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Patricia McLagan asserts that by facing the temptations that accompany formal power (the “shadow side of leadership”), leaders will become more conscious of their choices and the impacts of their decisions and actions.
She outlines seven ways those with formal power and authority fail and cleverly uses Dante’s Inferno as an analogy to paint a picture of those failures:
Ignorance (The First Circle: The Ignorant)
In the first failure, people did no real wrong but were ignorant of the true potential and requirements of their leadership authority. Instead, they accepted formal leadership roles but used their positions and titles to expand their personal specialist skills—never shifting their self-concept and behavior from being individual contributors to being people who create a performance environment and support for others.
As leaders, it was their job to amplify, accelerate, support, focus, align, unleash, and develop all the resources around them. It was their job to reach across to people in other groups and roles and make links among groups. But they remained ignorant of these responsibilities.
They didn’t do the “1+1=3” magic that is part of real leadership.
Lesson: Be a leader who is Aware of the requirements of formal leadership.
Myopia (Second Circle: The Myopics)
This is a place where people who were formal leaders are punished for their short-term or myopic decisions. There are thousands who sold out the future of their organizations in order to achieve short-term ends. They also failed to lift themselves above the issues of the day to see the big picture around the decisions they were making. They sought instant gratification and the easy solution.
Lesson: Be a Bifocal leader who sees the short and long term, the local and global picture.
Reductionism (Third Circle: The Reductionists)
People here never brought the rational and intuitive together.
- Left-Brain: Ability to think rationally—to create step-by-step plans; solve problems analytically; and keep actions on a directed path.
- Right-Brain: Place of the amazing creative and emotional capabilities—where intuitive, discontinuous, feeling processes seemed to float and ignite in their own time horizon without conscious thought or planning.
Leaders must draw on the full and diverse capabilities of their own and others’ brains—both sides, all faculties. Otherwise, the solutions they sponsor and decisions they make will not and cannot match the complexities they and their organizations face.
Lesson: Be a leader who is Synergistic—including diverse thoughts, interactions, and perspectives.
Abdication (Fourth Circle: The Abdicators)
Leaders at this level created an atmosphere with no accountability and a terrible, cutthroat atmosphere.
Their followers describe them this way, “You didn’t speak up for us… We were a leaderless ship on a stormy sea. Even when we seemed to agree on a larger direction, you lost interest and didn’t follow through. Because of you, I left dispirited!”
Leaders here delegated too much of the important leadership work to administrative staff and expected processes and procedures to operate without their involvement. They expected others to communicate for them, to manage tough problems and conflicts, to deliver difficult messages.
Lesson: Be a leader who is Accountable for and brings life into all aspects of the leadership function.
Cowardice (Fifth Circle: The Cowards)
Here, you find people who had the power of position but didn’t have the courage to use it in difficult situations. They took the easy way out to avoid conflict. They looked away when they saw bad decisions and even wrongdoing. They failed to defend and represent the people they led or the purposes they served.
People in this circle shied away from the confrontational and difficult parts of the job, the parts requiring courageous action. They refused to face tough and uncomfortable situations where they might have run counter to those with more power than they had.
Lesson: Be a leader who is Courageous in the face of conflict, challenge, and uncertainty.
Abuse (Sixth Circle: Abusers of Rank)
Leaders here willfully and shamelessly used their formal power to diminish, subdue, intimidate, and even enslave others while lifting themselves up. They deliberately used their power in ways that created pain and suffering for and interfered with the growth of others.
In the circles above, you saw punishments for those whose transgressions were mainly due to omissions and self-indulgences. Those in the final two circles are there for malicious dereliction. By their deeds, they continually and knowingly injured others and prevented the growth, full expression, and development of the people, groups, institutions, and countries they led. They used their power to dominate and subjugate, suppress and humiliate others, and advantage themselves while holding others back.
These people, of both high and low rank, didn’t realize that when they spoke as formal leaders, they actually roared as far as others were concerned. With disproportionate power comes disproportionate responsibility for being aware, humble, and committed to the larger good, for service to something bigger than the self.
Lesson: Be a leader who is Respectful in your thoughts and interactions.
Corruption (Seventh Circle: The Corrupt and Corruptors)
Here, you find leaders who distorted their organizations to optimize their own prestige and financial gain, plundering and destroying their institutions while creating cancerous cultures that would replicate abuses and breeches. Their organizations exist no more except as derided memories and excuses that others point to in order to draw attention away from their own shameful and nefarious actions.
On failed leader reflects, “Our authoritarian ways and reigns of fear created rampant internal sickness in our institutions. They say that we hated diversity and favored only those who were like us and pandered to us, and that in this process we perpetuated generations of bigoted and tainted leadership under us and after us.”
There are three different parts of Circle Seven:
(1) Created destructive organization cultures.
Leaders here pitted different groups against each other to maintain control. They hated diversity and created a “be like me and support me or else” standard. They left a legacy of pandering, fear, win-lose behavior, and domination hierarchy in their wake.
(2) Created false rosy pictures for their institutions.
At the same time, they did grave and almost irreparable damage beyond their organizations. Some deliberately allowed waste to spew into the environment or denuded endangered natural resources without replenishing them. Some subjected their workers to unsafe and unhealthy working conditions. Everyone here passed major negative consequences into the future for others to address…and they did this knowingly!
(3) Playing God in life, they made their own rules and laws.
In all cases, they fully interfered with the constructive sequences of cause and effect and confused the natural order of things so they could manipulate results to their own selfish ends.
Some would say that without the shadow, we cannot know the light, and vice versa. Some would say we all carry within us the seeds of both good and evil and that recognizing this creates the empathy that keeps us humble and alert.
Lesson: Be a Steward of the resources and evolving potential in your care.
Accepting the Calling
Three major opportunities that will significantly enhance your life and experience:
- As a formal leader, you will have leverage. Through your decisions and actions, you will help people and your institutions create more together than they could alone.
- Your leadership role will challenge you to continuous learning and personal growth.
- Through your leadership role, you will have the chance to leave a legacy: a legacy of a value-adding institution, a legacy of people who have developed through their association with you and the organizations you lead, and a legacy of greater social confidence that our institutions can work and be life-sustaining.
Out of This World Leader, may you be reminded of the Shadow Side of Power, as you shoot for the stars!