The word "experience" has the same linguistic root as the word "danger". We have known since childhood that experiential learning can be dangerous: when learning to ride a bicycle, there is a risk of losing your balance and injuring yourself. The paradox is that only if you accept the risk of losing your balance can you discover balance.
What risks do we run if we – learners and facilitators – allow ourselves to lose our balance in leadership development work – and how can those risks be managed?
Remember when you learned how to drive a car? You likely sat down for theory lessons, learning about traffic signs, speed limits, and right of way rules. But then, at some point, you also sat in the driver’s seat of a car – and drove. Where you nervous? Did your hands sweat? (Mine did!). No doubt, learning how to drive a car happens when we are actually driving. And the learning likely involved driving too close to that other car in the lane, even missing a red light, or confusing the clutch and the gas pedal – and then debriefing with an instructor what went well and what did not.
10 years ago, fresh out of graduate school, I took on a Herculean task: I was assigned ten of Berlin’s lowest performing schools, given a small project team, a meagre budget, and told: Go turn around these schools!
Phew. Needless to say, it was the most challenging assignments I’d ever taken on. We built work plans and strategies to drive change, but often had little to show for them. I brought together key players —principals, school officials, parents — but they disagreed about the right way forward, blamed each other, or looked to me to fix their problems. It often felt like a lonely and futile endeavour.
Many of the change agents we work with at KONU share similar stories. Here are two voices:
The story could start in a kitchen, in front of a large pot in which a wonderful vegetable soup is simmering. A nice variety of vegetables bring in different flavors, and your job as chef is to make sure that no single flavor dominates, that the vegetables stay crisp - but not raw - and that a delicious soup can be served in which the vegetables aren’t overcooked or bob in the pot, limp and tasteless.
A very special guest joins Michael Koehler in Episodes 10 and 11 of On The Balcony to discuss “Assassination”, Chapter 10 of Ronald Heifetz’s seminal work, Leadership Without Easy Answers, which not only touches on the challenges of adaptive work and leading beyond your authority, but also the dangers of becoming a lightning rod when the heat gets too high, and the importance of inclusion, pacing and purpose in adaptive work.
Why Distress Can Be Disastrous
Having served as the Prime Minister of Greece in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, George Papandreou is more than familiar with the challenges of leadership, leading beyond his authority, and acting as the butt of contempt. When Papandreou took office, the Greek government was riddled with corruption and debt and in necessary need of change. And when Papandreou took on the challenge to make that change happen, he was met with a lot of resistance.
On the eighth episode of the On the Balcony podcast, Michael continues to analyze and discuss Ron Heifetz’s book, Leadership Without Easy Answers. This time he does so with the input of Julia Fabris McBride, actor, author, and President and CEO of the Kansas Leadership Center. McBride is interested in leadership as it functions without authority and authority as it bridges opposing factions.
A common trap we fall into as executives is to be overly preoccupied with whether others like us. This is only natural, particularly when popularity is an indicator of how likely it is you’ll keep your job! Just think of the close watch politicians keep on opinion polls! But even for those of us in more secure positions - don’t we all crave to be liked?
Throughout this season of On the Balcony, we’ve looked quite a bit at the distinction between leadership and authority, from the resources roles of authority can bring to the practice of leadership to what’s constraining about them. Being in charge can be a dance on a razor’s edge: on one side, the status quo and the risk of failure through complacency; on the other, too much change and the potential for resistance. This week’s guest, Jevan Soo Lenox, has spent the last decade of his career attempting to help organizations find their balance in this dance, utilizing the adaptive leadership framework to ensure both technical and adaptive work are included in their approach.
Jevan has held Chief People Officer roles at multiple exciting Bay Area growth companies, including Blue Bottle, Stitch Fix, and most recently, insitro, where he has brought the adaptive leadership framework to life in fast-paced hyper-growth environments. Today, he helps us bridge the lessons from chapter seven of Heifetz’s Leadership Without Easy Answers into today’s world, sharing his history and experience to provide powerful lessons for executives and people developers.
