Chapter VII: Leadership Survival is of the Most Prepared, not necessarily the Fittest!
“Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care” (Theodore Roosevelt)
What it takes you already have.
Successful leaders in the 21st Century are those that have been able to meet their purpose, attain organizational goals in-spite of the size, complexity, and setting. This has been particularly hampered by the severe divergence of community from their heritage and roots. A relatively simple truth of leadership is that the leader shall face conflict daily, some deeply rooted, some on a larger scale than others, and some based on mythology. One may find the latter difficult to believe especially in societies of substantial technological advancements.
Organizational members should be more astute than any preceding generation where information is merely a finger touch away.
Closer to the truth may be that technology has been more destructive instead of helpful and perhaps has attributed to the collapse of critical thinking that attributed to American deterioration and debilitation on many fronts. The technological explosion experience on a global scale has generated impatient attitudes and behaviors resulting from technologies. The lack of patience’s requiring instant gratification has exchanged critical thinking for instant information. Survivors in the contemporary decision making domain have embraced the new generation. The bombardment of constant information (not necessarily accurate information), the rapidity of change, and methods that empower a membership in order to complete a mission.
Suffice it to say the “APP” generation widely differs from previous keepers of the gate. Maybe not so bad. General statements such as this may cut a swath into the integrity of the author, enraging parents of younger person’s resultant of profiling this group with such broad strokes of the generational brush. But not so fast, this statement is not without relevance to the topic at hand. I ask you to ponder the following and take a self-reflecting moment to construct your response. I assert with absolute certainty that there is no “APP” for your dignity, humility, and honor.
Actually, when is the last time you witnessed a young person read a book to obtain information? When is the last time you asked a college student to describe a card catalog and define its purpose? What makes the younger generations’ time more important than that of boomers or preceding generations? How can the younger generation feel greater pressures are placed upon them than were those imposed on previous generations? Honest reality would dictate that one has probably witnessed more an application of an “App” than critical analysis from text in order to satisfy the instant gratification craze.
None-the-less, spoiling the next generation has become a ritual, especially since opulence and lavish living have become a goal in life. For the most part you as a parent, teacher, and leader have not done so without love, affection, understanding, benevolence, and in many walks of life through innovation keeping up with the Jones. You want your children or subordinates to have better and not to have to go without just because we may have. How has that worked out for you?
People are a leader’s most prized asset.
Perhaps for the sake of being in-tune with our children we (Boomers) have succumbed to digital prostitution or perhaps we have yielded in order to achieve business or financial gain or remain marketable. In any leadership scope an important factor is to understand that the most valued resource within your organization is the individual members. As a head of an organization one is obliged to recognize member needs, where they are currently situated, and where they need to go. Succinctly, they must grow their people in the face of constant change and complex concerns. At the same time society, community, and organization are subjected to an environment where change is so rapid the only stable that we shall become accustomed is change (Toffler, 1990).
A raging debate in the United States today is the lack of positive attitude by younger generations. The former statement I do not subscribe at 100%. The Gen X, Gen Y, and Millenniums or “Z” have been criticized for their lack of patients in search of instant gratification. Leaders today are abundantly accustomed to the demand to create a new vision, a new direction, a new this or that. Decision makers today must create different environments that thrive on innovation, collaboration, ingenuity of communication, creativity, open-ended diversity, and last but not least fun in the workplace.
Workplace environments require flexibility of participants and is energy draining due to maintenance heavy requisites. This environments success is conditioned upon a flexible vision. How in the world can a decision maker attempt success when she/he has a moving target? One only has to look at the demands made of and criticism leveled at affiliation policy for the lack of leadership or failure to provide a new direction. Can leadership be reduced to such a simplistic proposition? In light of topics discussed thus far, I submit it cannot and will not. Most will acknowledge there is no turning back neither in time, place, nor space. But then who really wants to? So professor, teacher, mother/father, student leader, athlete, student and so on, anything here sound familiar to you?
One size DOES not fit all.
Not everyone is acclimated to the same life clock. Men and women mature at different rates. Some lives have gaps, this is defined by me as periods of restlessness, uncertainty of the future, unsure of self or lack of self-confidence. None-the-less for many there arises an epiphany, an awakening, the AH HA moment that one realizes what he or she would like to strive for.
This was not always the case. At one point in our history we knew what our destiny was. Generally predetermined by parents. Women at one point in American History were thought of as bare foot in the winter and pregnant in the summer. The home was the place for the women. There existed at one time, the “Rule of Thumb,” generally associated with the right of husbandly corporal punishment over his wife.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1998-04-17/news/1998107056_1_rule-of-thumb-phrase-rule-false-etymology
Then the United States was plunged into WWII and the factories were staffed by women labor as men marched off to war. At wars end the male wanted his job back and Rosie the Riveter was not so inclined to return to the kitchen. A paycheck from a job that was hers equated to independence. A country was grateful to the factory workers that supported the war effort, but a simple thank you was less than adequate. Women’s rights and equality merely acted to highlight diversity in the workplace for years to come.
Much of this change currently is at such speed that it creates complex conflict and problems. It is inevitable by adding difficulty to contemporary decision making. This undercurrent must be understood by leaders and is seldom realized by rank and file society. More often than not, inaccurately interpreted change takes on intractable attitudes of subordinates that find it permissible to leave assignments with greater degree of difficulty undone. In other words, they may be expecting a due over (video game remedial education), or if is important someone will tell me. The one that has endeared itself with me as a college professor is, I couldn’t get your work done because I had classwork to get done in a more important class. Well, ok then, why don’t you grab your “F” now and take the rest of the semester off.
Second chances.
The truth of the matter is in life, none of us would not have achieved what we have if it were not for second chances. As I write at this moment, I believe just today I am at my 2,346th chance and that is with my wife alone. However, how has it been engrained that second chances are automatic?
