The Democratizing Power of Leadership
In a recent public workshop that I run every few months, a young participant from the US government commented negatively on some of the military metaphors we use in Adaptive Leadership, such as “mobilizing people” and “casualties.”
I immediately understood where she was coming from, having had the thought myself in the past while appreciating the raw, honest language that Adaptive Leadership brings to the workplace.
Then, another participant, the proud daughter of a Dutch Naval NATO officer, defended these metaphors with fervor. “What’s wrong with the military?”, she challenged the US government officer.
This moment exemplified what I love about our workshops — the initial need for politeness giving way to the possibility of honest conversation about our differences.
Many of the adaptive challenges we face in our organizations, politics, and civic life (what remains of it) stem from a deeper adaptive challenge of polarization. In our workshops, we don’t just train leaders. We create a live practice in holding space for healthy conflict. Here, conversations that people are desperate to have with “the other side” about politics, religion, and social issues can unfold. This, for me, is the heart of democratizing leadership — a mission we’ve pursued for nearly a decade. (Our 10th anniversary is coming in January 2025!).
“Democratizing leadership speaks to people across our social and political divides and offers hope for healing a fractured nation,” says Roger Sorkin, an award-winning producer and executive director of the American Resilience Project, who attended one of our early workshops.
Whether in the workplace, politics, or communities, my hope is to ignite a recognition of our deep similarities despite our superficial differences. To understand why good people can be compelled to act in ways that seem destructive. Why places like my hometown of Detroit — once the “engine of democracy” — faltered for all the right reasons. And despite this, how people can maintain resilience and hope on the winding road to meaningful change.
Our world today is shaped by two distinct but mutually reinforcing forces: the rise of authoritarianism and the expansive distribution of power to regular people — the democratization of everything. We face overwhelming issues, from climate derangement to rising income inequality. Rather than tackle these adaptive challenges head-on, authoritarians exploit the names of democracy and leadership to undermine both. They prefer “leadership” that enforces obedience and suppresses dissent.
Let’s be honest, many of us spend our time at work, school, or other places that are run by an authoritarian at best and a dictator at worst.
Executive teams, management teams, senior teams, or leadership teams, often become complicit in ruling with authority.
It’s little wonder then that we’re losing the ability to fulfill the promise of our democratic institutions.
Yet, opportunities abound. When we understand that what we mean by democracy is the ability to hold our differences creatively, we see that leadership and fostering democratic values go hand in hand. We can move beyond corporate sustainability into truly regenerative business practices. We can cross over into the lives of others rather than push them away in fear, sustaining the “heart of democracy,” as Parker Palmer calls it.
Many organizations aspire to democratize the workplace through flatter organizational structures, more participatory or inclusive employee engagement, fewer titles, and the like. However, bold organizations like Patagonia recognize they simply cannot achieve their mission (“saving our home planet”) through old-school, top-down, authority-based leadership. To democratize something, however, goes well beyond eliminating hierarchy or providing equitable access to goods, services or, in my case, leadership development opportunities.
Few of us give much consideration to what we mean when we say democratize or democracy. It is not merely casting a vote or taking a “democratic” show of hands.
Democracy has a human structure.
It’s about the conversation that happens *before and after* the vote, when people cannot agree despite taking part in a fair — or unfair — democratic process.
Democratizing leadership is for people who want to do something about the captivating, yet predictable, cycle of ambitious promise followed by the inevitable disappointment from the inaction of people in positions of authority — politicians, CEOs, and otherwise. It invites us to see how our unwillingness to engage with societal problems creates conditions for authoritarianism to thrive. It’s about discovering that our freedom is linked with those who struggle.
Whether authoritarianism rises or declines is truly our choice as corporate and national citizens, through our day-to-day leadership moments.
On this point, both the US government officer and the woman from the Dutch naval family seemed to agree.
