As leadership strategies go, arson is an odd choice.
It takes so much energy to spark, kindle and fuel oppositional anger, and the result is always the same: scarred and depleted people and places. Lessons from the field of war that we’ve transferred to the management table.
Why do so many equate strong leadership with making enemies of their people?
Why is harm an acceptable by-product of change?
Questions I’ve been thinking a lot about this month as I watch my fellow citizens’ trust in our provincial education department go up in flames, courtesy of a premier with an affinity for starting political fires.
While the issue may be specific to my eastern Canadian province of New Brunswick (the future of French Immersion in an officially bilingual province), the path to this particular patch of scorched earth should be familiar to most.
It began with a meeting, that quickly became a disagreement, that morphed into an entrenchment, that led to the burning of bridges, that mobilized opposition, causing our agitated premier to fortify his defences and issue a fiery response. It was met with a ferocious blast from over a thousand citizens (and counting) who showed up for consultations that were anything but.
According to a CBC News report, the newly appointed education minister (the previous one resigned in a blaze of glory last October) tried to set the parameters of one meeting by cautioning the crowd.
“We can be respectful and follow the process, or we just shut it off right now. You choose,” he said.
In response, a citizen yelled out; “You’re not the principal here.”
When I read that I guffawed, my instinctual response to the absurdity of the situation and its completely avoidable familiarity.
At its core, this is a fight for fairness, and each side is correct – to a point. That’s the thing about working through contentious and often complex change; we’re all a little bit right, which means we’re also a little bit wrong.
Why?
Because none of us can see the whole picture, none of us know the full story. We only know our narrow part of it, and on that, we can have firm opinions. Sometimes those opinions are formed from research and rational consideration. However, if we’re honest, they’re more likely informed by our personal experiences, learnings from people we trust and admire, our assumptions and biases, and our doubt in the veracity and value of perspectives from people we don’t know, we don’t like, or we don’t trust.
And they think the same as us.
To break through these wicked walls of resistance, we need leaders who can work through competing demands to arrive at solutions that not only provide more help than harm but also heal the scars of previous fiery engagements.
Few, if any, of our firefights are brand new; most are born of long-smouldering embers. For instance, the French Immersion debate was simmering in the background when my daughter began French Immersion in grade 3, and we’re still going at it as she prepares to complete her final grade 12 French assignment today.
That’s a decade of fighting fires.
So, I ask again; why do we follow people and processes that accept harm as a by-product of change?
There are no gains from shouldering this pain. Rather it demoralize staff, erode participants’ trust, and eviscerate any chance for meaningful, purposeful change.
Time to ditch leadership that burns hot and flames out in favour of a cooler approach anchored in facts, fortitude and fairness.
