Tag: Negative Leadership Traits

Does being authentic mean you can do anything?

At the end of the year WordPress, who host this blog, send me some statistics about the site, including how many visitors I’ve had, how many blogs I wrote, what the most popular pages and posts were, and what searches people use to find their way to the site.

The most common searches were stephen drain, stephen drain aut, negative leadership, negative leadership traits, and rubik’s cube. I can understand the first two and last one gets searchers to me as I once wrote a blog mentioning the Rubik Cube (I wonder if I’m what they’re looking for? – all questions but no Rubik solution!). I’ve noticed during the year the regular,

Something so right - New Chum Beach, Coromandel

daily searches that people do for “negative leadership”. I don’t know who they are so I can’t ask.

But it is worth exploring in the context of authenticity. If I’m a negative prick, just because I am, then I’m authentic right? So carry on? If I lead by manipulation as that’s my natural way of doing things, authentic to me if you like, then that’s okay too isn’t it? What if I’m overly reflective and don’t participate in leadership meetings when I don’t feel like it? That’s my authentic self so why should I change?

All wrong I say. Sam Harris in his persuasive TED talk challenges a view that science can have no determination on morals. The same should be strongly asserted for leadership. As we have evolved as a species and developed a greater understanding of the human condition, leadership and happiness we are entitled to reach a scientific consensus on what is appropriate or not in leadership.

I know of leaders who use authenticity as an excuse for primitive behaviours like bullying, manipulation and silence. If nothing else my blog searchers tell me that there’s lots out there that some folk reckon is wrong. Negative.

Discovering and developing our authenticity can not be to the exclusion of growing and evolving ourselves. So if you’re a negative prick, don’t use authenticity as your excuse! Some things are just wrong. And some things are right.

Stephen

Can’t it be Christmas already?

Today, my friend Mahvash asked me if I had bought all the pressies I intended to. I responded that I had one left to purchase and asked her the same question. She explained that as a Muslim she doesn’t do Christmas, so I figured that actually the answer was, yes, she had done all the gifts she was intending, like none. Well she did ask me!

I’ve got a big list on my whiteboard, most of which have been completed enough for this year, and what’s not done, isn’t going to be and the sky won’t fall in come 2011 if they haven’t (lucky I don’t work in an ED).

When I blogged recently I commented on the traffic and today it’s even more manic.  Hot, humid, busy and a strong feeling of  rushing to complete. Completion can be satisfying and I’m sure my boys wouldn’t be too impressed if come the 25th I hadn’t got around to getting their gifts yet! But the sense that prevails at this moment is counter to happiness.  No, you don’t need to spend all your life in reflection, things need to be done of course, but how we react to the so-called Christmas rush can be telling of our balance and perspective.

The unnecessary purchases (Help! the shops will be closed on one whole day), the patience or otherwise in the store or carpark, the reckless abandonment of agreed purchasing limits! Yes I’ve been there, but this year I promised myself – only use the EFTPOS, no credit card and don’t buy anything for myself. It’ll be there on the 26th still.

These are only small nothings in the scheme of things and might not even be relevant to others, but what I’ve been trying to do is keep myself centered and authentic. I’m really looking forward to time for reading, running and resting.

And Christmas needn’t come too soon or too late. It’ll come whether you’re ready or not.  So don’t wish Christmas to be either delayed or here already. It’s an annual opportunity to be yourself and embrace a day with those that matter in a mindful, peaceful, but not too full I hope, way. Like Mahvash, some people don’t do it. And for them I wish them the same – a mindful day with loved ones.

Merry Christmas.

Stephen

Integrative thinking with Judith

Everything can be understood and is explainable. Cause and effect will explain everything we do. So if we put guns in all the police cars then that will deal with the apparently permanent increase in attacks on police. Just as more police officers, tasers, harsher sentences, more prisons, less parole have all reduced crime. Excuse me a modicum of sarcasm. Could it be that these measures actually don’t do anything? Has the crime rate reduced? The uncomfortable demeanour of the police commissioner fronting media on the proposal and John Key’s caution contrasts starkly with the forthright, simplistic “they’re armed more so we have to be” approach of the police union and our minister of police Judith Collins. Why?

The mental models that determine our world view are deeply rooted in beliefs from the last several hundred years where at times we as humans have thought that we were the centre of the universe (literally!), that the solar system was akin to a clock with moving parts, all of which were understandable, that we would eventually understand all things and that cause and effect answer all problems. If that sounds odd ask yourself: have you recently addressed an issue at work with confidence that your understood the problem, and that all was required was some creative thinking around the solution. You might even have congratulated yourself on your creative thinking.

Our police minister has said that she simply waits on a recommendation from the police commissioner and a decision will be made. Well, we know what that recommendation is going to be. So advocacy (sort of) and implementation.

Were any counter views sought or listened to? The prime minister, I would say, but for political reasons he doesn’t want to appear weak on crime. But none are asked for publicly.

So what is wrong with all of this? Integrative thinkers understand the concept of mental models – the world views that shape their thinking, they are open to other world views, in fact, they openly acknowledge that there will be conflicting systems at play. Paradox is embraced. Advocacy is eliminated and replaced with open enquiry. Integrative and strategic thinkers focus on understanding the real problem which may not be linear – in fact it almost never is in intractable problems. If it were, it wouldn’t be intractable.

In government circles there is a phrase “whole of government” which if used properly might head a government to think integratively. Imagine seeing the head of the Ministry of Social Development with the police commissioner at a press conference announcing a series of changes that were to attack crime and disrespect to the police. Maybe that sounds all soft, liberal and do-gooder to you. Maybe it is. But just maybe we might start to resolve something so serious as increased crime. Because so far, we’re doing nothing.

It’s a line of failures brought on by linear thinking and a belief that we know everything so we only need to find more solutions. What’s the problem I say.

If you find yourself thinking: well what would you do about it man?, you’ve done it. Straight to solution.

What standard should we apply?

The Indian representative defending the cleanliness of the Commonwealth Games accommodation venues questioned: “is it my standard?, your standard? or their standard?  If it’s true that the workers have been using the toilets despite the plumbing not being connected, you can take a wild guess about the standard. Much further south Christchurch City manager  Mark Christison was close to tears when trying to explain to Avonside residents today that it might take a year for sewage systems to be restored, prompting one resident to declare that New Delhi was looking like a pretty good option.

David Garret is apparently going to talk about the ructions within the ACT party.  Why? When he was 26 he fraudulently obtained a passport and later, when he was middle-aged, lied to the court that he had no previous convictions.  This was when he was lawyer to the Sensible Sentencing Trust, an organisation which promotes ruthless standards of accountability for convicted criminals.  Sometimes that can just be vindictive. A bit like revealing all the behind the scenes within ACT. Like we didn’t know. Vindictively trying to take others down, because he got caught breaching his own publicly stated standards, so blatantly.

It never fails to amaze me that some politicians feel the need to lash out at all in sundry when caught out. They don’t seem to get that it’s the covering up causes the strife. Remember “I did not have sexual relations with that woman!”

Bad luck for David Garret that the plumbing didn’t wash away his crime and he’s had to adjust his standards.  Still he must feel relief to have it all out in the open. The healing can begin.

Leader of the day for me goes to the unsuspecting Christchurch City manager Mark Christison who showed his authenticity by breaking down in front of the citizens of Avonside. Not because he broke down, but because he showed empathy to his fellow citizens. He understood their standards and shared their pain. Such leadership gets things done. Bet you it does. And we’ll never know what when on back at the Council office. It won’t matter.