The Leadership Response

Systems cannot be directed but they can be disturbed. A system is a pattern of relationships. The leverage point for your influencing the pattern of relationships within a system is your own behavior. Your own actions can have an impact on a situation and influence how people respond. While you do not have control over others and the environment, you can control how you respond to people and circumstances. Since everything within a system is interdependent, a change in one part of the system will have a ripple effect to other parts of the system. A change in your behavior will commonly prompt a change of behavior in others. This opens the way for achieving different results in the environment. If we are to proactively change our situation, we must change our behavior. Since leadership is the relationship between leader, followers, and context, a change in any part of that system will change the leadership. The leadership response is the conscious influencing of the leadership system to achieve a desired result.

Dialogue

Our assumptions are the source of our results. Our behaviors are simply the means by which we manifest our assumptions. Lasting and significant change occurs when we change our assumptions. A useful process for uncovering individual and group assumptions is dialogue. This process differs from the usual mode of group discussion. The intent of dialogue is not to come to conclusions but to explore the rationale behind people’s perceptions of an issue. In a dialogue, as we share our views on a particular topic with each other we also share the data upon which we base our conclusions. We then invite the other group members to ask questions to help clarify the assumptions that underlie our view. This process is repeated with each member of the group. The purpose is to understand the experiences and information that have led each person to his or her stance. By suspending judgment and debate, dialogue helps create a pool of common meaning. The group can then synthesize from this reservoir of meaning new assumptions to support the achievement of the intended goal.

Creating Reality

Reality is not an objective static state but a dynamic creative process. Reality is what we perceive it to be.

The subjectivity of reality is illustrated by a tribe in the Kalahari who know that the world ends 250 yards beyond their local area. It is reported that if you take them to that boundary, they will see nothing beyond it but a void. If you step over that line, they are no longer able to see you and mourn your departure until your return into the existing world.

We may be quick to judge such beliefs as pathetically ignorant. However, all of us have our 250 yard limit; that point where we believe something to be impossible, untrue, or nonexistent. Some examples. In 1880 Thomas Edison, commenting about his own invention, declared, “The phonograph...is not of any commercial value.” Noted astronomer Simon Newcomb stated in 1902, “Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.” In 1913 the American Road Congress decided, “It is an idle dream to imagine that automobiles will take the place of railways in the long distance movement of passengers.” It was the opinion in 1920 of the Nobel Prize winning physicist Robert Millikan that, “There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom.” In 1977 president of Digital Equipment Corporation, Ken Olsen, stated, “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.”

Our reality is built upon our assumptions--the way we perceive ourselves, others, and the world around us. Our assumptions drive our behaviors. Our behaviors, in turn, determine our results. Our outer reality is ultimately a manifestation of our thinking. To achieve significant and lasting change requires us to address our assumptions. Psychologist William James recognized this when he wrote at the turn of the twentieth century, “The greatest discovery in our generation is that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives!” What we are to learn, then, is to identify the assumptions responsible for our current outcomes and alternative perceptions that will support the achievement of our desired results.

The first step in this process is to evaluate our current results. If we are satisfied with the present outcomes, there is no need to do anything different. If we keep doing what we have been doing, we will keep getting the same results. However, if we want different results, then we need to examine what actions have led us to where we are now and what assumptions have been generating those behaviors. We then must identify the outcomes we desire, the new behaviors that will achieve those results, and the assumptions that will be congruent with the behaviors. What we must learn is to be ready to change our minds.