You're It

by Leonard J Marcus

  Decentralized organizing opens the door to creative strategic movements that scale quickly. Once there is a story, strategy, and principles, leaders take ownership and grow with mentorship, guidance, and learning from mistakes. Ilana continued: “When there is an awesome idea, people will replicate it. When there is a need inside the network, people swarm to fix it.”

  She explained that when decisions have to go through centralized control, the energy, capacity, and creativity of the people involved are often stifled. “We are in a time that we cannot afford to lose people’s desires to lead. We are in a time where every person’s contribution matters. There are different models of decentralization; my experience is with small bonded groups called ‘hives’ that are networked with other groups. Relationships are at the core, which hold these groups together through trust, vulnerability, and action.”

  A “leaderful movement” is one in which many individuals assume the leader role. It encourages people to take intentional risks together and to support those who do. Ilana has been a keen student of numerous leadership teachers, mentors, and role models. “We are in a time when people are moved to act but do not know how to engage. This model of ‘one great leader’ is intimidating and limiting. I am noticing new generations of organizers are more interested in shared leadership and collaboration: two people at the front of a room leading together, such as collectives and other forms of being together. My teacher Carlos Saavedra says that if you don’t have a role, then you’re not in the movement. We live in the historic and cultural legacy of European colonialism, a context in which leadership was only open to white men and we have not undone this legacy. We operate inside institutions in which people of color, women, transgender, disabled, LGBTQ, poor, and non-Christian folks are under heightened scrutiny. Their leadership tends to be under higher suspicion and is often attacked. Leaderful movements seek to transform this.”

  From this perspective, the emphasis is on creating cultural shifts that change both the process and intentions of leading, thus building change into the mind-set of communities in order to foster deep-seated and enduring transformation. Personal and interpersonal shifts occur as well. “How do we make it so compelling that these leaders want to stay? We work to bring our full broken and healing selves. Living in a time of immense separation from ourselves, our bodies, the earth, our histories, and our ancestries, we intentionally build in time to reconnect. The best leaders around me are the ones taking time to heal, to laugh, to keep close relationships, to have spiritual lives, to sing together, to exercise, to slow down, and to reflect. When we make time to truly hear each other’s stories, neurons fire in our systems and we cannot unhear or unlove the other. That vulnerability becomes the building blocks for collective change-making. And the more joy and beauty that goes in, the longer we stay.

  “This is what both my grandfather and father knew and did. They prioritized human connection and changing the oppressive systems that are the top culprits of disconnection. I am humbled to follow in their footsteps, songs, and tools of the heart towards real change-making.”

  For some readers, Ilana’s story of social justice leadership may seem far removed from their experience. Or perhaps the corporate and government examples here seem foreign. Rather than divergent, we find these different expressions of leadership to be on a continuum.

  What connects them? Presence. These are leaders who are less sequestered and more involved than traditional leaders. More broadly, these changes reflect shifts toward distributed leadership, participative decision-making models, and the “hives”—what we here call swarm leadership—that are becoming more common across organizations and social movements. What ties together the leaders highlighted in this book is their commitment to presence: physical, cognitive, and emotional. In this chapter, you have seen presence in the stories of Harriet Green, Michael Brown, and Ilana Lerman. These leaders are not superheroes. Their influence emerged through their presence. The meta-leadership framework opens your thinking and practices to be more present, both “people follow you” and “you follow people.” How will you enhance your presence?

  In the next chapters, we dig deeper into the three dimensions of meta-leadership. Though presented individually, focus your thinking on how the person, the situation, and connectivity fit with and amplify one another. It’s important to practice them together.

  The dimensions are designed to help you widely perceive more of what is happening within you and about you. Studying dimension one—yourself, the person of the meta-leader—will help you understand who you are, your constraints, and how you can be a better meta-leader.

  Dimension two, the situation, helps you understand what is happening around you and eventually what can be done about it. The breadth of perception that is the strength of dimension one (the person) is leveraged in the work of this second dimension of meta-leadership.

  We dedicate three chapters to dimension three, connectivity and its facets. These represent the social aspects of meta-leadership, and each facet presents a distinct dynamic of power structures, values sets, economic calculations, expectations, assumptions, individual and institutional histories, cultural norms, alliances, and agendas. Attuned to the multitude of interlocking patterns of behavior and activity among all these people, you begin to predict and shape the course of events.

  When you embrace and integrate the three dimensions, your thinking moves ahead of events, much as an expert chess player thinks three or more moves ahead. Anticipating events with more accurate assessment and understanding, you will find better alignment of your decisions and actions. Ultimately, your presence and impact will expand, extending your influence ever more widely.

  On to dimension one of meta-leadership: you, the person of the meta-leader.

  Questions for Journaling

  Think about a time when you or someone you observed tried to solve a leadership challenge using only their formal authority. Then think of a time when influence was the dominant method used. Compare and contrast the processes and the outcomes. How would you calibrate the right balance of authority and influence?

