Leadership and Crisis
"The most valuable "currency" of any organization is the initiative and creativity of its members. Every leader has the solemn moral responsibility to develop these to the maximum in all his people. This is the leader's highest priority." ~ W. Edwards Deming in Principle Centered Leadership.
What should be the posture of our leadership when our schools, our state, or an entire economy is in crisis? If everyone responds with defensiveness, anger or indifference to others needs, it can lead to stress, panic, and exhaustion, resulting in poor decisions driven by impulse and anxiety, and even total dysfunction. People can turn on each other, or be literally paralyzed by fear. In a dangerous economic environment, we must be on the alert for challenges and change, but not so stressed and intimidated by them that we cannot respond. We cannot be so focused on the dangers that we fail to see the opportunities within crisis. Below are some strategies for leaders faced with crisis, some may be useful for our learning community:
Care
· Make a conscious choice to view and treat others as your best friends
· Look for the good in people
· Be patient and forgiving
· Consider individuals and their interests as important
· See situations from the other’s perspective, empathize and accept
Build Relationships, Teams & Community
· Connect with people
· Learn names/establish rapport
· Think the best of everyone
· Consider relationships important
· Invest time in relationship building
· Listen actively and build self esteem
· Take in information, ask questions and work to understand
· Identify common ground
· Get to know other’s situations, motivations and emotions
· Be authentic about your own struggles (be vulnerable)
Enable Others to Succeed
· The natural outcome of caring and relationship
· Understand people by slowing down and being fully present with them
· Seek to identify and serve the most profound (highest priority) needs
· Make decisions and take actions with followers needs in mind
· Help, teach, support, mentor, coach
· Communicate and be persuasive
Empower
· Provide assignments that challenge and grow a person’s skill
· Acknowledge and reward strengths and development efforts
· Accept some risk (and even failure) as a part of development
· Encourage and reward
Know Your Strengths, Weaknesses, Values and Beliefs
· Identify your mission and guiding principles
· Reflect on your values, performance, strengths and weaknesses
· Recognize where you need to grow and develop
· Recognize your own emotions and their effects
· Have the courage to stand for something and the integrity to carry it through
Learn (continually) from every possible source:
· Authors
· Mentors/Role models
· Experiences – your own and others’
· Success and failure
· Feedback (sought out and welcomed from others)
Develop in all areas:
· Personal, cognitive and social
· Skills necessary to accomplish the mission
· Build self confidence:
· Which allows you to try even when there is risk and accept failure as part of the learning and growing process
Proactively Set the Course, Navigate, & Lead the Way
· Chart a course that will lead to success:
· Based on competence, judgment and past experiences
· Motivated by a sincere desire to help others (even ahead of personal gain) and a passion to succeed
· Using intuition – gathering information and reading people and situations
· Using one’s senses to be fully present, alert and aware
· Seeing more than others, seeing farther and seeing before others see
· Being innovative
· Valuing input and being adaptive
· Underpinned by a strong faith in the abilities of those who will carry it out
· Providing the ideology and the structure to succeed
· Willing to lead the way, set the example, take the risk, be the role model (with self-discipline and integrity) and bring others along
The concepts and idea are from Servant leadership, an approach to leadership development, coined and defined by Robert Greenleaf and advanced by several authors such as Stephen Covey, Peter Block, Peter Senge, Max DePree, Margaret Wheatley, Ken Blanchard, and others. Servant-leadership emphasizes the leader's role as steward of the resources (human, financial and otherwise) provided by the organization. It encourages leaders to serve others while staying focused on achieving results in line with the organization's values and integrity.
Agreeing and Disagreeing in Peace A method for resolving conflict in organizations through positive means.
IN THOUGHT |
Accept conflict | 1. Acknowledge that differences of opinion are a normal part of life. |
Affirm the truth | 2. Affirm that we can work through our differences to growth. See conflict as a symptom of what is missing in our understanding of others. |
Commit to a process | 3. Examine where we are coming from and release our need to be right. Acknowledge all parties have needs and commit to a process to achieve a mutually satisfactory solution. |
IN ACTION |
Go to the other . . . | 4. Go directly to those with whom we disagree. Avoid "behind the back" criticism. Refrain from gossip and "parking lot" conversations. |
. . . in the spirit of humility | 5. Go in gentleness, patience and humility. Own up to our own part in the conflict instead of blaming others and acting as if others are responsible for how we are. |
Be quick to listen | 6. Listen carefully, summarize and check out what is heard before responding. Seek as much to understand as to be understood. |
Be slow to judge | 7. Suspend judgment about who is "right" and who is "wrong." Avoid name-calling and threats. Act in a non-defensive, non-reactive way. |
Be willing to negotiate | 8. Work through the disagreement constructively: |
| Identify issues, interests and needs of both — rather than take positions. Generate a variety of options for meeting both parties’ needs — rather than defending one’s own way. Evaluate options by how they meet the needs and satisfy the interests of all sides — not just one side’s values. Collaborate in working out a joint solution — so both sides gain, both grow, both learn from the experience and both win. Cooperate with the emerging agreement — accept what is possible, not demand your ideal. Reward each other for each step forward toward agreement — celebrate mutuality. |
IN BELIEF |
Be steadfast in respect for people | 9. Be firm in commitment to seek a mutual solution. Be hard on issues, soft on people. |
Be open to peace-making | 10. Be open to accepting skilled help. If we cannot reach agreement among ourselves, we will use those with gifts and training in mediation. |
Trust the community | 11. Trust the wisdom of the community (*). If we cannot reach agreement or experience reconciliation, we will seek assistance from others. |
| In one-to-one or small group disputes, this may mean allowing others to arbitrate. This may mean allowing others to help negotiate, arbitrate or implement democratic decision-making processes, insuring that they are done in the spirit of these guidelines, and abiding by whatever decision is made. |
Be committed to partnership | 12. Believe in and rely on the wholeness of the community. Strive toward peace, productivity, partnership and teamwork. |
(*) Community — Whatever group we are part of — It could be a work group, a management team, a business, a community organization, a government agency or any other group that works together.