Too often, we think of leadership as a position we hold: team lead, managing director, CEO. And we think we can’t lead until we’ve assumed that role. Or, we think of leadership as a personality trait that some people are born with – and we hold back on leading because we feel we lack the necessary charisma or gravitas. I’ve been there myself: For many years, I thought of myself as too introverted to be a great leader. These are ways of thinking about leadership that are self-limiting.
As we’ve seen throughout our discussion of Ronald Heifetz’s Leadership Without Easy Answers in the On The Balcony Podcast, authority is not always easy to maneuver. While it’s true that authority comes with an enormous set of resources for the practice of leadership, it also comes with constraints. This week’s guest is all too familiar with this reality.
Ian Palmquist, the Deputy Director at the Equality Federation and a Board President of the Adaptive Leadership Network advocates for the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals. After years of fighting for inclusive legislation and the Anti Bullying Act, Palmquist possesses a great deal of experience with authority roles, especially in satiating one side’s appetite for change and the other side's fear of it.
As the world is experiencing profound transformations - how robust is your own operating system of what good leadership looks like?
The word ‘leadership’ is more often than not associated with notions of prestige and strength.
Forget the stress and pressure of managing a team and the airtight discipline required to run a well oiled machine, the work’s glitz and glam can distract hopeful managers from its true realities, and it isn’t easy.
Radha Ruparell is the well known author of Brave Now (2021) and the Head of Global Leadership Accelerator for Teach for All. Tasked with developing collaborative leadership in education globally, Radha not only knows what good leadership looks like, she also knows how to do the work herself.
And while it’s great that we focus on an authority's status and the role’s deliverables, a great leadership cannot function without internal growth and some form of grounding. Leading her organization and in the midst of publishing a book, Ruparell suffered from a severe case of COVID-19 that she almost didn’t survive.
There are so many version of “leadership” definitions floating around. A lot of them are really problematic.
As I’ve been re-engaging with Heifetz ‘Leadership without Easy Answers’ - I’m realizing how orienting his distinctions have been for me and my work. And the same is true for many of our clients.
In Ronald Heifetz’s chapter three of Leadership Without Easy Answers, he delves into the concept of authority, and on this episode of On the Balcony, Michael Koehler is joined by Professor Kim Leary to talk about just that.
As a chief Harvard psychologist, a Senior VP for the Urban Institute, a Professor at three Harvard Schools, and an advisor to two White House administrations, she is well versed in the ways of leadership, authority, and those who use and abuse those positions.
Leadership Vs. Authority
Studying authority, both in theory and practice, Leary has learned just how different authority and leadership are. After reading this chapter, we’ve come to understand that authority is a role, whereas leadership is a practice.
We need more public balconies. That’s why I’m inviting you today to listen to our new podcast “On the Balcony,” where we slow down, have meaningful conversations with allies and confidants, do deep reading and reflection, and practice coaching.
We start this season by exploring Ron Heifetz’s groundbreaking book, Leadership Without Easy Answers (1994) – the book behind the most provocative leadership class at Harvard Kennedy School, which has impacted generations of change agents, executives, and people who care about developing others.
In the almost-30 years since the book was published, the world has gotten even more complex. Collectively, we face a lot of really messy challenges.
KONU’s mission is to develop change agents to address systemic challenges. This podcast hopes to make a contribution to supporting individuals on their leadership journeys.
Why do so many change processes lose their momentum?
Often, it’s because change comes with sacrifice. People will have to incur losses to make the change. Losing something you care for, believe in, or identify with is painful. Worse, those losses are often taboo — unacknowledged elephants in the room.
In order to successfully manage change efforts, you need to openly name these losses, create space to discuss them, and serve as a role model by facing your losses.
Practicing leadership requires you to choreograph opportunities for the people to mourn the losses when they arise in times of change.
If you’re like our clients here at KONU, it’s likely you’re facing increased polarization in your organization, team, or community. These polarizations show up in questions like these:
Should we lean into change? Or focus on stability?