  How do you cultivate influence? What could you do to increase your impact?

  Why do (or don’t) people follow you?

  SIX

  DIMENSION ONE

  Becoming the Person of the Meta-Leader

  It all starts with the questions you ask yourself.

  Who am I? What motivates me? How do I balance intellect with instinct—the patterns and behaviors fixed into my thinking and actions? What experiences, values, and ambitions drive my passions and aspirations? With deeper understanding, your answers become your meta-leader identity.

  We return to our earlier question: why should people follow you? Your character—“who you are”—is one answer to that question. Character combines with the purpose you champion. Is your cause, mission, or objective meaningful enough to motivate others? Dr. Suraya Dalil, whom you met in Chapter 2, exemplified these qualities as she looked forward to assuming leadership of the Afghanistan Ministry of Public Health.

  People are attracted to your meta-leadership by numerous personal factors, including your gender, race, culture, religion, nationality, expertise, professional credentials, politics, sexual preference, age, language, physical characteristics, and more. These factors combine in countless ways. One part of “who you are” is how others perceive and define you, sometimes based on factors that are out of your control, such as your nationality. You recognize the perceptions of others, sensitively accounting for them in your interactions. Leadership, after all, is about people with all their many commonalities and differences, affinities and aversions.

  In this chapter, we introduce the key factors for better understanding and establishing yourself as a meta-leader. Take some time to reflect on the breadth of the variables that define you—the person of the meta-leader—and how they affect your ability to effectively lead other people. Certainly, the better you understand yourself, the better able you
will be to understand others.

  Fort Dix, New Jersey, April 1975. The Vietnam War is winding down. It is a beautiful Sunday morning on the sprawling army base. This military training center remains an active staging area for soldiers and equipment readying for battle.

  Major Barry Dorn is one of seventy physicians at the base hospital, a facility that serves the routine medical needs of thousands of enlisted trainees and their dependents. Dr. Dorn is on his obligatory rotation as “Officer of the Day.” This puts him in charge of everything medical at the hospital and on the base. He finds it tedious because most of the cases are minor injuries or routine ailments. Sundays are particularly quiet. An orthopedic surgeon who relishes the pace and challenges of the operating room, Dorn passes the time reading the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. He would much rather spend the day with his wife and daughter—anywhere but the sleepy hospital.

  On the far side of the base, soldiers move through their daily routines. Powerful missiles are being readied for training exercises in the ordnance “shack”—actually a complex of buildings where munitions are stored and maintained. More than one hundred uniformed troops are busily on duty. As a palette of light anti-tank missiles is lifted, one slips. Its explosive tip is aimed straight at the floor.

  BOOM! The missile detonates, sending shrapnel flying. The hot metal savagely slices into nearby soldiers. Other missiles are pierced, triggering cascading explosions. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Some soldiers stumble away, grasping bleeding wounds. Others are incapacitated. In the chaos, it looks as if the base is under attack.

  Barry flips another page in his journal when the phone rings. He hears the screaming voice on the other end even before the speaker reaches his ear, “Explosions! There are wounded everywhere!”

  Barry’s heart rate and breathing accelerate. His brain ignites. “Where are you? How many casualties?” he demands. He is already calculating the brutal implications of the explosions. “Ordnance shack” is the breathless reply. “Can’t count the casualties. Bloody people everywhere.” Click.

  Barry jumps from his chair and runs out to the emergency room, moving faster than he thought possible. The scene there is still calm. “Okay! Everyone—over here! There have been explosions in the ordnance shack. A lot of casualties. No idea yet on numbers or condition. Get ready for anything and everything.” Dorn’s physical reaction causes the other doctors and nurses to freeze. Eyes open wide, they are overwhelmed by a sense of horror: what happens next?

  Minutes later, an Army jeep screeches up to the emergency room entrance. And another and another. They don’t stop. The hospital erupts into a scene of injured soldiers screaming and moaning. Blood is everywhere. People scurry back and forth trying to keep up. The injuries just keep coming. The emergency room is getting overwhelmed. Dorn has no idea of the extent of what he has to deal with. The only thing he knows for sure is that he does not have enough: not enough blood, not enough people, not enough of everything for this onslaught of injuries. He begins to panic.

  And then, for a brief moment, he pauses to collect himself. He recalls his training. He reminds himself that he has seen every one of these injuries before. He rehearses the sorting protocol. Yes, the numbers are high, but with careful triage, those with life-threatening wounds will get immediate treatment while the less severely injured can be stabilized for later care.

  He then engages in creative problem-solving. He has to make sure that everyone avoids the temptation to focus on the walking wounded. They will be okay with just a bit of attention. What can be done for the more seriously injured? He has two operating rooms. He can turn the recovery room into a third and the anesthesia room into a fourth. All medical personnel will be activated. He will get a blood bank going. Bring in supplies from other hospitals. He asserts his self-confidence. “You can do it,” he says to himself out loud as he surveys the frenzied activity around him. “Now you just need to get everybody else on the same page. We can do this.” With that pivot, he is ready to go.

