Imperfect Leadership – Fragility and Balance

An idea i find myself coming back to time and again is the notion of our ‘Imperfect Leadership’. An idea that imperfection is not an aberration of the system, but rather inherent within it: that we operate within contextual, multi layered, and complex environments into which we cannot be endlessly ‘right’, or do endless ‘good’. Rather (and at some cost to our energy and humanity) we must navigate a difficult landscape, attempting to do the least harm, whilst maintaining an outward veneer of the perfect self that is judged within our systems and culture.

Perhaps we can find value in connecting with our imperfection, rather than carrying it as a weight. Instead considering how it serves us as an opportunity to learn, to be reflective in our practice, to change.

One aspect of this which is interesting is how we are unreconciled: we are able to take action in parallel systems that is seemingly incongruous. So we are, in a very real sense, different ‘selves’ in different systems, and yet often without feeling very much pressure around it at all.

We rarely sit down to see if all our different ‘selves’ align, or have some common values or truth – even though when asked, people typically describe that there are ‘threads’ of identity that run through everything. Certain immutable truths.

I remember something odd: as my own work took shape, it started to present me with opportunities to present and share at ever more senior levels of Organisations, and in strange and wonderful spaces. And i have always enjoyed and found great value in meeting such diverse and interesting people. But i remember clearly realising that there was no room full of perfect people. No matter how high up you looked, no matter how important and hallowed the halls that you walked through, you could find incredible and intelligent people, but still, essentially, people who were as foolish and flawed as yourself.

Perhaps i have not yet walked into the right rooms.

But if we are all, at heart, human and imperfect, then perhaps we should seek models of leadership that are themselves more human and imperfect. Not in the sense of seeking to be ‘wrong’, but rather built upon acceptance of the essential imperfection that surrounds us. There is no one answer that lasts forever, no one course of action that leaves no impact, and no place to operate that does not cast some form of shadow.

This idea that i’m chasing is itself fragile: it’s a familiar pattern in that i feel myself coming back to the language of imperfection across multiple contexts, but i do not yet have a stance or structure around this thought. Perhaps it’s partly about our understanding of fragility – to move from it being a weakness to a strength – especially when we consider that the ‘codified’ strength and certainty of our legacy Organisations is often a thing that holds them static within a dynamic ecosystem. Perhaps it’s partly about balance, and how we must be ‘out of balance’ to be in motion, and yet understand what cost and consequence this gives us.

Some of the Quiet Leadership work has given me certain language to use: the conversation about the shadows that we cast, the relationship between ‘self’ and ‘system’, and the ways that we are interconnected, but not simply within tribes. We can be connected through difference as well.

I don’t know: it’s early work, but shared here as part of #WorkingOutLoud