It was as if I was descending into the heart of darkness. Some months after I was temporarily appointed as head of a 60-people local government department, the organization grinded to an almost complete halt. Frankly, I despaired, I lost control, withdrew, started to mistrust people, constrained communication and became lazy. Now after almost half year, we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. What happened? Despite of myself, I seemed for a time to do everything a leader should not do. Did all my vices turn into virtues, suddenly? Looking back, I think I was experiencing what it means to live through a new leadership paradigm. Where old virtues become vices and vice versa. I re-named them my ‘Seven Deadly Virtues,’ by analogy of the seven deadly sins in the dark ages.
Before my arrival, self-organizing teams had been put into place. And it was my job the implement this change. When I started, I shared my vision and set up design-teams to knock things into shape. Things looked fine at first. Then, gradually, I lost connection with the group. They didn’t want to join the design team meetings and communication went underground. That’s when I was strangely attracted to my Seven Deadly Virtues.
1. Despair. After some months, I found that roles and procedures were unclear. I could not understand what had happened, let alone think of a plan. All the knowledge was there, it just was not in place. It was not that people were unwilling, there was lack of coherence and people were looking at me for answers. Nothing I knew seemed fit for purpose. My despair grew with that of the group. I was no different anymore from my colleagues,. Like them, I was desperately waiting for something to happen. Knowing that it was not coming from me. So I gave in to despair.
2. Giving up control. After all, it wasn’t up to me to get them out of trouble. It was up to them, I reasoned. They were a self-organizing group, they were in control. Only it didn’t feel to them that way. So, all eyes were pointed at me as their leader. And I had no clue, to be honest. I remembered what is essential in self-organizing teams. And this was missing: clear roles and processes, a shared vision and resources to achieve their goals. Lacking a leader, they were supposed to take care of these things themselves. They were to take control. But no one dared to come out and grab it. Not as yet. And I allowed them be out of control, for lack of a better plan.
3. Withdrawal. And I withdrew. Not because I wanted to, but because it seemed the best I could do. Letting the system take care of its own process. There was gossiping, less and less people came into my office. Shaming, blaming and complaining coloured the conversations in the corridors. So much so that people became tired of telling and hearing the same-and-always voice in themselves and others. As I witnessed them getting tired of this, I realized they were getting ready for change. All this while, I was happy to stay at a distance.
4. Distrust. When trust between people and in me seemed at its lowest, I organized a team event. I hired a group of actors to do Replay Theatre. Four actors are playing out stories that come from the audience. The tension in the department had built up so much in the months before, that there was no lack of stories. “What does your workday look like, what do you tell your wife when you come home, what do you depend on to be happy in your work?” The actors’ skill transformed the audience’s frustration into tears and laughter. “Trust is what matters,” was the consensus at the end of the performance. I trusted myself to know what was needed, but still I had little faith in the sustainability of the day’s success.
5. Constraining communication. Yet, to be fair, after months, the group had finally had a meaningful conversation. They had been discussing the future, not the past. For me, I still felt uneasy. How could I support this new-found connection, what was the next step? I was not sure. Though I am a staunch believer in the free flow of communication, I decided to focus on constraining communication to stop the gossip. I installed a soundboard team to channel the conversation between teams and management. And I started a weekly news bulletin to publish hands-on decisions made in the soundboard team. Apart from the weekly bulletin, I made my my voice heard less and less.
6. Laziness. So for the most part, I left the teams alone. I continued to work on a more strategic level with board and directors. I only sat in on team meetings, but contributed very little. At first, a little voice kept saying: intervene, give direction, present a solution. But I was lazy and gradually that voice faded. The only thing I did was to provide support for new initiatives. There were people wanting form a group to define operational targets. Wow! They self-organized the design-teams I had originally wanted to them set up. But I just left them to their own resources.
7. Pride. I despaired, gave up control, withdrew, distrusted, constrained communication and became lazy. In the end when things were beginning to look up, I even took pride over all this. They say that leadership shows up when the leader takes a little more of the blame and a little less of the credit. My final vice: I couldn’t help feeling proud of what I had achieved. By doing things you shouldn’t.
Seven Deadly Virtues. I was reminded of Joseph Campbell’s book about the hero’s journey. He writes about Shapeshifters: those travelling companions that you can never be sure about. That change from good to bad and back again. Do they mean well or harm? The same with these Seven Deadly Virtues that guided me through this process. They attracted me, but were they taking me on a journey to the light or were they leading me to perdition? In the heart of darkness I didn’t know. I was uncertain about almost everything. Even about what was right and what was wrong. I was going through the Leadership paradigm shift.
Now, I can see more clearly. From this uncertainty, my Deadly Virtues have turned to hope, connection, results and engagement. And I have learned that ultimately, in this perverse attraction to uncertainty, lies our freedom to act.
“Heart of Darkness” is the title of Joseph Conrad’s novel on which Coppola based his “Apocalypse Now” (1979). More about shapeshifters can be found in Joseph Campbell’s cross cultural study of hero’s journey: “The Hero With A Thousand Faces” (1949).
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