Acceptance Of Our Darker Self: A Key To Leadership

Posted October 13, 2010 By David Irvine

I was coaching an executive recently who was sent to work with me by her CEO. The presenting problem was an extremely low score on a recent 360 survey. The results of her feedback were that she was a competent professional but had very poor interpersonal skills. When I tried to get the executive’s perspective of herself, all I got was a positive presentation. She was, indeed, very difficult to reach to and to connect with, just as her scores indicated. Soon after this initial interview started I pointed out the discrepancy between her “polished presentation” of herself and the reality of how others were perceiving her. Her response was that she was always taught to be optimistic and positive, and with a smile on her face, she explained that she just couldn’t understand why the feedback scores were so low.

Her perceived “inauthenticity” was distancing her from those she was most interdependent upon. It’s hard to trust people that won’t be honest with themselves. In reality, she wasn’t phony; it’s just that she was only expressing a small spectrum of herself.
A lack of acceptance of the darker side of herself (e.g. insecurity, fears, resentments, worries, inadequacies) was preventing her from being perceived as “real,” and resulting in people distancing themselves from her. She was also incapable of assessing the full spectrum of what was happening in her culture because she couldn’t see it in herself.

Authenticity is compelling. It also enables you to lead with greater wisdom and resourcefulness. This is our work together: to face and accept some of the darker parts of our nature, the parts we avoid. Connecting with and accepting a fuller spectrum of oneself – especially the darker self – enables us to better connect with others.

For a longer article on the vital work of accepting the darker self as a key to leadership, go to my web site (see Articles on the home page).

Categories: Leadership and Culture
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Entitlement: Greatness Run Aground*

Posted July 3, 2010 By David Irvine

I have noticed that every time a great culture is built, there appears to be an opposite and equal reaction to greatness: entitlement. It seems to be human nature. If you give your kids a lot, they want more. I grew up with telephone party lines, with one line for up to five or six residences. There were times when you had to wait 1/2 hour to make a phone call. Now I get impatient with my cell phone provider when I get a dropped call and have to redial with the push of one button. It used to take a winter to travel across this country on chuck wagons and horses. Now, as expectations have been raised, I find myself getting upset if a plane is thirty minutes late. Living in a great country, with world-class health care, education, law enforcement, and political systems seems only to increase our craving for more. Meet our needs with a high standard, and we raise the bar with a demand for more. I’ve seen the same dynamic in organizational cultures. The more the organization gives us what we want, the more entitled we feel. The best cultures I have worked with all experience the challenge of entitlement.

The reverse of this also seems true. My mother lived through the depression in a 900 square foot shack with ten siblings, enduring years of unimaginable poverty, and was void of entitlement. When she was close to death I asked her how she felt about dying. “After seventy-eight years, I accept death. I was fortunate just to have lived!” Joyce did not even feel entitled to life itself. Hard times are an ally in battling entitlement.

All the recent attention to building great cultures, empowering employees, and developing leadership capacity so people feel engaged seems to have unintentionally reinforced our love of entitlement. Living in great cultures has somehow fostered a belief that we have a right to get whatever we want without any obligations in return. Doing our own thing and expecting rights without service is self-serving. In the name of a great culture, we see people ask for such things as more pay, more freedom, greater recognition and privilege, more flex time or a risk-free environment without any reciprocating accountabilities.

This is simply wrong. Just because we are attempting to build cultures of trust that encourage you to find your authentic voice doesn’t mean you will get everything you ask for or have absolute security. Cultures of trust require a partnership, a commitment to a dialogue, not acts of concession. Accountable, authentic cultures of trust are based on reciprocal agreements. There are no licenses granted.

At the heart of entitlement is the belief that “my wants are more important than the culture and the culture exists for my sake.” At some point each of us needs to grow up and discover that our self-interest is better served by doing good work than by getting good things. Entitlement also rests on the belief that something is owed us because of sacrifices we have made. In reality, entitlement claims rights that have not been earned. It diminishes self-respect and constrains our freedom. The only way to reclaim what we have lost to entitlement is through acts of commitment and service to an entity larger than ourselves – the culture we work and live in.

