Exercising judgment
The copyright and credit of the photo remains with the original photographer. If you are the original photographer, please email me at the address below and we’ll gladly link back to you.
One woman at the top of Mount Everest….this is an image that to a leader represents leadership. It is also an image that helped a leader to reach the top of his own “mountain.”
I use images to assess leaders and guide them in leadership development. The model is called Visiva Leadership®. In this blog, we explore real-life case studies of the model at work. Let’s look now at this image.
A path to the mountain
At the time this leader engaged me to work with him, he was Vice President, Clinical Development for a pharmaceutical company, given the great opportunity to lead a global clinical program. This would involve assembling and leading a global matrix team to achieve the goal.
Developing a successful clinical program is not easy, in part because it requires transforming a group of highly ambitious, very smart individuals with great technical skills into a high-performing team.
Within this team there were inherent stressors as the different members were working across functions, across countries, and across business units. They were ‘dotted-line’ to him and sometimes there was tension created by conflicting priorities and misaligned business objectives. Different cultures and ways of working were also clashing and surfacing in their ways of working. And everybody had strong opinions. In addition to these typical matrix team challenges, however, there was a complicating factor: there was tension between this leader and his team caused by an apparent lack of trust. This made it more difficult for him to transform this group of experts into the high-performing team needed to deliver an effective clinical trial.
“Solo Leader” archetype
In this leader’s image, one woman is standing alone at a high altitude in the middle of mountains. This woman is Cathy O’Dowd, the first woman in the world to climb Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, from both its north and south sides.
Looking at the image we can immediately deduce that this image contains the “Solo Leader” archetype. In fact, even if the background message is about the team—as no one climbs Mt Everest alone and likely someone else took Ms. O’Dowd’s photo—in this image Ms. O’Dowd is alone: she is at the center of the photo and stands by herself.
Archetypes are universal patterns or motifs; they carry specific energy that is capable of acting upon in the world. The image/s within the archetype carry the information needed to orient us to the attitudes and preferences of the person who selects it. Even more, the images present specific guidelines that we can use to support leaders in our leadership development work.
Let’s start, as always, from the beginning and by using discipline and objectivity in our approach towards the image: One leader and the number one.
“What does the number ‘one’ mean for you?”
The number one in both oriental and occidental symbolism signifies indivisible wholeness. One is the symbolic place of the being, the beginning and end of all things. One is the first cause from which all manifestation originates and to which it will return. Marie-Louise von Franz, in her book Number and Time, writes that: “The purely mathematical fact that the number series begins with the one, but extends on to infinity, indicates that this number is also conceptually bound up with the infinite.” It has a paradoxical aspect: it forms the unit and it contains the whole sequence of numbers.
As I began my work with this leader, I asked: “What does the number ‘one’ mean for you?”
In the disciplines of change management and leadership development, we often talk about changes starting within the self. This leader knew that; throughout our conversation he associated the number one with his own personal accountability: about how he was showing up, setting the example, having responsibility for the team and the work.
It felt very personal to him; he believed in that. In other words: he put himself at the center. And very much like Ms. O’Dowd in the photo, he was “alone” in his description of his own work and accountability for what he needed to deliver. It was not a complaint; it was his deep belief.
As we continued our work by further exploring the meaning and symbolism of the image, his first “ah-ha” moment came when he related how the paradoxical aspect of the number one—the unit and the whole sequence of numbers—was setting the framework of his attitude as he was feeling both the personal accountability and collective responsibility all at once. He believed that he, and he alone, was accountable and responsible for the success of the program and his team.
It was a great conversation as we continued to unfold the aspects of the “Solo Leader” archetype and the intrinsic manifestations that were acting upon in the world; but it was not enough. This image carried more material that we could work with.
Going deeper into the image’s meaning
Part of my work with Visiva Leadership® is to research and to be attentive to the principle of the image so I can recognize its true meaning. I explore the story behind the image if there is one. In this case there was one.
In 1998 Ms. O’Dowd attempted the north side of Everest, but her attempt ended hours from the summit when she came across Francis Arsentiev, an American climber who had collapsed. Along with her team member, they attempted to help her but were forced to turn around and descend, leaving Arsentiev behind. Ms. Arsentiev died.
Every image carries energy and this episode was embedded in this image’s energy. As I was looking for the emotional pattern that this energy was creating in my client’s psyche, I asked him what this episode elicited in him. He reflected deeply and then something clicked, bringing the conversation to a new level. His attitude and his own energy changed. Without hesitation and with an “ah-ha” moment he answered: It is all about judgment.
By going deeper into the meaning of the image, by ‘peeling the onion’ as I more often say, he realized that it was more than just the act of making a decision, it was the subliminal function of evaluating a situation, the act of judging, that resonated with him. It was the second “ah-ha” moment that changed and expanded the course of our work. Once again, it was the image that gave us our roadmap.
Decision making and exercising judgment: the third “ah-ha” moment
One of the most important roles a leader has in any organization is making good judgments. When things are complex, as in the case of this leader, the consequences of judgment calls are amplified as the success or failure of the organization or program depends on it. On a more personal level, a leader’s own career depends on the consequences of his or her judgment.
With the image of the Solo Leader archetype as our backdrop, our work continued by focusing on the difference between decision making and judgment. With his rational, highly developed analytical approach, he quickly concluded that a decision usually involves the determination to act in one way or another, or not to act at all, while judgment includes evaluation.
At that moment of our work, we went back to the beginning and to the guidance of the image: the number one and its paradoxical aspect. And I asked: “Who makes the decisions and the judgments in your team?”
His answer and third impactful “ah-ha” moment was clear: “I do both.” This was the source of the tension between him and his team: his behavior was leading them to believe he didn’t respect their functional expertise or trust their ability to make the best decisions for the clinical program.
His “Solo Leader” archetype was helping him become conscious of this aspect of himself. His great desire to be the perfect leader, the accountable leader, was unconsciously activating the Solo Leader archetype that was then manifesting in his leadership like a ripple effect.
It should be noted that there is nothing wrong with being accountable and enacting the “Solo Leader” archetype; in fact, we want our leaders and ourselves to be accountable. The question is: when does over-exercising our strength become our personal derailer? As in everything, there is always the other side of the coin; or, in C.G Jung’s words, there is always the “shadow” aspect, an unconscious part of our personality characterized by behaviors that the conscious wants to ignore.
In the case of this leader it was his over-exercised aspect of the Solo Leader archetype that was getting in the way by creating a barrier for the empowerment and the performance of his team.
As we moved forward, he focused this phase of his own work on building more trust with his team. By doing so he was able to allow himself to push the decision-making process down to the lowest level while intentionally focusing his efforts on the discipline of evaluating their decisions by exercising his own judgment. Showing respect for team members’ expertise and individual accountability led to greater commitment, collaboration, and communication between the team and the leader as well as within the team itself.
And now . . .
Today this leader is the Head of R&D in a pharmaceutical company. His brilliant career, as well as the successes of the companies he has worked for, have depended on the consequences of his many excellent evaluations and judgments, as well as the learnings from a few bad judgments he likes to remember. I had the great pleasure of having a conversation with this leader recently. He reminded me of the meaning of the number one: the beginning and end of all things and its paradoxical aspect. But what he remembers most is the lesson of pushing decision-making down to the lowest level possible. That is the space where the one becomes infinity.
This image captures the exploration of something deeper and begs the questions: How do you develop your own judgment? What does judgment mean for you? Do you allow other people to make decisions, so you can evaluate?
What is your image of leadership?
Please contact me at letizia@letiziaamadinilane.com with your questions or comments!
