The seesaw of leadership and decision-making
Polarisation
We live in a world in which polarisation is increasingly present and increasingly encouraged: ‘Are you on my side or his?’. ‘You don’t think what I think, so you must be wrong’ (this one enshrines the dangerous assumption of being right – see more here). ‘Your interests or mine’. ‘Your ethnic group or religion or race or beliefs – or even gender – is different from mine, so you don’t count’. ‘This is right and that’s wrong’
How it shows up
It might even show up as ‘We’ve always done it this way, so that means it’s the way we’ll carry on doing it, regardless of evidence or data that might indicate an alternative could be worth exploring’, or ‘I tried doing (or saying) something which didn’t align with most people’s views, and it didn’t get any traction, so I won’t try again, because it failed’.
A little more subtly, ‘I don’t like your behaviour or attitude or perspective (or something else about you), so I’m going to dismiss you from consideration’.
Decisions based on being blinkered
When this tendency towards polarisation shows up in leadership, it’s particularly dangerous, partly because it can lead to decisions which exclude important factors that are inherent in that decision-making but invisible in the rigidity of the process.
Aligning firmly to a polarity or an assumption means that we’re closing ourselves in, locked and blinkered, inside a box to which we’ve thrown away the key without a second’s thought – and we aren’t asking any questions or engaging our curiosity in enquiry. That choice to be blinkered also inhibits growth and development: we stay stuck, ensnared by the apparent comfort of a lack of data which conflicts, or may conflict, with what we already think. We’ve chosen one end of the seesaw and we aren’t going to move.
Opening the window wider
Something much more fertile can happen when we venture out of our chosen position: opening the window more widely may be a little (or very) uncomfortable because it may challenge what we thought was reality, it presents an ambiguity and a lack of clarity that we don’t quite know what to do with, and it involves engaging with a complexity that’s new and strange and puzzling.
Curious enquiry
But if we allow that discomfort, rather than resisting it, if we embrace it, accept it and approach it in a spirit of curious enquiry, if we soothe our anxiety about being in the ‘not knowing’, the new or unfamiliar, and the lack of absolute definition could perhaps offer something possibly richer – which means something new can emerge. If we offer an idea into a familiar context that doesn’t land well, instead of dismissing it as an inevitable failure, we can think around it in a spirit of curiosity, and perhaps reveal a whole new terrain.
Seeing more of the possibilities
When we see light and shade, we see more of what’s really there: we see more of the nuances, the complexities, different patterns, possibly the next problem that will arise, and therefore – and very importantly – the possibilities. Welcoming an engagement with possibilities can lead to a richer, more vivid, enriching and multi-faceted picture, more well-informed options, and therefore a much more reliable and resilient basis for decision-making, which looks below the surface and sees what may be, or could be, round the next corner.
The wiser leader
Not everyone will find this easy. But everyone can, if they want to, become more reflective and curious in the way this approach invites. It might mean they need to shrug off the cape of the instantly decisive leader, but walking back and forth along the seesaw – and perhaps even jumping off, and on to a different seesaw, or indeed onto a roundabout or a slide – could mean putting on a new cape: that of the wiser leader.
Photo by Chun Kit Soo on Unsplash