When you see entitlement in the culture you live or work in, there are four steps to counter it:

1.     See entitlement as a sign of growth and greatness. You won’t find much entitlement in poverty and highly bureaucratic systems that have been suppressed for years.

2.     Identify the value or values you want to replace entitlement (e.g. self responsibility, service to others, gratitude).

3.     Find the allies in your culture who live by the values you are committed to and support them to foster these values with others who trust them. Like parenting, you only influence the values of people with whom you have a strong, trusting relationship.

4.     Get the values you want to instill off the wall and into people’s hearts through conversations and clearly defined actions. Then make a promise to live and work in accord with these actions, while being open for ongoing feedback and learning. Then shine a light an actions that are self-responsible, committed to service, and exude gratitude. Tell the story. Keep the renewed values fresh, making it difficult to be entitled.

*Thanks to Peter Block (Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest, Berrett-Koehler Publishers) for his inspiration behind many of these insights.

Categories: Leadership and Culture
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Organizational Culture and The Shadow

Posted February 19, 2010 By David Irvine

Not long ago I was hired by a church to help them with their culture. On the surface, the environment was lovely. People were very friendly and polite. Everyone talked about the sense of “family” that was highlighted on their value statements that hung in the sanctuary. Parishioners made a point, when I first met them, of talking to me about the strong “spirit” that they felt in the place.

But no one could put their finger on why attendance was dropping. As I hung around and started to really know people, a different conversation emerged. People started to open up about how the pastor was unapproachable, it was feeling like a hierarchy and losing it’s openness, the very reason most people originally came to this particular congregation. The toughest part was that there was no place to surface these concerns honestly because everyone felt that everyone else thought the culture was fine, which resulted in a fear of being honest. No one wanted to rock the boat. Genuineness was being replaced by politeness, and was turning into dishonesty, which was blocking the needed energy to sustain a great culture.

There are always at least two kinds of cultures existing in an organization: 1) the Visible Culture (e.g. the artifacts, espoused values, formal hierarchy, lines of authority) and 2) the Real Culture (e.g. the actual experience of working there, the stuff that goes on in the hallways and coffee conversations, the rumor mill, the informal procedures for getting things done).

Within the real culture lies the “shadow,” the hidden aspect where the culture’s creativity, wisdom, and interconnection are waiting to emerge. It is, after all, where a good deal of the real work — the work that means something — happens. While the visible culture is often focused on procedures, policies, job descriptions, and routines, the shadow system has few rules or constraints. Any good leader knows that to have lasting impact on the organization, you have to listen to the shadow. You have to make time to get down to the cafeteria or the places where people take their breaks and talk about what matters most. You have to listen to the hidden network. If you try to battle against the shadow by attempting to “overcome resistance” without respecting the shadow or pretending that it’s not there, it will eventually go underground and sabotage any opportunity for growth.

Wise and authentic leaders will not try to fight the shadow, but rather recognize it for what it is: a natural – and vital – part of the larger system. Leaders that have not faced their own shadow will avoid the darker side of their organization by hiding in their office, suppressing honesty, choosing polite affiliation over genuine alignment, or develop an over-dependence on surveys to assess the temperature of the culture.

But suppressing the shadow or pretending it’s not there is done at your own peril. The shadow will always come out. If it’s not allowed to surface directly, it will contaminate the system in the form of resistance, complaining, sabotaging new initiatives, exiting, disengagement, and apathy.

Alternatively, by acknowledging the shadow and allowing it to surface in open, respectful, responsible conversations, you can contain it without suppressing it and channel it into creative problem solving, genuine engagement, and renewed, focused commitment. The first step to healing is acknowledgement. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

I’d love to hear about your experience with the shadow, and constructive ways you improved your workplace by facing the darker side of your organizational nature.

Categories: Leadership and Culture, Organizational Culture
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