Growing, Reflecting, Developing... Leadership

This blog edition from January of 2004 is dedicated to leadership. It’s an area that has challenged my life and that has been a preoccupation in the lives of many others I’m sure. Over the years I’ve learned that I don’t always seem to grasp its precepts well or even execute it effectively. I’ve also realized I will spend a disproportionate amount of time examining the leadership of others - trying to educate myself about their approach to it, what makes them (and me) effective or marginalized and helping us improve our delivery. I wanted to start speaking about leadership as honestly as I could, from the following perspectives:Growing my own leadership; Developing Third Wave political leadership at the grassroots level; Reflecting on my experience as a Leadership Trenton Fellow, 2003/2004.

Growing my own leadership... the more I’ve tried to do this, the more elusive it seems. The last few years provided a number of forums for me to personally explore a developing leadership style and I determined it wasn't too good; I wasn’t sure I really liked it. As a council candidate my leadership was challenged by lack of resources, lack of exposure; a premature campaign. Over the years, as a nonprofit executive, my leadership style has been challenged by entrenched organizational politics and sometimes immature and incorrect responses to those politics. As a graduate fellow, my leadership was challenged by trying to meet the demands of daily living in a brutal economy for starving entrepreneurs—while trying to make a valid contribution to the class.

A common theme in each of these leadership experiences, for me, was balancing choices regarding the impact my leadership had, versus the impact my leadership could have had. And considering this, it seemed the first question should be what individual inclinations, tendencies, behavioral responses, personal biases was I presenting that hindered any group’s response to my efforts to influence an outcome? This was an important question. Our leadership must start with an examination of ourselves... a continuing, periodic, on-going self-examination in relation to the choices we have. Choices we have to impact the lives of others, to motivate others, to help and assist others, to strengthen relationships for ourselves and others, and to help others find their own leadership.

I am learning we must promote a continuing examination of ourselves and how we interact with others as a precursor for developing our leadership styles. That said... how about grace as a leadership prerequisite? I would like to bring more grace to my leadership style. A larger portion of my energy that empowers and affirms others, no matter how trivial the interaction; no matter how strong my inclination to get what it is I want from that individual, group or agenda. As I continue to grow my own and other leadership, ongoing examination of my delivery and changing leadership expectations must be one step toward awareness and proficiency.

Alvin Toffler doesn't speak about grace as a leadership prerequisite, but he certainly speaks about the three techno—cultural trends (waves) that have— and are continuing to— transform leadership expectations and skills. The first wave agricultural leader of peasants and farm peoples “was typically [established] from birth… a monarch, [he] needed certain limited practical skills—ability to lead men in combat, shrewdness to play his barons against one another, cleverness to consummate an advantageous marriage… the leader was typically free to exercise sweeping personal authority.” The second wave industrial leader in contrast, “dealt in impersonal and increasingly abstract power. He had many more decisions on a far wider variety of matters… decisions [that] had to be implemented through a chain of organizations and agencies [with] complex relationships to one another… moreover, his authority, even if he were a totalitarian dictator… was nominally constrained by constitution, legal [and party] precedent, and the force of mass opinion. The strongest first wave leader, plunged into a second wave political [and industrial] framework, would have appeared weak. More weak, confused, erratic, and inept than the very weakest second wave leader.”

Toffler discerns the weakness of leaders today is premised as much on personal weakness as on the breakdown of institutions upon which their power depends. He concludes this line of reasoning by suggesting “while the qualities of third wave leaders are not yet entirely clear, we may well find that strength, lies not in a leader’s assertiveness, but precisely in his or her ability to listen to others, not in bulldozer force, but in imagination, not in megalomania, but in a recognition of the limited nature of leadership in a new world. The leaders of tomorrow may well have to deal with a far more decentralized and participatory society—one even more diverse than today’s…. Leadership may well prove to be more temporary, collegial, and consensual.” Toffler points out that leadership challenges in the context of third wave worldwide revolutions in energy, medicinal and gene technology, family life, sexual roles, communications and others, will eventually demand another redefining of leadership expectations. New political bureaucracies and institutions in the years to come will ultimately force new more “fluid” leadership styles for the world to solve more complex, integrated and “shared problems.”

It really is interesting to note political, institutional, secular and religious cultural crisis exist in every industrialized and competing society on the planet today—the second wave culture is forcefully in decline. In the now expanding third wave space age society that Toffler described 25 years ago, nations struggle to define sovereignty and enterprise in a world community where multinational corporations and transactions traverse the planet freely, in seconds. Far quicker than governments, activists, constituents and voters can rewrite rules for businesses, for nations, or for regional trade boundaries. We are becoming a burgeoning electronic, digital and satellite controlled social order.

