Harvard – The Leadership Professor

There’s nothing like live theater for learning about ourselves and life’s complexities.

It lets us walk in another’s shoes and immerse ourselves in new ways of thinking and being! We listen, observe, and witness – and experience one of the few times when we significantly engage with others who speak directly to us that we do not talk or set our minds to work preparing responses to what they say before they even finish speaking. Theater slows life down and encourages us to study our reactions to it.

Quite simply, theater traffics in human understanding – and understanding one’s internal and external worlds is at the heart of leadership effectiveness.

The major challenges in leading – understanding and working with those who are different from us, seeing situations through another’s eyes or different lenses, forging shared interests and common goals, motivating, influencing while remaining open to new learning, understanding the roots of competing interests and conflicts, finding lasting solutions to complex problems – echo life’s larger challenges.

Different cultures, ethnicities, upbringings, experiences, and social traditions can separate us. But broadening our perspectives and minds takes us to rich, new heights and toward common ground despite our differences. Theater lays out these grand dilemmas in accessible form and invites us to watch, reflect, and learn from them. I’ve been reminded of this by a recent event.

I saw “Hear Word! Naija Woman Talk True” – Ifeoma Fafunwa’s beautiful, honest, high-energy production about the complex intersections among gender, culture, abuse, and inequity in Nigeria; and had opportunity to engage with the playwright post-performance. What powerful learning for today’s fast-paced, global world!

The show has been a phenomenon in Nigeria, playing to sold-out crowds in theaters, as well as standing-room-only, pop-up performances in markets, city squares, and other public places. It stars ten famous Nigerian stage and screen actresses, and is having its first full run in the U.S. at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

No question, the production is artistically magical, the cast and musicians superb, and the playwright a courageous and visionary leader in bringing cultural secrets to the light of day. This is an experience you won’t want to miss!

Given the show’s subject matter and the added wallop of “Nollywood” stars as messengers – think about the role of Hollywood women in the U.S. #MeToo and #TimesUp movements – it is a major intervention for social justice and women’s empowerment in Nigeria and beyond.

The subject of women’s abuse and inequity is raw and rings brutally true in the production. The script is based on interviews with women in Nigeria across age, socio-economic class, place, and social circumstances and is a strategic series of song and dance-infused vignettes in the spirit of Anna Deavere Smith’s ethnographically-based work. The production (especially act 1) takes the audience, in the words of WGBH’s Jared Bowen, “right into the heart of abuse." There is pain for sure. But there is also great hope in bearing witness to the enduring spirit, fearlessness, defiance, and authenticity of women claiming voice, power, and personal agency: let change begin with me – a reminder to everyday leaders of their job to make the world a better place in whatever ways they can!

Leading in a global world requires global eyes and heart: the ability to understand and accept diverse cultures, see differences as the springboard to innovation, and work with grace and sensitivities when others hold values and beliefs far different from our own.

In today’s world, management educators and authors do leaders-in-training a disservice when they forget that or convey the illusion of simplicity or control with models and theories that portray work and life as linear, rational, neat, and tidy. Human nature is complicated, and social processes like leadership and management are steeped in ambiguity, confusion, competing values, and choice. Good theater acknowledges that and plays out human nature in its messy fullness. Let our understandings of leadership embrace the same.

Internal struggles, confusion, ambiguity, and doubts of the soul are all par for the course – and recognizing that enables us to summon the courage and persistence to stay the course. Real leadership looks more like the gritty and human process that it is – and less glamorous and heroic – when seen through the difficult choices and challenges of compelling characters, like the women in “Hear Word! Naija Woman Talk True”.

Life is not always fair nor power and resources equally distributed, and there is much work – globally and locally, personally and organizationally – to do. That’s why we need leaders fully prepared for the road ahead and able to embrace an increasingly diverse world without fear of loss!

I just finished reading a new book by Warren Bennis, Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership. I loved it for a number of reasons.

First, Bennis is the father of applied leadership studies and a writer whose prose sings with humor, grace, and wisdom. I always learn from Warren Bennis and from how he frames experience. I expected to do the same from this – his book #30 – and I wasn’t disappointed.

I’ve got Post-its marking pages with good reminders and advice on topics like, garnering power through proximity (70), recruiting effectively (116), staying engaged in times of crisis (123), networking like a pro (131), the power of forgiveness (134), staff empowerment as “executive constellation” (146), leader renewal through self-reinvention (150), trust vs. charisma as a leadership cornerstone (184), the imperative for enhancing adaptive capacity and ongoing learning (193), and grace in aging (all of Chapter 9).