But if you must....
Arguing 101: Learn the Rules
Do you have an aversion to conflict? Would you rather avoid those delicate topics rather than meet them head on? Here's a list of guidelines for levelheaded and fair-minded discussion that will help you break down those seemingly impenetrable walls you've both erected and bring you closer together. While no one can remember all of these, let alone implement them in a heated argument, surely a couple will strike a chord with you.
1. Once you start, finish. Make a commitment to one another to stay until the issue is resolved or both parties respectfully agree to take a break because of a deadlock. Schedule a firm time to resume the discussion. 2. No screaming. If you're thinking that some people don't hear you until you jump up and down and shriek, you're right, but not in the case of communicating one-to-one. You already have an audience. Keep it respectable and civilized. 3. Don't touch (or otherwise be physical). You each need your own space to listen, be heard, and work things out in your own minds. Even an arm around the shoulder can feel domineering at times. 4. Any subject is fair game. Open your heart and mind and be willing to delve into those dark places. Nothing is too delicate if it's important to either of you. 5. No name calling. Referring to your discussion partner a cold, cruel, manipulative *%!^# won't score you any points for originality, nor will it provide the safe forum for further learning and growth. Nothing ends a discussion faster than the deafening silence that comes after you've offended someone. 6. Don't intentionally put the person down. Deliberately saying things to hurt another's feelings is downright malicious and oppressive. You don't have to be cruel to be kind. Self-restraint is the better part of valor, as well as gentleness and understanding. 7. Don't Lecture. Nobody wants to be told 'You should …" People yearn to be engaged as equals in conversation, not preached to. 8. Keep it simple. Discuss one subject at a time. You may understand how one situation or event relates to another, but the other person might not. Don't confuse things by trying to explain these relationships or expecting them to see things as you do, and don't make this a complaint session. Nothing will be resolved if you do. 9. Let the other person have a chance to speak. This isn't the time to dazzle your friend or partner with rhetoric and the filibuster skills you learned in the debate club. Give him or her a chance to communicate with you. 10. Listen. I cannot say it any better than Brenda Ueland: “Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. When we really listen to people there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other. We are constantly being re-created.” 11. Describe what you're feeling. Don't assume that the other person knows. Own your feelings and share them. 12. Allow the other person to have his/her own feelings. Try to recognize them by being alert, aware, and compassionate. 13. Don't tell the other party what they're feeling. It doesn't do any good to exhibit your aptitude for mind-reading. Avoid enlightening your discussion-mate with your perceived version of what they're thinking and believing. 14. Talk only about the here and now. Bringing ancient events into the discussion doesn't help. Use history for reference only – as a time line – instead of rehashing those events that cannot be changed.
15. Leave 'others' out of the dialogue. 'They' have a way of complicating things. Keep your communications on a one-to-one level. This keeps you focused on what matters to each of you and you'll achieve that intimacy you're seeking. 16. Don't be a 'yes man.' This isn't the time to suck up by acting the role of the team player. Agreement must be genuine, not compromised for the sake of false harmony. 17. Don't be a naysayer. It too easy to simply oppose ideas or to just say "no.' It's much more difficult, and productive, to do the heavy lifting of understanding the other's position and finding common ground in your opposing views.
Differences of opinion can arise in any relationship, especially truly healthy ones. Furthermore, misunderstandings have a way of perpetuating themselves. But when misinterpretations and disagreements are worked through, relationships will grow closer, more expressive, and deeply meaningful. This only happens, however, when respect, compassion, and forgiveness are the cornerstones of any give-and-take.
Written for Dumb Little Man by David B. Bohl, Husband, Father, Friend, Lifestyle Coach, Author, Entrepreneur, and creator of Slow Down FAST. For more info go to Slow Down Fast and visit his blog at Slow Down Fast blog.
Arguing 101: Learn the Rules