“Power & Agency? Handrails or Harnesses? After COVID Will We Still Have The Power To Choose?”
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us.”
For over a year-and-half the global sweep and local impact of the Coronavirus has thrown everything in the air and whilst so much has been uncertain, one thing has been crystal clear — This is a long haul, and we will all need to continue to dig deep, and then deeper still.
But understandably, aren’t we all just a little bit afraid of our light right now? Particularly after all this time already spent hunkering down to each new wave, which perforce has meant that even the most buoyant amongst us have struggled.
Recent events only confirm our world is nothing but change and a network of events that never form an orderly queue.
As the Russian playwright Anton Chekov wrote, “The greatest thing is not fame or glory, but simply stamina”, and for the next hard yards as we navigate out and beyond this pandemic, we will need an elephant’s sufficiency of stamina.
But there will be many things that will get in the way if we allow them.
For example, being unable to act and exercise our Agency, a paucity of emotional intelligence, being fragile rather than anti-fragile, or not choosing to place our vulnerability at the heart of our leadership.
And we are also going to need some ‘Handrails or Harnesses’ to get through the next bit!
To Govern Is To Choose
Pierre-Marc-Gaston Duc de Levis (1764–1830) wrote, “To govern is to choose.”
To govern oneself is to exercise choice. But what if we feel powerless and unable to exercise our Agency to choose the life we wish to live?
Many will certainly be feeling that over the past eighteen months their Agency has been vastly diminished.
We know that everyone has been experiencing the pandemic in their own way, trying to navigate the new terrain, and approaching each new twist and turn differently.
Some may freeze, others act with seeming recklessness, and countless more conduct themselves in ways that to colleagues, friends and family just do not make sense.
A pandemic can bring people together, but it can also polarise.
This is because although we may all be in the same storm not everyone is standing witness to it from the same boat.
We are all at different stages on our journey and in our meaning-making.
And moving at differing speeds as we try to make sense of what is happening, and as we journey through various recognisable stages such as surprise, disbelief, frustration, and depression, to behaviours that include re-engaging and letting go, learning to work in new and different hybrid ways, acceptance, growth, and re-growth.
Some will have been able to transition through these stages more readily, whilst for others trying to make sense of what the new different will really mean for them remains a challenge with which they continue to struggle.
And the order and the speed with which we have moved has been a very personal affair. So, now more than ever it is a time to be for others as we apply the salve of trying to think differently, challenge the unchallengeable, avoid the ‘easy answers’ trap, gain crucial insights and create a new landscape of possibilities.
We now need to remind one another of our Agency, as we dig deep into our vulnerability, face our power, and remember that to be human is, “To be aware, able to understand complex emotions, and to have the capacity for empathy and love.”
But Everything Is Subordinate To Complexity
“The more I know, the less I understand.” Goethe
In an earlier piece in this series on @medium I wrote that rather than too little caring, there is too much complexity, which in turn has created a “Complexity of Mind.”
Prior to the pandemic it was considered de rigueur in many quarters to use the military term VUCA — Volatile, Uncertain, Complex & Ambiguous — to describe the world in which we lived and the challenges this presented for leadership.
Then COVID-19 broke and the only thing that was certain was uncertainty.
As I wrote in another piece in this series, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is not going to disappear. It will continue to mutate because that is the atypical pattern of any virus as it attempts to survive, but hopefully over time its tenacity and potency will start to cede.
And COVID-19 will transition from pandemic to endemic, to become something we must just live with.
Uncertainty, social and political upheaval, pandemics, wars, suffering and strife, are all part of the lived human experience. They are all part of both our history and our future. Which is why language, narrative building and meaning making are so important.
For many millions across the world living in poverty at the best of times and the worst, there has never been such a thing as certainty.
But the virus is egalitarian and part of a very human story which affects us all, without fear or favour.
So, virus or not — and a VUCA world, or a pluralistic, interdependent, post-modern, and complicated world — what now needs to come to the fore is our common humanity, a universal compassion, and a resolute and all-encompassing courage, including the courage to choose!
In his essay “Truth & Lying in an Extra-Moral Sense”, Fredrich Nietzsche argued that we create truth about the world through our use of metaphor and myth, the big problem though in the words of the Harvard Psychologist Dan Gilbert is, “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.”
And our relationship with truth can be very subjective, to say the least.
Never have we lived in a time when we have so much information — And so much misinformation!
F Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function”
Our world today, is many removes from Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age — We now live in an age of 24/7 news, fake news, fact as fiction, fiction as fact, half-truths & now, the post-modern confection of post-truth.
Buttressed by our memories, experience, and a keen need to understand, we are nonetheless the imperfect perfect.
The Japanese philosophies of Wabi-Sabi and Kintsugi, are both predicated on accepting the beauty of the imperfect.
By putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold, Kintsugi reveals how to create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art.
We too can choose to embrace our imperfections and accept our “Golden Cracks.”
Emotional Intelligence Post Pandemic?
“Getting and spending we lay waste our powers, little we see in nature that is ours.” William Wordsworth
We cannot have it all — but in our leadership during this recovery phase and opportunity for regrowth, and whether it’s a tight/loose or loose/tight approach, we must exercise our intellect and emotional intelligence (EI); recognising the vital importance of both connection and language, so we can ask the right questions, make meaning and act.
Psychologist and science journalist Daniel Goleman, points out that EI is one of the most common areas coaches are asked to help leaders improve on.
Whilst in its annual report, the World Economic Forum lists resilience, stress tolerance, flexibility and influence as essential skills for a post pandemic workplace.
All are components of EI, and Goleman’s model groups these in 12 sub-sets under four key capabilities: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, &, relationship management.
There is however another EI that is vitally important as we navigate ourselves and lead others through and out the other side of the current pandemic, and that is Emotional Interaction.
Professor Robert J. House identified this as an integral part of great leadership in 1977, so it is not a new concept, but this leadership behaviour is defined by making time to focus on the wellbeing of staff, consulting before making decisions, communicating, setting clear goals, and encouraging integrative thinking to solve problems that have previously seemed without resolution.
However, even before COVID_19 leaders were hard pressed for time.
Whilst being strategic was rated the most important leadership behaviour by 97% of respondents to a recent Harvard Business review survey, 96% of those responding to a complementary survey by the ‘Strategic Thinking Institute’ felt they lacked the time for strategic thinking.
Being Anti-Fragile!
The pandemic is a Black Swan event — A major game-changer.
The term ‘Black Swan’ is used as a metaphor to describe an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalised after the fact with the benefit of hindsight.
It was first coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book of the same name, which famously predicted the 2008 financial crash.
This book also introduced the concept of anti-fragile.
For Taleb, a fragile person is someone who feels they have nothing to gain and will go out of their way to avoid any change. A robust person on the other hand, is in Taleb’s words someone who will not break easily, but will be hard to convince that anything will be improved by changing things
And then there is the person who is anti-fragile.
Characteristically they are more than just adaptable, resilient, or robust, and they do not just endure change, but go out of their way to seek it out and intuitively will understand how they can benefit from it.
In an organisation they will be thinking performers i.e. those who don’t just ask “where’s the cheese?” but go off in swift and bold pursuit.
Or, put another way, before the crisis it was said that 80% of the workforce came to work with their arms and legs, 15% with their arms, legs and head, and 5% with the arms, legs, head and heart!
These 5% are your Thinking Performers!
And they will instinctively look for those patterns of organisation (verb), work with the granularity of the issues, gain crucial insights, and regard change as a new landscape of possibilities.
We need a new architecture and a new mindset. With ordinary people doing extra-ordinary things, as they take a both/and rather than an either/or approach.
Agents of recovery and regrowth — ‘You’, ‘Me’, ‘I’ and‘We’ not ‘They’ — And characterized by a ‘Triple A’ approach of Anticipating, Accepting & Adapting.
Right, Or Wrong?
“The strongest people in life are the ones that are comfortable saying, ‘I don’t know’.” Patrick Lencioni
Physiologically many are training themselves to re-enter new (work) spaces, both physically and virtually in the post pandemic terrain, and a leader must intentionally set the tone — By having overwhelming heart and cultivating their emotional intelligence, agility, and resilience.
And by being vital, present, engaged, connected, and by remaining curious, resourceful, and resolute.
Leadership also demands vision, anticipation, making difficult decisions, and the ability to ask openly for advice and support.
Leaders must take care of themselves and create the time and space for their leadership — to reflect upon and shape their response. To think, Be and Do different.
But there is a tension and another keen need that many in leadership roles have, and that is to make what seems improbable, possible, because to paraphrase the poet Robert Browning, “What’s a heaven for if a person’s grasp cannot exceed their reach.”
At one point in the reboot of the Star Trek film franchise, James Tiberius Kirk declares – “I don’t know what I should do — I only know what I can do!”
A leader must now be vulnerable in a courageous and positive way. Able to say, “I’m not sure what we should do here”, and avoid getting swept-up by the pressure of expectation and being bent out of shape by the paradox that has always been at the heart of leadership i.e., the compulsion to be seen to do something, even if it is not known what that something is!
That compulsion can be very strong, and while the action taken may be partly right, it can also be wholly wrong.
Vulnerability — “The Beautiful Mess Effect!”
“The radical openness of not knowing is a more adequate stance toward life and experience than believing or pretending to know.”
To my mind these words capture the essence of what I would term bold leadership — A leadership that is not afraid of the light and has vulnerability in its DNA and at its heart.
