Diverse Unity

Coming in to London yesterday, I was able to travel on the new 787 aircraft, the Dreamliner, an aircraft that I'd been wanting to travel on for quite some time. It was a wonderful experience – great legroom, big windows, and so on. But it was a long flight and towards the end of it, I was looking for things to do. So I went to the screen and looked at some of the games. One of them was: "What Kind of a Leader Are You?" it caught my attention and piqued my interest. So I went through all the questions asked and it was obvious that they were trying to see whether you were an authoritarian leader or one who worked with consensus.

It made me think about leadership and different styles. What kind of a leader are you? To understand leadership from one aspect, because there are so many aspects of leadership, I want us to look at the 1996 attempt that was made by two very experienced mountaineers, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer. They made the trip up to Mt. Everest along with several guides and 8 paying clients. Many of the members actually reached the summit on May 10^th. But here's the tragedy! On the descent, they encountered grave danger. In fact, 5 of them, including both those experienced leaders, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, perished as they tried to descend the mountain during the night and during a storm. What a disaster! To be able to actually scale Mt. Everest and then perish on the way down.

 

Many people have tried to analyze what happened and look into some of the decisions that were made at that time. Quite a few reasons have been given as to why this tragedy occurred. One of the main reasons though, was that the group ignored a critical rule that was created to protect them against the dangers of coming down after nightfall. Typically, climbers begin their final push to the summit from a camp located at an altitude of about 26,000 feet very early and hope to reach the summit around midday, so that they could scramble back to the camp before sunset. This tight 18-hour schedule left very little room for error. If climbers fell behind during ascent, they would face an extremely perilous nighttime descent, which was always very dangerous.

Yet, after much analysis they found that this group actually descended during the night and lost 5 people including these 2 highly talented and experienced mountaineers. What happened? They broke one of the rules that they themselves had created – the "two o'clock rule." Scott Fischer had said, "When it becomes clear that a climber could not reach the top by two o'clock in the afternoon, that individual should abandon his summit bid and head back to the safety of the camp." That rule was put in place to make sure that nobody began the descent in the night.

And yet, from reports that were pieced together by those who survived, none of the team actually reached the summit before 2 o'clock, including the two leaders. All of them reached the summit after the two o'clock deadline, but none of them called off their ascent. They went up, and when they began their descent well past midnight, they were enveloped in a blizzard that claimed 5 lives. Many questions have been asked. Why did the climbers ignore the two o'clock rule? Why didn't anybody say anything? Or did somebody say something; were there any dissenting voices? Were they ignored? Because everybody must have been aware that it was well past two?

What they actually found, surprisingly, was that Rob Hall was an authoritarian type of leader and one of the statements he consistently made to the team was, "I will tolerate no dissension up there. My word will be absolute law, beyond appeal." And with that statement, everybody on the team kept quiet, to their obvious peril and ultimate doom.

Reading that story, I thought about leadership and the room for dissenting voices, discussion and debate. It made me also think of former US Secretary of State General Colin Powell. He said this about loyalty that made a whole lot of sense in this context. "When we are debating an issue, loyalty means giving me your honest opinion, whether you think I like it or not. Disagreement at this stage stimulates me. But, once the decision has been made, the debate ends. From that point on, loyalty means executing the decision as if it were your own." The part I love about it is that it allows for disagreement before a decision was taken.

I remember a quote by Michael Roberto, who said, "Leadership is more than getting others to do your bidding. True leadership requires that you listen to others and understand even if you don't agree with those who criticize your ideas." Or as Cyrus the Great put it, "Diversity in counsel, unity in command."

In all the discussion before a decision is made, do you give people the freedom for diverse opinions and perspectives? Are you and I able to have unity as we lead people forward, have consensus in decision-making?

How do we make decisions? Just being authoritarian, while it has its place in specific instances, can also work against us very often. I don't know how many of you remember a cricket match played many years ago. There was a wonderful moment in a match with Ireland where a rookie spinner called Dockrell, who wasn't even born when Tendulkar played his first World Cup match, bowled a ball right into the stumps. Tendulkar went for the sweep, missed it and was hit on the back leg. The umpire had no hesitation in giving him out. Now, in that World Cup, we had the UDRS (Umpire Decision Review System). Tendulkar walked up to Virat Kohli who was at the other end, and asked if he should appeal. Commentators at that time, were looking at each other and saying, "What a position for Virat Kohli to find himself in!" because he himself was young, barely 36 days old when Tendulkar made his debut. Now the great man was asking him, "Should we ask for the review or not?" Every commentator was speculating, "What do you do in this situation? What do you tell this man? Do you tell him what you see? Do you tell him what he wants to hear? Do you tell him to go ahead and ask for it? And if they're wrong, they'll lose one review." But, after the match, one of the commentators asked Kohli what he had said, and Kohli replied, "I told him the ball was going to hit middle and leg." The great thing was that Tendulkar felt that was enough. He turned and he walked away.

Interesting aspect of Tendulkar that he had enough room, in spite of who he was, to be able to take this kind of an answer from somebody so young. That begs the question – what about you and me? Do we have room in our styles of leadership for people to speak the truth. Michael Roberto who writes the book 'Why Great Leaders Don't Take Yes For An Answer' says, "How does one foster conflict and dissent to enhance decision quality while simultaneously building the consensus required to implement decisions effectively?" In short, how do you achieve diversity in counsel and unity in command? How do you make sure in your gathering of information there's enough information that doesn't only come from people who tell you what you want to hear and that you hear other voices as well? And, after hearing differing dissenting opinions, how do you build the consensus required to implement the decision effectively, and to get everybody on board.

Roberto goes on to say that two things are involved: cognitive conflict and affective conflict, and to be able to delineate between the two, good leaders need to be able to discern what is good cognitive conflict and what is not-so-good affective conflict. Cognitive conflict stays in the realm of thoughts, ideas, perspectives and leaders accept them as they come. Affective conflict, on the other hand, is viewed more as criticism and personal attacks, that make decision-making more difficult.

I think, as managers, as people who lead, we have these kinds of situations that come up every day. How do you handle different and difficult situations? Are you able to discern what is good cognitive conflict, that is task-oriented and heading towards good decision-making? Or do you get caught in the affective domain that threatens to subvert or undermine your authority? Thoughts for you, my friends, on just one aspect of good decision-making and discerning leadership.   Discernment is the key!

Our Scriptures tell us that there's wise counsel, wisdom, in being able to take what many people are able to give us. In good decision-making, there are always many inputs, and finally a good decision is made. So, maybe something for you to think about as you look at your own style of leadership, and whether there's enough room to hear dissenting voices that need to be heard. I pray that you would have that discernment.

"Without wise leadership, a nation falls; there is safety in having many advisers," (Proverbs 11:14 ESV) is how Scriptures put it.  But to handle many advisors we need to be secure in who we are, unfazed by personality issues and always keeping the big picture in mind.  May that be true for us.

May I offer this prayer on your behalf?

Almighty God, bless each person who reads this post. Give to all of us the ability to make wise decisions, to be able to hear voices and opinions that differ from our own without being unduly threatened and help us to be good leaders. We ask for wisdom in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.