On Role Models and Leadership

Have you seen that car ad, where the female executive is leaving the office at the end of the day and she is inundated by questions from her subordinates, who are asking things like “can I just get your eyes on this before you leave,” or “this will only take a minute,” etc.? She is moving swiftly through all that and gets into her car as people hover around her car. Then you see her speaking to her partner/husband on the speaker phone where she says “you know, Mondays,” as she speeds through the streets in her sports car.

When I see this scene, what first comes to my mind is that this organization does not know what shared leadership is and there is clear power hoarding happening. These poor people have no decision making power, which clearly is being hoarded by this one executive, who needs to be caught at the right timing because they are so busy and in demand. I see this happening at arts organizations too, where decision making happens so slowly, often bottlenecked by one person who seems to have all the decision making power at the organization. They also often tend to be away on business and never in the office (pre-COVID, of course). Also the other thing that is implied here is that her partner/husband will understand what she is talking about, because most likely his workplace is similarly set up. Clearly she thinks this is a good model, so my question is, who is her role model in leadership?

What kind of role models do you think she has had? What genders did they represent? Race? Sexual orientation? Culture? Class? Most likely, they were white cis males - white males that perpetuate power hoarding, paternalism, and perfectionism (all characteristics of white supremacy culture). And she probably works at a place where she won’t be taken seriously unless she acts in the same way these men do. Otherwise you will be seen as less than. Sound familiar?

These were the cute alpacas I met at the Alpaca Hacienda in Temecula, CA. They seemed to have a shared leadership model in how they advocated for food…

I’ve had my share of power hoarders as supervisors, but I also have been lucky enough to have so many incredible women of color role models in my life. They have taught me about empathy and compassion, about constructive criticism and affirmation, and about generosity and love. They educated me through direct teaching, but also through letting me make my own mistakes. They taught me about trust and responsibility.

So what would I do, if I were in a position of power? First of all, I would create authentic relationships built on trust with people at my organization, regardless of their hierarchical position. I would communicate with them with honesty and vulnerability, in order to create an open and nourishing environment. I would probably find a team of folx who all have decision making power in different areas. Why should I hold all the power and why would I want to make these decisions on my own anyways? I alone cannot make decisions on behalf of people who actually do the work every day. A decision made as a collective is ALWAYS better than a decision made by an individual. As a team, we will work together to move our organization’s values and mission forward.

Tell me, when you think of a role model in leadership, who do you think of?