Leadership and the Deathwalk, Part 1

The first time I met Arnold Mindell, we had a brief and pleasant conversation. After we parted, he turned back around and said, “I know you.” I argued with a smile that it was our first meeting. He replied, “No, I know you.”

He was right. We knew each other in that way no one can explain. 

Arnold is a brilliantly fascinating man with an enormous capacity to both relate and create. He combined applied physics and Jungian psychology to found Process-Oriented Psychology. For many years, he brought people from all around the world together to work out our collective “wicked problems” through what he calls deep democracy. 

His programs are difficult—no, impossible—for anyone who wishes to avoid their own inner work. They are a godsend for those deep into that journey and looking for direction. 

For years I took one of his books, the same one, with me on a solo vacation for a week of working with my own wicked problems. It had to be a fresh copy, no underlines, even if they had been my own. As they say, we never step into the same river twice. The river has long moved on, and just as important, we are not the same. I held this reading as a practice because I needed to read with new eyes to come up with new ideas.

It always took the full week to get through the book. The process went something like this… 

Read a paragraph. Look out at nothing in the distance and think for as long as it took to think well about what I had read. Do it again. All day. Every day. Evenings, too. I’d intend to integrate the material through my dreams at night, and there was not a single week where the dreams did not come. 

I’d wake up, think more broadly, then dive in again. When I finished the book (if I finished it within one week—often I didn’t get to the end in that time), I’d put it down and spend the rest of my time staring out into the distance, further and further. 

There was no specific goal. The reading itself would do the work, if I let it. 

Year after year, his book has shape-shifted into something new (or is it me that shape-shifted?), which should be expected with a title like The Shaman’s Body.

While Mindell never claimed to be a shaman, he wrote about it in the most contemporary way of any I have found before or since. Since my fiction writing is shamanic in nature, this book had a way of keeping me honest with myself and my work. 

It still informs my role in leadership, writing, creating social change, mentoring and more.

I always try to go especially slow as I move into Chapter 14, The Deathwalk.

If you are any kind of transformational leader, you’ll know the Deathwalk, even if you never knew it had a name in the shamanic traditions. 

The story begins when a forward-thinking person makes a move their culture isn’t ready for, interested in or understanding of. This person crosses the line on any number of the taboos of change. She breaks the unwritten rules. He steps beyond the appropriate and approved. They ignore the customs. 

As it always happens, and I would argue is supposed to happen, someone in the community notices.

Soon enough, we hear the well-worn battle cry: That’s not the way things are done here!

Here, it turns out, is where the statement’s emphasis lies. Because when you break the rules, banishing you from here is the greatest threat that can be levied upon you.

Other community members chime in, learn all the juicy details of what you’ve dared to do and whisper their facts and imaginations to others in that deadly gossipy way we all know. With or without evidence, depending on the kind of problem you have become for your family, workplace or community, you’ll be found innocent or guilty. 

Sometimes, it is the simple fact that you are a newcomer—as many an outside hire or new bride knows all too well. 

Mindell puts it like this: 

“There are the implicit rules of dealing with outsiders. If you are part of a religious group, you live by certain rules that govern belief and lifestyle. If you are a scientist, you are bound by the conventions of empiricism and rationalism. As a teacher, you must model academic behavior and teach people to adapt. For a therapist, rationalism is supposed to win over shamanism. As a person, you must follow the definition of normal human behavior and repress perceptions that lie outside this definition…”

If found guilty, your Deathwalk is begun. You’ll meet the metaphorical firing squad at dawn. 

I use the word metaphorical for good reason. Should you actually get a real day in court for your supposed crime, things would likely be easier. Or at least cleaner. You might even be given the chance to have your say. To defend yourself and offer all your well-thought out reasoning.

At the metaphorical level, most of the details play out behind the scenes. This leaves plenty of time for your mind to play tricks on you. 

You think of all the noteworthy crimes that you actually are guilty of, even if you are innocent on this count. Since we are all guilty of something, this creates a kind of personal torture, which is, in a way, part of the reason our Deathwalk is such a great teacher. 

In fact, the next time you want to get to know yourself better, just allow yourself to make a few big mistakes or break an important rule. Now listen for the whispers about you (they are coming from inside of you) and watch your imagination go wild. Works every time.

For the sake of our story here, we will imagine a gritty, unkempt, good old-fashioned firing squad. 