I want to suggest that the third wave and trends associated with it, operating at the macro level, are also operating on our notions of leadership expectations and skills at the local, or if you will, grassroots level. Surely we all experience the collaborative, consensual, participatory planning, strategic partnering trends that have impacted our ability to conduct affairs in business and non profit enterprises. This is particularly true over the last generation or two at the grassroots level. Isn’t this what Toffler is referring to as collegial and consensual leadership?

Another example that illustrates third wave leadership trends at the grassroots level is evidenced in the developing efforts of the Central Regional Equity Coalition. One of the things the Coalition promotes is that New Jersey's system of local government is fragmented and inefficient. They call for more regional approaches to government investment, land use regulation and service provision. This regionalization is needed to reduce concentrations of poverty, decrease segregation, revitalize older communities, increase access to housing and jobs, protect natural resources, and to reverse the subsidization of sprawl. This a good example of a third wave grassroots tendency not because of its principled stand against the inefficiency of localized control (a worthy endeavor), but due to its efforts to link inner city and suburban communities through the combined efforts of congregations, labor organizations, and grassroots groups. Recruitment, education and mobilization of new constituents across the full socioeconomic and geographic spectrum, can promote real reform. The development of consensus, from the most divergent groups of state residents, is in my mind, characteristic of the type of shared problem solving and third wave leadership thinking that Toffler is alluding to.

Third wave leadership thinking—in application and practice—was once Leadership Trenton. An issues based leadership development program for emerging civic leaders in Trenton, the goal of Leadership Trenton was to increase civic leadership and build capacity for greater civic engagement through a network of civic and community leaders. The network of fellows was comprised of a diverse group of civic leaders who live and/or work in Trenton. The Class of 2003 was the second class of fellows for Leadership Trenton and began with 38 individuals. I truly enjoyed Leadership Trenton. I liked the people, its leadership and its efforts at providing a training forum to grow leaders, individually and collectively. Leadership Trenton required that each class plan, develop, and implement a class project. The project was to be internally driven and engineered by the class and any strategic or collaborating partners. Institutionalization of the class project was the goal. This might seem like a simple course of action for a group of competent and excelling professionals—but it was an arduous task.

Toffler defines a process called demassification. “As the second wave produced a mass society, the third wave demassifies us, [breaking down our traditional and accepted modes of interaction] moving the entire social system to a much higher level of diversity and complexity. This revolutionary process, helps explain one of today’s widely noted political phenomenon, the collapse of consensus.” And this was precisely the challenge for the Leadership Trenton Class of 2003—how would we build consensus around our class project? Project identification was frustrating because no structure or direction was provided to fellows saying how, what, when, where, why—to proceed. “You guys go over there and do... whatever.” The project had to germinate from the dynamics within the class. There was no cause or agenda... “whenever you guys feel like getting’ started; whatever you wanna’ do…”

Leadership Trenton, and its class project mandate, had de-massified the group dynamic. Consensus was clearly the primary task and how we would arrive at it was the issue. Here again, we have an example of a third wave global dynamic, playing itself out at the grassroots level—in a more diminuitive context—the small group. “[The] demassification of political life, reflects all the deep trends we have discussed in technology, production, communications, and culture that further devastate the politicians’ ability to make vital decisions.” As fellows, accustomed to juggling a few well organized and clear constituencies, we stalled… for months. No direction made our decision making and planning needs more diverse and complex. The typical pathways for interpreting decision making, interaction, hierarchical authority, goal formation... had been removed. Demassification fractures the playing field.

So the group, from scratch, had to fashion different elements of intellect, personality and social decorum. It had to process different levels of urgency, resistance and persuasion. It had to manage different elements of class, race and sex—and a myriad of other details, as they manifested in the group discussions. We had to figure out how to manage all our human capital and insight, and in the end, decided we trusted the group enough to go forward. I would argue that it was these elements that infused the fellows. The synergy was finding the right mix of our human capital. It seemed to bubble up spontaneously, within the last months of the program year and culminated with a strong cadre of support and enthusiasm for the Class of 2003 project… many different leaders in the group took responsibility for ensuring consensus was established and we collegiately, as Toffler suggests, were able to move forward.

I want to suggest we examine our leadership based on how we treat and empower others; surely that is the greatest reflection of who we are. I am learning we can grow more leadership that way. Also, we must understand that the world is a dynamic place. The forces that are operating across disciplines, technologies, and cultures are often more powerful and imposing than our human understanding or ability to respond to them. Despite that, it is possible that with the correct leveraging of human capital, we can solve many problems. In developing leadership in ourselves and others, we should remember this point and prioritize the development of human capital as our most vital resource. © 2004 - 2018, TAG Resources Inc.