LEADERSHIP VS. CONTROL

Anyone who has held a management position, especially in middle management, has had the experience of being torn between fair leadership of those being supervised and a wish for autonomous control of the work/learning environment. Those who have not been in this position find it easy to resent authority in any form out of ignorance of what it takes to carve order and efficiency from chaos and inertia. Antifa mobs come to mind.

Academics are apparently surrendering their roles as leaders altogether. They appear to be sitting on the floor and playing with toys alongside their more infantile charges. When tantrums erupt against anyone who dares intrude with common sense, they are right there, freaking out with the loudest of their charges. That is not leadership. Paradoxically, for some in the "diversity" business, it is a form of passive-aggressive control by way of manipulation.

I'll be honest: I found middle management to be exhausting and frustrating. Then why do it, you might ask? I have assumed middle management positions in vacuums. As a nurse in direct care delivery at smaller and poorer institutions, I took promotion to middle management out of a sense of  commitment to the quality of care of patients/clients. While most of my colleagues were competent at the bedside or in a counseling room, few had the interest or capability to manage timetables, fill gaps in coverage, show up at midnight to cover in emergencies.  I had those capabilities, and l was committed to my patients/clients to be there to ensure the best possible care.

Since I maintained my role as a provider of hands-on care while fulfilling my management functions, I had the advantage of being able to lead by example. I established my standards of care by practicing them in front of those who were subject to my management decisions and interventions. I was open to their criticism, based on their observations of my own work, as well. This kept my management decisions based in reality.

But middle managers work for senior managers. This is another factor those who have never managed do not comprehend. My leadership style was not consistent with the leadership style of my bosses frequently. The majority of those senior managers in my work were off-site. They did not touch a patient, a bed sheet or a mop. And perhaps this is as it should be.

After all, executive/senior managers are the ballast against the limited big-picture vision of the lowest people on the see-saw of authority and decision-making. Middle managers, as I was, are the movable fulcrums of those see-saws. Top-heavy management from above requires the middle manager to move the balance to give the staff below more weight in decisions. Too much inertia on the part of workers requires the middle manager to move the balance point in favor of senior management.

In today's politics, The Left represent a lack of understanding of leadership in a civilized society. Curtailing free speech while advocating open borders and elimination of prisons or mental health institutions for the dysfunctional is simply not any way to lead a society of nearly 400 million people. This attitude represents an ignorance of the human condition which would be acceptable in pre-school students, but not adults.

The conservatives (Center and Right) in the political spectrum tend to be older and often experienced in some level of personal or work-related management. They also tend to be more successful at self-sufficiency, regardless of their place in the economic strata of a capitalist system. They struggle with a wish for harsher control of the chaotic segments of society: Illegal immigrants, ghetto gangs, irresponsible bankers. narcissistic tech moguls, self-aggrandizing Washington bureaucrats, generational welfare clients, to name a few. But their experience and education as leaders informs the wiser among them of the dangers of practicing that control autonomously. 

Today's political atmosphere is explosive and tending to greater chaos in the absence of positive leadership at the fulcrum, US Congress, for example. In the case of national politics and governance, the flexible fulcrum of the leadership is Congress. And here we see a deplorable lack of commitment to the well being of the American population. An entrenched senior political class has solidified in the halls of Congress. Like many seniors, they are losing flexibility, sharp vision and acute hearing. Like many seniors, they are not steady on their own feet and rely on partisan props to feel secure.

The see-saw of proper leadership is not about power or control. It is a dynamic process of adjusting behaviors/ideas on all levels to achieve a good result for all levels of work, education or legislation. By this standard, the current leadership of many world governments is inadequate to the challenges of a growing human population in a closed planetary ecology. And the human populace, increasingly lacking in adequate conceptual education, is acting out its anxiety over the obvious descent into chaos.