We take a more negative view of our own vulnerability than we do of the vulnerability of others, and this is known as the ‘Vulnerability Mismatch’. Researchers also call this the “beautiful mess effect”, because whilst we tend to think about our own vulnerability in concrete terms, when we think of another person’s vulnerability we do so in the abstract.
And we can be much too hard on ourselves!
In her first 2013 TED Talk, ‘The Power Of Vulnerability’, Dr Brene Brown said that vulnerability was the “birthplace of creativity and change.”
She also described it as the core, the heart and centre of meaningful human experiences.
Whilst in her book, ‘Daring Greatly: How The Courage To Be Vulnerable Transforms The Way We Live, Love, Parent & Lead’, first published the year before that first TED Talk, she defined vulnerability as “uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.”
Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. It is our Agency!
So, are we now ready to be courageous, vulnerable, and bold in our leadership?
Bold Leadership?
I would contend that along with compassion and courage, vulnerability must also be a fundamental component of the new leadership mix, and a Bold Leader will be able:
- To let go of their ego and attachment to the way things used to be
- Balance their strength with gentleness, their compassion with steel
And also be:
- Comfortable with both their public and private self
- Grateful and appreciative of the small things
- Honest about what they do not, or cannot know, so their personal humility becomes the beating heart of their professional will
- Humble and with an observance of the spoken word — Using the right language to ask the right questions, and creating the right conditions by listening intently to the answers
- Open-minded, tolerant, and respectful
- Positive, and with an energy that is forged on their values and integrity; &
- Prepared to wear their own vulnerability openly and recognise that this is not a weakness — But a fundamental prerequisite of being human!
Handrails Or Harnesses?
Brene Brown’s latest podcast series, ‘Dare To Lead’ talks about the need for psychological Handrails for people as they try to make sense and gird themselves physically, emotionally and intellectually to re-enter new and changed spaces.
In another earlier piece in this series on @medium entitled, “What Coronavirus Can Teach Us About Ourselves” I talked about how in these challenging times ordinary people, quiet on Twitter, but strong in spirit and resolute in action, have been doing extra-ordinary things.
Everyday heroes. Digging deep then deeper still.
Bungee jumping into the unknown. Whilst not knowing if the flexible cord in which they put their metaphorical trust will do its job and recoil, then safely oscillate up and down until the kinetic energy is dissipated.
Vulnerability embraces boundaries and trust and Handrails are about boundaries and safety, both psychological and physical. You can hold onto them. They can guide you. They provide stability when you wobble, but they require you to be active, rather than passive. To take steps. To interact.
Examples might be peer-to-peer support, creating a psychological safe space for messy conversations to take place where people can talk authentically about what they are feeling and what they need, making the implicit explicit, and encouraging moments of creation and appreciation.
All of which will create value, nurture, and sustain a climate of respect and care, and encourage vibrant work and re-growth.
On the other hand, Harnesses are things that you step into when taking a big and deliberate step. Or, when you do extra-ordinary things.
They do not guide, they hold. You put your trust in them and they can take all the strain as you step into the unknown.
And as we are all different, and our experience of this pandemic has been very personal some of us will need Harnesses, whilst others will need Handrails to do the same thing?
If we believe that this is truly important, then it is our responsibility as leaders to focus, frame and provide the support needed.
We cannot make assumptions about what people will choose, but if we are mindful of the questions we ask of ourselves and others and create the right conditions by listening to the answers, we can provide the right choices.
And we must be ready to provide whatever support is required.
End Game
For Socrates, a fundamental ethical question was, “How should we live?”
Let us do so day-by-day, and one step at a time. Exercising our Agency, making choices and living in gratitude, as we remember the words of Henry David Thoreau.
“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual, It is surprising how contented one can be with just a sense of existence.”
Our default must not be to now race back to something. Rather, we must go forward, with our Harnesses, or Handrails, or both!
And we could also start a new daily self-reflective practice of asking ourselves these six questions:
- Did I work towards my goals today?
- Have I been the kind of person I want to be today?
- What am I grateful for today?
- What bad habits do I need to stop today?
- What mistakes did I make today and what can I learn from them? &
- What motivated me today?
About The Author
“We need less math and more poetry.”
Having written a million plus published words over the past couple of years on leadership excellence, navigating complexity, working with change, wellbeing, well doing and Mindfulness, Paul Mudd is about making the complex less complex, the tough stuff not so tough and putting the unreachable within reach of everyone.
He is also a Trusted Adviser, Leadership Provocateur, Savvy Thinker, International Keynote Speaker, Best Selling Mindfulness Author, Global Well Being & Well Doing Influencer, Co-Founder and Director of the Mudd Partnership and Co-Creator of the new tMP Hexagon Leadership & Coaching programme #ThinkHexagon © 2021.