Those you have offended—friends and foes alike—are armed with every sort of weapon, all loaded with a host of reasons and stories about why you are surely guilty. Sometimes, the evidence will be things you did a dozen years before, even though you were supposedly forgiven. 

Culture never forgets. 

Whatever the reason or offense, there are only two ways to survive the Deathwalk. 

The first way is to be so nimble, so agile, and so deft, that you dodge every single bullet and joust—or live to tell the tale even if a few do hit the mark. I think of Neo in the famous slow-moving bullet scene at the end of The Matrix. Throughout the entire movie, he is attempting to survive a Deathwalk.

The second way is my personal favorite. It is to be so congruent that others won’t be able to pull the trigger in the first place. 

Merriam-Webster suggests that congruent indicates being in agreement, harmony, or conforming to the circumstances or requirements of a situation. 

With this deeper harmony, no one can see fault in you, even if you are technically guilty of breaking the rules. To put it another way, maybe your accusers could see that you were somehow appropriate even in your inappropriateness. Or that you were somehow old even in your newness. Or kind though you told a harsh truth. 

So there you are, awaiting your sure demise. A dozen or more accusers look you in the eye with malice, but then slowly start shifting their weight from one foot to another, deliberating on how they feel about it all.  

Maybe you are guilty, but perhaps what you are guilty of should not be a crime? 

Maybe you have done much good, and even if this went a bit too far, it would be a shame to lose you and your contributions. 

Maybe, even if what you did was scary, strange, or merely unfamiliar, it wasn’t actually wrong once they thought about actually killing you for it. 

Maybe they would have done the same in your shoes. 

Maybe, even, there is something inside of them that knows everyone needs what you brought to pass—even if it isn’t how things are done around here. 

Maybe “around here” needs to change, and deep down they want change, too. 

And maybe, just maybe, a few of your accusers can see it’s not about you at all. 

However it happens, your firing squad looks at you and each member sees a person of integrity, in harmony with the moment and event. 

And so they begin to look at their feet again, grumble under their breath a bit more, and somehow decide to notice that it’s time for lunch.

They disperse, possibly without ever telling you that you have done well or that you are forgiven. 

All you know for sure is that you have survived to break the rules another day. To lead, however unlike leadership your acts may seem. (Whether you want to, given the current landscape . . . well, that’s another matter.)

As I have suggested already, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about. 

But here’s the latest emergent problem: Leadership itself is under fire. 

It’s been so bad for so many and for so long, we all have inner knee-jerk firing squads at the ready. We’ll turn on anyone for any reason if they look or feel old school, or if they take the new in a direction we don’t approve of. 

It’s like two firing squads, the old guard and the new, gaining collective ground only to start firing at each other. 

Some have taken this role much more seriously of late, creating initiatives, teams, watchdogs, and social groups that are ready to pounce. Now there are ten firing squads firing at each other. If there are leaders who see the whole mess from the 10,000-foot view, most of them know better than to stand in the middle to attempt to call a truce.

As example, we might cling firmly to the belief that our shiny red phone is the best phone color that there ever was, is or will be. So we naturally look for any infraction of the red phone rules we believe should be kept.

To add to the challenge, we have the freedom to decide which of any number of firing squads there should be and which roles are good and right. We like our red phones, but also our blue shoes, and our yellow triangles, and our… 

On and on it goes. 

This is not to say that there are not very legitimate grievances from well-deserving groups that have long and hugely suffered.

Indeed, some groups have suffered far more than others. That is a given now. And it is exactly what complicates emergent leadership.

We know the stakes, and that most are not merely being irrationally divisive. We are trying to change injustice, heal great and long grievances that have festered, and find a way forward so that these things never happen to anyone else again. There are very real and justified movements and there are profoundly wounded souls leading them. 

And so leadership itself is a bit of a mess.

Well, a massive mess. A massive, well-deserved, intractable, wicked-problem mess. 

We’ll dive further into this in our next issue. In the meantime, we might do well to at least attempt the 10,000-foot view. 

When we understand that leadership itself is in transformation—a death and rebirth of the highest order—and that the age-old tradition of the firing squad itsef could be our greatest hinderance, we at least have something truly emergent to think about.

I'll be pondering Part Two alongside you. In the meantime, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I'm Robin Rice, a senior advisor in conscious leadership for individuals and organizations. I lead, mentor and teach at the intersection of work, personal relationships, and social impact. I invite you to connect with me here on LinkedIn or through my website at RobinRice.com.

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