  Near the nursing station, he assembles his senior staff: doctors, nurses, and managers he trusts. He sees their alarm. He is purposeful in projecting calm and determination. “We can do this,” Barry tells them. He hands out assignments: One highly capable nurse is made responsible for quickly opening up the two additional operating rooms. A doctor-nurse team is put in charge of triage. The emergency room manager is to perform a rapid assessment of equipment and supplies and then get whatever else they need from nearby civilian hospitals.

  “Most important,” he instructs his senior staff, “your job is to get everyone else on track, focused, and as productive as possible. We don’t have a second to waste. Remind them that this is what they are trained to do. Give concrete instructions. Encourage them—and each other—along the way. Loop back to me. I am here for you.” Dorn watches the shift in the faces of his team. There is a powerful sense of shared confidence and commitment to the mission. They stare at him waiting for his next direction. “Okay, go!” he barks. And they do.

  Over two days of ceaseless work, Barry and his team treat more than fifty soldiers. There are two amputees. Two other soldiers have serious penetration wounds to the abdomen and chest. Countless stitches are sutured into heads, hands, and legs. And when it is all over, no one has died. Every soldier is saved.

  Working straight through with barely a moment of sleep, Barry doesn’t return to his office until Tuesday morning. The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery lies open to the page where he left it. Yes, we did do it, he thinks to himself. Mission accomplished.

  Barry later reflected that it was the moment when he paused to collect himself that was the pivot point. If he had not disciplined himself and his staff, the outcome would have been dramatically different.

  Your Meta-Leadership Brain in Practice

  You may not find yourself facing a similar onslaught of gruesome injuries in your work. However, you might one day find yourself caught in a vexing organizational challenge or wrenching personal calamity. Alone, isolated, and emotional, you may carry the meta-leadership responsibility for others on your shoulders.

  As the rest of us first listened, riveted, to Barry Dorn’s story, we recognized many important insights about the first dimension of meta-leadership—the person of the meta-leader. These insights are just as relevant to the mundane moments of life as they are to those rare crises when effective leadership is a matter of life and death.

  The workings of your brain provide one of the most exciting frontiers now facing humankind—and one of the most important for understanding the human dynamics of meta-leadership.

  Neuroscientists who explore the inner workings of the brain are making valuable discoveries about how it functions and the implications for human behavior, memory, and information-processing. Research into complex cognitive and neurological systems is rapidly progressing, advanced by new imaging techniques that show how the brain internally reacts to external stimuli. Scientists observe the sections of the brain that light up, which neurotransmitters respond, and how different brain regions operate and interact with one another. Among the lessons learned: much brain function—by some estimates 95 percent—is outside of your conscious control.

  In our leadership teaching, we set students the paradoxical challenge to become “smarter than their brain.” Smarts may seem to derive from the brain, yet the organ has its limitations. For instance, there is the nature-nurture divide: how do instinctual urges affect learned preferences and practices? In the face of overwhelming complexity, the brain creates simple explanations and patterns—the cognitive biases discussed in Chapter 4—that allow it to make rapid, close-enough judgments about risks and rewards. Emotions cloud rational analysis and actions. Understanding these factors helps you better discipline your own leading and better respond to the behaviors of others.

  Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize–winning psychologist, describes two systems at work in the brain, one slow and one fast. These systems, with their different cognitive functions and pr
ocessing, complement and operate together.

  The slow system is responsible for complex problem-solving and creative thought: mental challenges for which extra time and effort are required to accomplish more exacting outputs. This includes new learning or discovery. We refer to Kahneman’s slow system as the executive circuits that are responsible for intricate analysis and execution.

  By contrast, the fast system prizes speed and efficiency over precision. This system processes most routine mental activity. It includes practiced tasks that require little attention—such as habitually getting to work—or reactions to immediate threats—such as slamming on the brakes when the car ahead of you suddenly stops. For our purposes, we divide the fast system into two subsystems, routine circuits and survival circuits.

  The routine circuits direct the learned behaviors that you do almost automatically. This includes your rote everyday activities, from how to walk and talk to riding a bicycle. Stored in these circuits is your distinctive collection of practiced procedures, plans, and protocols for your habitual actions. If you are an experienced driver, these circuits mechanically guide you along familiar routes. Meanwhile, your neocortex is otherwise occupied with more complex thinking, such as rehearsing the meeting you will soon have with your boss.

  The other fast brain subsystem—the survival circuits—propels your instinctual behaviors. These include involuntary physiological actions, such as breathing and heart beating shared by all species, from reptiles to humans. The survival circuits also include the lightning-fast threat response pathways deeply ingrained in mental processing. Notice how fast you jump when a fire ignites on your stove. It is instant, seemingly without your brain thinking about it.