Do we let ourselves get messy and innovate? Or should we focus on improving efficiency?
Are we more productive with a distributed, work-from-home workforce? Or do we need everyone back together again so we can rebuild our sense of team and culture?
In our inaugural round table for executives leading non-profit organizations with national or global impact, our long-term friend and client Dario Soto Abril kicked of the conversation with this vulnerable reflection about being caught up in savior mode. It was part of a larger conversation where he described his own learning journey as first time CEO of a globally operating federated non-profit organization.
Together with a group of fourteen executives, my colleagues Elisabeth, Andy, and I explored the typical challenges executive of complex systems face:
- Everyone expects you to solve their problems
- You are constantly balancing the (sometimes conflicting) expectations of multiple stakeholders
- You work long hours and often feel overwhelmed and/or underappreciated
Conflicts can be very helpful! That is why it is crucial to build your stomach for handling them. We use a lot of time, energy, and money to prevent conflicts from developing or at least to clear them from our table as fast as possible. Why are we doing this if conflicts can be productive? There is a good reason for this behavior: Not all conflicts are productive or helpful. But how do you know when that’s the case? What makes some conflicts harmful – and others helpful?
Workplace conflicts are annoying and incredibly unproductive. Just like in private relationships, fighting is exhausting. Imagine a world without conflicts! Wouldn’t that be great? But, if I’m honest with myself, some of the most profound lessons I’ve learned have been the result of me facing a conflict (with myself or others) and getting to the bottom of it. This is also true of the work I do with individuals, teams, and organizations: Development is almost always the result of confrontation. So, let’s reframe conflict: Conflicts are almost always productive. And they offer a great opportunity for growth and development.
If one thinks of leadership as an activity, it becomes clear that one can lead when one has a lot of authority in a group and when one has very little authority. What is also clear is that both have advantages and disadvantages.
Everyone is talking about leadership these days. A look at recent new headlines: “Leadership transition in the White House”, “Armenians feel betrayed by their leadership”, “European Union leadership decided about the transmission of COVID vaccines”, “Leadership today does not look like Martin Luther King.”
But what does leadership actually mean? Is leadership a position or a role? Does it mean a specific individual? Or is leadership an activity? Does it mean influencing others? Is leadership something that can be learned – or is it something one is born with?
Often when we talk about leaders, what we actually mean are authorities. What is authority? Authority is a role in a social system. Formal authority is something that is given. A group of people (the “authorizers”) give one or several individuals (the “authority”) power or trust. This comes with expectations; in return, authorizers expect authorities to provide them with services. Services such as: protection, direction, order, or representation. Informal authority, on the other hand, is earned – through expertise, experience, seniority, popularity, or credibility. Since our authorizers constantly re-evaluate the authority they award us with along these dimensions, informal authority is more fickle.
Leadership is often used interchangeably with authority. If we speak about “leaders”, we usually mean those individuals, who have lots of (formal) authority: the President, the CEO, the manager, the boss. When I think of leadership as an activity, rather than a position or role, the following becomes apparent: Anyone can lead – at any time. Leadership is possible, irrespective of the authority I have or I lack.
WELCOME TO OUR BLOG: THE LEADERHIP LIFE
At KONU, we’re committed to growing and provoking leadership because we recognize that leadership isn’t just a job title or a political appointment. Leadership is an art, and like every art, it is the practice of a lifetime. Our team combines decades of leadership development experience with research-driven experiential learning methods to help individuals and groups successfully tackle complex challenges. And today, we’re adding another arrow to our teaching and learning quiver: the KONU blog.
This blog is a place to explore what it means to be a leader in every aspect of our lives, from the global stage to the local day-to-day. We’ve immersed ourselves in the study of psychology, sociology, and human development, taking inspiration from professors and practitioners like Ronald Heifetz, Robert Kegan, and Lisa Lahey, and we’re ready to share our discoveries and emerging questions with a wider audience.
One of KONU’s Senior Associates shares learnings, meaningful moments, and developmental intentions from her first year on the team.