You See What Happens When Leaders Are Not Grown Up on the Inside

Image by Світлана Саноцька - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Whether as a politician, parent, teacher or someone’s coach, manager or advisor, if you are an adult you are a leader; our future generations are watching...

Part of me wanted to post a few pictures of many of today’s leaders to highlight my point, but it is more pervasive than that, and I wanted to look at what could be done to evolve us past this point of blatant immaturity.

I’ll tell you some examples of the kinds of things I’m seeing; examples of what I’ll call unconscious leadership.

Given my belief that I have not only the right, but the obligation to question decisions our government make, when I started to wonder about the rational for our current government’s decision to maintain an elimination strategy for COVID19 in New Zealand, I began to search for some answers.

Now, this article is not about challenging the efficacy of New Zealand’s current response to COVID19, it’s not about COVID19, the global landscape on this issue of whether and how to control the virus is complex and constantly changing.

However, in my bid to understand why we are where we are, I came across an article by Bridie Witton quoting Professor Michael Baker (one of the main advisors to the government on this matter), Dr Rod Jackson (a professor of epidemiology at the University of Auckland) and Dr Simon Thornley (a public health physician at the University of Auckland) who – like many – is questioning whether elimination is still the right strategy.   

Keen to hear responses to the valid points Dr Thornley raised I was appalled to read Jackson has little time for Thornley’s arguments and says “they should not be given any oxygen”. He says “Thornley is the only dissenter in the epidemiological community. We are all advising the Government, and we speak with one voice. And you have got a junior epidemiologist who is presenting a different case.”

Not exactly mature.

The same could be said when I watched footage of Nicola Willis (a Member of Parliament in New Zealand’s main opposition party) make a speech to Parliament in August questioning the Government on how the recent COVID19 outbreak had come about.

While she hit home on some key points, her speech ended in a way that – to me – is indicative of what undermines confidence in politicians. It was the “on this side of the house we would do it better” argument. Honestly, it is like listening to a school playground. I want to say “Grow up, make your points and work together.”

The same could be said when I noticed that another national politician - whom I knew from my time in local government, and worked with about a decade ago – had left his position as Chief Whip in the opposing party’s office and continued as an independent. He had done some whistle blowing and, of course, the political party came at him.

They deflected by focusing on his extra marital affairs. Again, this is very tit for tat playground behaviour.

I was then personally quite disappointed in the Member of Parliament’s response to his affairs in a radio interview. He said “the rules of the game have changed; we are now looking under the bed sheets”. The assertion he made is that affairs among members of Parliament are rife and part of the culture, but there has always been a tacit agreement they remain secret.

I mean, really, this level of maturity is not what I am looking for in those vested with the job of making critical decisions for our country.

All of this seems to get amplified within the realms of social media, as our viewpoints are being increasingly manipulated to a degree never seen before, as eloquently described in the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma.

It’s little wonder that there is so much polarisation and confusion and, ultimately way less progress (on key issues that affect all of humankind, the creatures on this planet, and the planet itself) than is possible if we were all pulling in the same direction.

What does it mean to grow up? To me, it means self responsibility, to take deliberate action to mature on the inside as well as the outside.

I am talking about taking responsibility for that part of me that reacts when I get triggered. I do not mean that I take steps to behave in a more polished way, like media training.

In the examples I’ve given above, it is clear to me that Dr Rod Jackson may well be considered a loose cannon for making such obviously derisory statements about another colleague. I know from my own media training that there is a certain way I should respond to the press so I don’t embarrass myself or the organisation I represent.

The same could be said of the Personal Development training that many executives undergo. The best of this usually at least achieves one of the prerequisite steps in maturing on the inside, and that is self awareness. I found the better training and coaching an uncomfortable unfolding, and witnessed the same in my colleagues, to see ourselves as others perhaps might; the good, the bad and the ugly.

From there I have observed that many just get better at magnifying the good and hiding the bad and the ugly. There are few I have witnessed really doing the internal work it takes to recognise the roots of these internal triggers that set off the immature behaviours and heal them.

As I said in Your Childhood Is Not Your Fault but It Will Be Your Limitation, aside of the trauma we all experience to varying degrees in our life, there are also the inherited patterns of behaviour in our parents that we react to, and unwittingly develop patterns in response to. These are essential for our survival in childhood but become unhealthy patterns later in life, and will certainly pass on unless we take action.

James Redfield describes these control strategies quite succinctly in The Celestine Prophecy. They sit on a scale of aggressive to passive and he describes four archetypes; it’s often easiest if you start by taking a look at which strategies your parents employed:

• Intimidator’s threaten verbally or physically and come on too strong, making others frightened. They are so wrapped up in their own anger they don’t care what is happening inside the other person.
• Interrogator’s constantly question, criticize, nag and find fault, making others self conscious and eroding their confidence.
• Aloof’s shut down when confrontation happens. They often withdraw physically or verbally, forcing others to struggle and dig to find out their true feelings.
• Poor Me’s tend to guilt trip, projecting themselves as the helpless victim in need or care and attention. This makes others feel guilty even if they know there is no real reason to feel this way.

Each of these are linked with the corresponding strategies that created them, and that they create.

For example, Intimidators create Poor Me’s appealing for mercy, or, the child will endure until they are old enough and big enough to fight back, creating another Intimidator, and so the cycle continues.

It is not just in politicians I see this level of immaturity, it’s everywhere I look: executives playing one-upmanship in boardrooms, teachers shaming kids in order to control the classroom, parents repeating the same cycles of shame, guilt and fear over and over. I know, I’ve been on this journey, pointing fingers at others and – most destructively – inwardly, berating myself for not being better.

To move past this, in every walk of life, starts within each individual taking self responsibility to mature on the inside; I have to take responsibility to become conscious of the damage I do, to myself and others.

Imagine a world where leaders have healed their negative patterns, where people are not denying, suppressing or disowning their authentic self, and are free to fully express the best of who they are? That is the world I came to live in, and it starts with me. What about you?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Leadership: Why Trust Leads to Better Business Outcomes, What Do You Want The Prevailing Global Culture to Look Like?, Stand in Your Own Truth and How to Be True to You When Life Pulls You in Different Directions. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.