I was instructing in a three day seminar on leadership and was discussing pitfalls of leaders in terms of “Job Enlargement” (piling on of competent workers) in comparison to “Job Enrichment” (creating responsible work atmospheres). The group was asked to provide their definition of accountability and responsibility. The first person to respond cited the perfect job he expects is that he is provided all the responsibility he can handle and that he is not held accountable for any of it. Obviously, there was much work to be done with this lad. However, the failure to fully understand responsibility may be more consistent with contemporary attitudes of members entering your organization than one may think.
No one gets a participation trophy in life.
Briefly, let us take a glimpse at contemporary society. From about the end of the Boomer generation (1945-1960) and the beginning of the new we observe many differences. First, Boomers had Woodstock, those after did not (What do you think this means?). Second, the new technology that the Boomers are ridiculed for lacking knowledge, was invented by Boomers.
Third, the Boomer magnified their parents’ wish to make it easier for their kids. Fourth, change was forced upon the Boomers at blinding speeds (as well as preceding generations). As Alvin Toffler writes in, Future Shock and the Boomer was ill-prepared to deal with the change. Fifth, the Boomer demonstrated great resilience staying with change to the surprise and frustration of new generations. Sixth, and final, Gen X, Gen Y, New Millenniums, and Z Gen, require change, demand change, need change, can’t live without change, and when confronted with matters residing in the Grey Area, they freeze. In many walks of life, specifically in military or law enforcement environs, they may not get do overs as accustomed through video game training.
Political correctness.
Unlike generations prior to the 1960s, diversity has become a way of life. In most of my classrooms today the students are from foreign countries, many from large metropolitan areas, and represent many ethnic groups. When asked how many of the student’s high school classrooms resembled their college setting, the majority responded in the affirmative. They only know diverse populations and have become accustomed to the folk-ways and mores of the populations represented. Celebrating diversity is not new to this age group; it was a learning curve for their grandparents and great grandparents.
The Etiology (causes) of Political Correctness (PC) may be traced to the need to combat bullying, eliminate rudeness, and insulting language often accompanied by unwanted tasteless behaviors. Problematic is the new term devised to replace the repugnant term gradually enters common circulation, and speakers use it in the same way that they previously used the preceding term. Euphemistic terms find there way into language to make difficult terms of content easier to discuss. Did I happen to mention the only lottery that I ever won was the U.S. Draft in 1969 (Vietnam War-I served state side at a military prison). As an example, during my short military career in the U.S. Army it soon became abundantly clear to me how they can train normal men to kill an enemy. Dehumanize the enemy, refer to them in euphemistic terms, no faces necessary, and hate them before they can hate you. Now I could have sworn that someone said that the current occupant of the Oval Office never served in the military. This guy doesn’t even hate equally.
Newspeak, a language “designed to diminish the range of thought,” in the novel 1984 (1949) by George Orwell (Merriam-Webster). Essentially newspeak was supported by narrowing the choice of words used to replace others in language to a minimum. Ergo replicate PC albeit for alternative motives but none-the-less those replacement words were narrowly crafted. Unfortunately, PC began to take on additional language/words that had or could have the same meaning and labeled those as objectionable as well.
Critics of PC believe that it has worn out its welcome. None more vocal than from academia. Political correctness has worn out its welcome. A protest against PC is that it strikes at the heart of intellectual curiosity. Critics argue that PC through garnering euphemistic replacements loses meaning and ability to grasp true objectivity in intellectual thought and expansion. This group of critics maintain that PC created censorship of academic freedom.
This writer does not advocate for crude, rude, disparaging comments that further degrade a marginalized population. Rather, I follow the criticism of others that PC may be impacting messages and certain language required to adequately explain contemporary social problems and issues confronting leaders. I submit the tone and context of delivery of message deserves greater attention than the word itself. Words matter, but so does the tone and context!
As an example provided by O’Neill (2011) where does the alleged rudeness of the term retarded originally come from? If not from the term’s literal meaning, it must come from its delivery: the tone and context in which it is delivered. Advocates of political correctness decry the ability for language delivered in a neutral or positive way through acceptable context or tone can be used that would otherwise fall under the scrutiny of the PC police. Critics suggest that PC language has become a fashion accessory, faddish, perhaps outlived its usefulness.
http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_16_02_8_oneill.pdf
In the continuum of a pluralistic society one should never take their eye off the ball, but is PC patrolled by the PC police necessitated as it once was or does the growing multi-diverse populace become the vigilant centurions? No doubt if our Martian friends peeking in on America today, specifically Washington, D.C., they may observe a myopic viewpoint relative to diversity and be judgmental of the remainder of our great nation. The following link from the Huffington Post expresses point/counterpoint whether PC has gone too far.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bj-gallagher/the-problem-political-correctness_b_2746663.html
Everything is dependent upon everything else. This statement should not jolt anyone from their seat. Especially in a global economic setting, world-wide-web technological community, fringe societies (terrorist), tribal politics, and debilitated institutions that were once exhaustedly relied upon for hope and inspiration. The once sought-after roles in society or desired foundations have been relegated to memory rather than reality. No wonder our youth often hear the elderly speak of the good ole-days.
A primary foundation of interest is the contemporary family. Once deep rooted in values of faith, love, caring, sharing, and diversity served as role models for the remaining society. The partial, if not total collapse of coveted traditions along with the lack of face-to-face communications has hampered leaders today while discouraging others from attempting the now unpopular role (Gardner, 1990; Siegel, 2011). So, after this depressing summary to this section, where do we go from here? Do we just throw our hands up in the air and claim surrender? No, because up to this pint, hopefully each section read gave pause for self-reflection. You’ve got what it takes.