If we can engage in playful corollary with leadership in organizations, then four goals of leaders are to:<\/p>\n
Work at reducing the level of anxiety.<\/strong> Leaders cannot directly reduce the systemic anxiety of an organization. In fact, to try to do so directly winds up being manipulative and willful and only manages to increase anxiety. But leaders who can function as the non-anxious presence by regulating their own reactivity, and managing their own anxiety, can help systems self-regulate.<\/p>\n Reduce irresponsibility<\/strong>. Reactive organizations often cultivate irresponsibility through groupthink, herding, and an overfocus on \u201ctogetherness.\u201d One goal of the leader then, is to focus and cultivate individual responsibility: challenging people to say what they think as individuals and holding people accountable for their performance.<\/p>\n Improve open communication.<\/strong> One of the most effective ways to promote health in an organization is to open up the system\u2019s patterns of communication. A by-product of reactive, anxious systems is secrecy, mistrust, and gossip. When I became administrator in one highly reactive system I focused on this goal immediately. I intentionally flooded the system with communications from my office (it didn\u2019t take more than a couple of months for the employees to playfully refer to me as \u201cThe Memo King.\u201d), I announced that I didn\u2019t keep confidences or secrets, and I held people responsible for what they communicated or failed to. <\/p>\n Develop a culture of intentionality.<\/strong> Reactive and stagnant organizations often lean toward inertia. They go about their work in automatic, habitual, unthinking ways. Even if a practice doesn\u2019t \u201cwork\u201d they\u2019ll keep doing the same thing over again merely because, \u201cthat\u2019s the way we\u2019ve always done it.\u201d Intentionality means that everyone is mindful about why and how things are done. There is no such thing as \u201ca little thing,\u201d details matter, and yes, neatness counts and spelling counts. <\/p>\n As Bowen pointed out, this is \u201ca slow process.\u201d So one final goal for the organizational leader is a willingness to stick it out and see it through. Change comes slowly to organizations, and it doesn\u2019t happen without leadership. <\/p>\n Quotes from Murray Bowen, \u201cFamily Therapy after Twenty Years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Leaders approach their work in many ways. They use various frames of references to inform how they go about their work. Some, for instance, focus on the concept of \u201cleadership style.\u201d Others lean toward the leader-as-manager approach while others take … Continue reading 
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