

Sir Edmund Burke correctly stated,?"For evil to flourish, good people have to do nothing and evil shall flourish."?Hence, with a hope of awakening those good people I would like to contribute this article for all the visionary leaders who are struggling to manage organizational disruptions.

FAIR PROCESS LEADERSHIP MODEL?

We have clearly established a proper understanding of why fairness is crucial to mankind and therefore please allow me to share an outstanding quote by Sir Warren Buffett:

LOOK FOR THREE THINGS IN A PERSON INTELLIGENCE, ENERGY & INTEGRITY. IF THEY DON'T HAVE THE LAST ONE, DON'T EVER BOTHER WITH THE FIRST TWO.

Hence I repeat, the personal traits of being responsible and also for being a person of integrity is crucial for all leaders in general despite of their roles and position.

Nothing can be complete black and white and hence its all about our perception. Therefore it's important to remember we all are unique hence our way of managing and perceiving a situation will be unique too based on multiple factors. Hence one idea fits all is too much an expectation but in my opinion?this process establishes an essential root value of prioritizing collaboration over competition which makes a big difference.

As you can see from the below image that this model stands on five fundamental pillars hence please allow me to elaborate each one of them one by one.

A. Engaging & Framing

A leader often needs to be patient and stay in the problem even after knowing the solution. It's our usual tendency to provide solution or advice to anyone or everyone in need because of our empathetic personality but apparently that usually backfires majority of us because that demonstrate our personal narrow minded personality hence its important to engage with others to learn about their perspectives and also to establish an in depth analysis of the problem. Based on my personal experience we often try working out the superficial issues without considering the root cause and hence its common to repeat the same mistake and misery multiple time. Hence, this step will help us to better understand the strengths and improvement points of our team members and also provides a crucial wisdom to creatively frame a project/ program which benefits both the organization and employees i.e., it empowers all the team members on board with us. Hence, requesting feedback is an important aspect of this process.

B. Exploring & Debating

Again, I repeat as a responsible leader we need to be further more patient & try our best to stay in the problem. So, if our employees are engaged and empowered there is a good scope of wild idea sharing and hence diversity in all its fronts are crucial component of an effective organization. Considering on various ideas simultaneously accelerates out of the box thinking among all the members individually hence its one of the best exercise for our brain. Not all ideas are good and hence the toughest part in this process is to tolerate wild ideas, instead try focusing on user point of view and hence valuing each and every contribution is mandatory for an effective leader. This step contribute to idea generation part of the management strategy.

C. Deciding & Explaining

Well it's good to engage and explore together but as a responsible leader we need to have a spine for taking tough decision as it's practically impossible to proceed with all the ideas generated at step B. Therefore trust, fairness and good communication skills are the key traits of the leader at this stage. Therefore, a leader need to provide a convincing explanation to his/her team members so that they all can construct a long term goal together positively. So, the core logic behind the output/framing of decision in a way that it is perceived fair by everyone is most essential part of the management strategy.

D. Execution

Well many of you might be thinking with step C our journey is complete already but journey never ends because as a leader we need to undergo this process again and again multiple time. Therefore consistency is the key and hence supporting & visibly connecting with people is important for building a healthy trustful work environment for everyone. On a contrary, our consistent efforts-comments a lot more on the integrity of our character which as I have already mentioned is an essential trait of a visionary leader.

E. Learning & Evaluation?

A leader is like a role model for his/her members therefore its important for a leader to be vulnerable in front of their teams and constantly upgrade himself/herself with the latest tech-cultural advancements. Self assessment and desire to find the best version of oneself is crucial for an individual in this step of our fair process leadership model. The main point is we need to be fair in giving honest recognition to all the team members so that they can challenge for something bigger. This step helps in creating a mechanism for generating a long term success for our organization.

CONCLUSION

In my opinion, the past experiences in which speaking up was unwelcome and fixedness build over time is the real cause for the thought paralysis among individuals in tough times. These patterns have ultimately contributed to a big loss of good ideas for organizations and societies which is a big loss for complete mankind. Every lock is prepared with a key hence this situation can be turned upside down by following a fair process leadership model as that can help in creating an open invitation to voice and discuss wild ideas which might help us in creating a beautiful world for mankind.