As I’m still pondering Team of Rivals, I wanted to share another thought – though this is not one I can claim. I was with a few of my friends who all read the book at the same as I did and we were discussing among other things, the reality of the many shortcomings among the nation’s elite leaders at that time.
Lincoln is getting a lot of credit for assembling a team of “the strongest men” of the day, but even if they were it doesn’t change the fact that many of them demonstrated from time to time behavior like that of junior high girls. One member of our group mentioned that it shows that leaders have always been around with great talent, but at times marginal character. More bluntly put, “There have always been jerks in leadership. Why should we expect any different today?”
We’re almost conditioned in ways to put leadership on pedestals. I actually see this more in terms of status than in terms of hierarchy, though traditionally – the higher up you go in a hierarchy, the more status you claim. One of our insights was that we problem should expect less of our leaders than we do. While that might come across cynical, it’s more of a statement regarding how we ought to consider the limitations that any leader carries with his or name.
The human tendency is to expect more (and thus ascribing more status) to those who are higher than you in the hierarchy of leadership, while at the same time expecting less (and thus attributing less status) to those who are “underneath” us or below our place in the hierarchy. That doesn’t mean we aren’t hard on people “below” us or are “positive” towards those “above” us. It’s more about expectations. Deep down, we expect more of those that have power. They have the power to make changes for our individual and collective benefit.
We had a very engaging conversation about how many it’s wiser to reverse the chain of expectations. Maybe we ought to begin raising our expectations for those “below” us, with a view towards empowerment. And maybe we should tone down our expectations of our all-powerful leaders who so many times only achieve enough to expose their own limitations. I wonder how that would impact how we engage one another in community.
There are obviously some servant leadership principles that I think are relevant here, but I’ll stop short of embedding this thought in that larger argument because I’m still chewing on this thought on the dynamics of expectation, power, and status.
I don’t often find the need to comment to my own post, but wanted to add a clarification for any future reads. The conversation about the consistency of “jerks” in leadership over time was anchored in a real conversation about real leaders in Lincoln’s day who functioned at times as jerks.
The application of some of the thoughts though wasn’t meant to be critical of leadership as “jerks” in general. It was more focused generally on the limitations of people in leadership and the role our expectations play in creating environments of empowerment. We should evaluate our leaders more realistically and have sober assessments of their strengths and limitations, however, that does not mean many or even most leaders are jerks. It just helps everyone to have sober assessments and not look to leaders as if they are our parents or saviors.