
Battling Normalized Mediocrity
In our collective effort to create high performance companies and institutions, we look around us for echoes of success. We search for successful leaders, companies that have billion dollar valuations, or those that have endured beyond 20 years when 90% of firms fail in ten. We look for stateswomen and statesmen, devour bold and inspirational writing and speeches from the past, and attempt to emulate and surpass the lofty standards set by them. These leaders and their works act as tonic and catalyst to move us out of our comfort zones, past our fears, and into action.
The role models we see as credible, reliable, and likable with a dash of humility, earn our respect. Over time, we learn to trust what they say because their actions reinforce their words. We gravitate to authenticity, generosity of spirit, and a hopeful yet realistic outlook on the world and its possibilities.
We may not deserve role models, but we certainly need them. The sounds of success, however defined, echo in our ears, hearts, and minds. Those sounds inspire us to follow bold visions and set big goals. Historically, we look to political figures as role models for what’s possible.
It inspires us when they demonstrate visions of possibility rather than lack. It lifts us when they celebrate tolerance, diversity, and inclusion. It builds cohesiveness when they hold our nation of immigrants in high esteem. It raises our collective wisdom when they sing the praises of women rather than viciously attack and objectify them. When role models demonstrate the power of lifelong learning, we see that growth is possible. When they lead with self-awareness and self-restraint rather than self-aggrandizing and self-serving behavior, our respect for them grows as does their influence.
Disappointingly, and perhaps unwittingly, we have lowered our leadership standards and normalized mediocrity. If someone disappoints us enough times, we lower our expectations of them, not raise them. It’s a common reaction for us to say—What do you want me to do about it? I’m endeavoring to take a more resourceful and responsible path for myself and offer it for your consideration.
This path requires us to examine our own beliefs, open our minds to broad learning, set expectations for our own behavior that allow us to act as role models, offer support when others fall short, and give permission for them to do the same for us. It’s said that if we don’t have results, we are left with reasons. I’m suggesting that we not let ourselves or our leaders off the hook when we and they explicitly lower the expectations bar. This path requires us to say hell no to settling or dissembling and hell yes to a discussion that confronts the unacceptable, and often undiscussable, things going on around us. It requires us to read about, discuss, and understand the challenges experienced by those that aren’t like us.
A recent example of my own learning surrounds the term intersectionality. It’s a term developed in 1989 by civil rights advocate Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw. It intersected with my awareness only in the last year. It describes overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination. According to Patricia H. Collins in “Intersectionality’s Definitional Dilemmas,” Annual Review of Sociology: “These identities that can intersect include gender, race, social class, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, religion, age, mental disability, physical disability, mental illness, and physical illness as well as other forms of identity.”
I’ve written about the importance of diverse opinions on our teams and the power that brings to delivering better results for our companies. But, frankly, my own definition of diversity and the resulting lenses I brought to my past thinking were severely limited. For example, it didn’t explicitly consider mental disabilities, mental illness, or physical illness. I believe that different people show up to work each day for a variety of reasons, but even this partial list of additional intersections significantly expands my lens for considering how I engage and lead.
I was and am ignorant. And my reaction to that fact is to study role models, read more broadly, engage more with people who have broader experience and perspectives, and make a difference in the dialogue and the cultures I contribute to building within the organizations I serve.
In 2016, the World Economic Forum released its annual Human Capital Index “ranking 130 countries on how well they are developing and deploying their human capital potential.” Finland led the way. The US came in at 24.
The lack of respectful discourse, increasingly prevalent in the US in the past decade, is a significant contributor to this low ranking and if we, as US business or political leaders, don’t change our approach, continued decline is a certainty. We are, individually and collectively, capable of more than normalized mediocrity. Setting higher standards and holding ourselves and others to them, will require our collective imagination, mutual respect, mutual purpose, improved confrontation skills, and role model leadership to stem the decline in our potential and create the kind of companies and organizations where we are proud to work and lead.
At a time filled with news stories of lack and discord, we each can choose to change the dialogue for ourselves, our families, and our companies, to one that enhances awareness, understanding and growth. The choice to learn is ours to make. And before we are able to lead others, we must first start with ourselves.
