by Ginny Telego
A few days ago, I had the opportunity to serve in an
advisory role for a peer mediation training for 5th grade students
at a local elementary school. The students in the training are members of the Student Council at the school. The main facilitators for the training were
two college students who have a passion for finding ways to resolve conflict
that doesn’t involve violence.
As I was assisting the lead facilitator in preparing an
outline for the training (two 1 hour sessions), I found myself conflicted in
what we were trying to accomplish. Here’s
why.
The current presidential election – on both sides and in all
political discussions it seems – is riddled with candidates and their support
teams doing and saying some pretty vicious things to stir up support for their
campaigns. As I watch this continue to
escalate, I am struck by several thoughts:
From a leadership development standpoint, I am wondering if
leadership philosophies based on command and control will once again become the
“norm” after decades of working to create leaders who are less narcissistic and
more collaborative and self-aware.
Thousands of leadership development programs exist that have been built
on developing the emotional intelligence of leaders, with the goal of making
organizations better places to work.
When potential leaders of our country are espousing untruths, feeding
fears, exchanging school-yard insults and creating division, it begs the
question – where is the emotional
intelligence and does it matter?
It’s coming from both sides of the political aisle, which makes it even
more frustrating for those of us who have spent years working to create
programs aimed at helping leaders grow their emotional intelligence, not leaders
who spew vitriol at each other. Is this
how leaders are going to start talking to each other and their employees? After all, if that type of leadership
behavior is what gets rewarded in the presidential election, why not use it
everywhere else?- Is this the new path for leadership development?
- Should we do away with all school programs and policies that have to do with teaching young people how to deal with conflict without using violence and bully behaviors?
- How do we balance explaining to young people that the people who want to lead our country can behave that way but they cannot?
I think these are questions we need to be thinking about as
the political arena continues to heat up.
There has been a great deal of research done on leadership,
with differing opinions on what makes great leaders. Narcissism has come under fire as a negative
but there is also research that shows it is a necessary trait of great leaders. In a McKinsey
& Company article titled “Getting beyond the BS of Leadership Literature”
(Jeffrey Pfeffer) the author notes that leadership development based on
morality is not realistic. Pfeffer
shared examples of well-known and respected leaders (Abraham Lincoln, JFK,
Nelson Mandela) who sometimes had to “do what was necessary to achieve
important objectives.” He states that “moral
framing of leadership substantially oversimplifies the real complexity of the
dilemmas and choices leaders confront.”
There is no doubt that leaders are often in positions where, they have
to “do” things that we may think are “bad” in order to get things done and
possibly benefit the greater good.
So where does that leave us in developing leaders who have
emotional intelligence but are also able to make difficult decisions that may
not always be popular? Spewing insults
at others does not seem to be a characteristic that leaders should be rewarded
for. But this year’s presidential primary races are filled with this
tactic. How will leadership development
experts address this in their programs?
Our equine assisted action learning program, like many others, has been built on creating authenticity, trust,
respect and collaboration and doesn’t incorporate this juvenile skill being used by these potential leaders. As unpleasant as it is, it seems that the
portrayal of what a “strong” leader looks like in this presidential race is
something that leadership development professionals have to find a way to
address. At what point do we sacrifice
our values for results? In their book The Leadership Challenge, authors Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner repeatedly talk about their
research on leadership and the top traits that followers look for in a
leader. Trust is at the top of that list
and they go on to offer extensive discussion on the role that values play in
becoming a trusted leader. Again, given
the current atmosphere of vile conversations among people who are vying to lead
the United States (as well as many who are running for state offices), how do
those of us in the leadership development field address this in our programs?
At some point it would seem that we have to stop focusing on
being angry and begin to look at how our view of a strong leader has moved from
confident yet compassionate to mean and nasty.
My next blog will address the second point at the start of
this article:
- Should we do away with all school programs and policies that have to do with teaching young people how to deal with conflict without using violence and bully behaviors? How will the language and behaviors of our political leaders affect school suspensions for students who “act out” by using physical and emotional violence against their classmates?