Unlike some reviewers, I enjoyed digging through the stories of Bennis’s successes and failures – his crucibles to transform experiences into leadership muster – for truths that spoke to me. That’s what a good memoir does. So caution: this is not a book heavy on advice about how to lead.

No, Still Surprised is a book that encourages readers to think about their life experiences and choices, what they’ve made of and from them, and what work is left to be done.

I was surprised, for example, how quickly the book hooked me into reflecting on my own graduate school days in Cambridge. Some stories sent me easily down memory lane: thinking about the dynamic early days of the Sloan School at MIT (where I took courses while at Harvard), or remembering the excitement in discovering that a field like organizational behavior existed – and being thankful for wonderful graduate school chums and faculty who fed my excitement and who have remained close friends since (and because of) those earlier years.

Other Bennis stories brought back poignant memories of people – some of whom are no longer with us — who played a role (direct or indirect) in shaping my career choice, professional interests and directions, and values. The diverse cast of characters during those intense NTL Bethel summers, for example, made learning challenging and fun. Our eldest son is named Chris so no more need be said about the place that Chris Argyris, an extraordinary teacher and mentor to me and to my husband, holds in our hearts. My dog is named Douglas McGregor as a tip of the hat to the man whose classic, The Human Side of Enterprise, is still vital, important, and undervalued in today’s bottom line-oriented work world. And reconnecting with Ed Schein is always a highlight of any trip back east for important life reasons.

But the real power of the book came from Bennis’s ability to capture the electricity, the evolving dialogue, the community of inquiry, the hope, the shared interests, and the commitment to social change and human development that characterized the Cambridge scene for me.

I had forgotten all the early 99 cent breakfasts at The Tasty, the noisy greasy dinners at Buddy’s Sirloin Pit, the late night coffees at Café Algiers and the like – the regular coming together with colleagues to share new insights on our evolving professional selves and our plans for how to better use our new skills. Are we Model II yet? How can we learn to reflect-in-action? What is real collaboration? The conversations and meetings – formal and informal — about intervention theory, professional effectiveness, tacit characteristics of organizational life, models about self-fulfilling prophecies and defense mechanisms, applying ethnomethodology, opportunities for planned change, and shared field-work projects were lively, frequent, and learning-filled.

Faculty, students, managers, consultants – we all talked with and to each other, no status separations, working together in Ivory Tower offices or on the shop floor. The simple currency for invitation to participate was a passion for the issues and something to contribute – and newcomers were welcomed and mentored. The regular Sunday night meetings in his Boston home that Bennis describes in the book is one example of this larger phenomenon.

This was a time and place for me marked by a vibrancy and an unapologetic commitment to issues of practice – to the leaders, managers, followers, and communities whose lives and work could be made better as a result of our thinking, writing, coaching, musing, and consulting. We weren’t learning just for ourselves and our career advancement. We were driven by a larger purpose – a sacred purpose. We wanted to make things better. And our teachers, mentors, and role models like Warren Bennis, helped us believe that was possible.

That unshakeable faith in human nature and in a better future is at the core of Still Surprised. And it is not now – nor was it back then – the faith of a Pollyanna.

Those who taught and led the neophytes – people like Warren Bennis, Chris Argyris, Ed Schein, Dick Beckhard, Don Schon, and others — understood the inefficiencies, pain, and down-sides of organizational life. Many has seen first hand the evils of war and injustice, and they set out to do something about that. They brought open minds, entrepreneurial spirits, and irrepressible optimism to the challenge – convinced that new ways of organizing, leading, and managing were possible.

They were carriers of America’s historic faith in progress and initiative. They believed in democracy, openness, and the worth of every individual. Above all, they believed in learning and experimentation. They knew they did not have all the answers – or even all the questions. But they were confident that both were waiting to be found. Their faith and hard work spawned an exciting time, a revolutionary intellectual movement – a paradigm shift – that changed forever how the world understood people, work, leadership, organizations, and change. Their efforts gave rise to the organizational and applied behavioral sciences, and they developed a powerful array of ideas and practices for understanding and improving organizations – team building, change management, coaching, performance feedback, organizational design, managing diversity, empowerment, participative management, EEO efforts, to name just a few — that we have come to take for granted today. Most important, they helped people like me believe in ourselves, our potential, and the potential of those around us.

Still Surprised challenged me to remember all that. May it do some of the same for you! It reminded me of the power, energy, and intellectual stimulation in a community of like-minded souls – and of how rarely we think to create those for ourselves. But it’s never too late, and there is much work left to be done even as the days grow shorter for us all. Contribution is what leadership is really all about. What will yours be?