Emergency AND Emergence
Change is happening. Here are five important questions to ask (and re-ask) as you lead yourself and others through change.
This piece is taken from a series of papers designed to stimulate discussion and explore practical case studies in dialogue’s School for Rebel Leaders programme.
Inspired to activate transformative thinking and leading, these papers emerge from decades of practice in the art of leadership and our desire to support ethical, engaged excellence in the changing world. The intention is to collaborate in creating future-fit business practices with power and impact.
How do Rebel leaders navigate wisely in emergencies?
Do they jump commandingly into the fray or thoughtfully plot the best way forward?
In breaking with habitual responses and thought patterns, we need to allow ourselves to respond in two ways (this is another of the many examples that involve the principle of AND - we need Either/Or AND Both).
Emergency is a response we are well-trained in. Although the systems in which we function are designed to stall and double-check our instincts and information, we nonetheless have a well-developed physiological emergency response, as well as a strongly-developed strain of anxiety in our current culture that is entirely in response to the potential of an Emergency dynamic. Many people are high-functioning and even thrive in an Emergency.
However, a deep sense of sureness, even certainty, comes from the ability to recognise and act in an emergency, as well as possessing the capacity for patience and observation when entering new realms and assessing the need to be differently responsive. In crisis situations, we need to allow for information to emerge in response to the actions we take towards an outcome, and we need to be able to adapt and adjust. This is an Emergence response.
Allowing Emergence is a challenge for leaders who are aligned with the sense of control and acclaim that comes from being on track and ahead of the game: schedules maintained, costs tight, shareholders pleased. Emergence requires a more open approach; it requires trust and clarity; relies on a diversity of skills and intelligences, as well as the capacity for leading with agility.
The Rebel Leader requires disciplined practice in unschooling the need to follow orders, maps and instructions. We need to be curious, open to alternatives and environmental feedback, as well as willing to pivot at a moment’s notice. Doing this whilst maintaining a sense of vision and leadership and ensuring an engaged, solutions-focused culture of growth and relevance, is obviously a discipline which requires practice.
The trick with both Emergency and Emergence, is to be able to discern almost instinctively which choices and decisions are Vitalistic (life-giving and in line with the ‘fractal code’, or pattern, of the intentional outcome). To be accountable to and for our decisions within adapting systems, we must learn to recognise which choices will either compost slowly, toxify the environment or leapfrog us to the next level in an urgent growth spurt. Emergence is the process of vision and action in which the steps to the outcome are revealed as we move. Vitalistic choices keep us moving along in this emergent journey.
Our schooled, habitual mindset relies on well-worn pathways of past experience, so is unable to envision an untried route with any clarity. The Rebel Leader therefore slows and pays attention, noticing how each step impacts on the complexity of the desired intention. Before responding to this information, it is worth also taking the time and discipline to unlearn expectations and unbiased assumptions. The Rebel Leader must consider the challenge with clear eyes, an understanding of the system and its layers, and a commitment to seek the most wholly enlivening choice.
If each impactful decision is considered in this way, there will be a slower build-up, but a lasting build.
Extract from: Principles for Rebel Leadership –by Lesanne Brooke, stimulating dialogue and practical case studies as part of the School for Rebel Leaders programme