Exploring opportunities for RARE leadership in my ‘Wicked’ NPO
Interestingly, in their first book Rare Leadership: 4 Uncommon Habits for Increasing Trust, Joy, and Engagement in the People You Lead,[1] Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder state that RARE leaders need to combat the tendency to be ‘sandbox leaders’; in other words, leaders who deal with conflict like children would in a playground situation- reactively, utilizing habits that have not been intentionally curated.[2] They say that there are two tracks of leadership, the fast and slow tracks. The slow track is the strategic, rational side of your brain[3] while the fast track is the side of your brain that operates automatically…. They call it muscle memory.
It is worth noting that in her book Rethinking Leadership, Annabel Beerel claims the opposite: that today’s leaders need to spend more time refining the technical side of leadership.[4]
I will leave the debate over which side of leadership theory and discipline is getting more attention today for another person to pursue. What is interesting to me is this idea of creating the habits of leadership-or muscle memory for us to fall back on so that when we are triggered to use our fast thinking response, it is trained to respond in ways that reflect our true values. The question I have is how can I leverage that idea for empowering participants in difficult conversations?
Could the principles behind this model of RARE leadership get me closer to empowering people to have difficult conversations in areas of disagreement while remaining in fellowship? As I am working on designing prototypes to test out potential solutions to this ‘wicked problem’[5], I am considering how to set up discussions to be successful.
BREAKING DOWN THE MODEL AND APPLYING IT TO MY NPO
Remaining Relational
The first ‘R’ in remaining relational seems pretty obvious to me. This month, as I was sharing my prototype options with an expert, I was challenged to leverage the relationships I have to forge new discoveries in difficult conversations. Essentially, he asserted that I would have better outcomes in facilitating such discussions, if I collected a group of people together in a room that have varying views on an issue, but that have relational trust with me.
Act Like Yourself
This second posture of the model again, easily ties into my work. In this same conversation with the aforementioned expert, he affirmed that I needed to first have the group find something ‘essential’ that they could align on. In this case, I am considering using a Christian creed, or a very high-level assertion of some shared belief. This serves not only as a sort of glue for the participants- that in difficult situations, we can recall back to what unites us- but it also provides a reminder of what is an essential identifier to each one of them. The issues we may discuss (the 2024 Election, BLM, Abortion, Same Sex Marriages to name a few) are important, but there is something even more instinctive that needs to draw us together.
Return to Joy
Pulling in Validation and Comfort[6] as proponents of joy works well in this exercise of finding the affinities between Warner and Wilder’s work and my own. How can I facilitate both experiences in my discussions so that people actually want to engage in these meaningful, but difficult conversations?
Endure Hardship Well
Reflecting on my Wicked Problem, (can I just start calling it a Wicked NPO?) I am encouraged by the discoveries I made last week[7] that speak to the redemptive qualities of working on problems that cannot be ultimately solved. Furthermore, I am reminded of the concepts of differentiation that we picked up last year in Failure of Nerve.[8] Together, I see the endurance highlighted here as another call to understand who we are and clarify what our job on this plane is and is not.
A Case Study
These ideas recall a story I heard recently of a group of women who bravely engaged in a discussion group for 5 years. They came together over grave differences regarding abortion.[9] Of course they started out with a deep distrust of the other, but over time, that deep distrust morphed into deep caring. And the kicker was that no one changed their view on the issue. This is what I want more of: the ability for us to hear and be heard.
I think that I may have become a bit smarter. Instead of focusing on surface issues, this week’s read (and others) are helping me to form a deeper focus: How do I help the people in these conversations move from habits of ‘sandbox’ behavior to more intentional, ‘RARE’ behavior? This book has given me some ideas on prompts to create space for participants to take on this challenge.
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[1] Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder, Rare Leadership: 4 Uncommon Habits for Increasing Trust, Joy, and Engagement in the People You Lead, 1st ed. (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2016).
[2] What Is RARE Leadership, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq73Hve52iE.
[3] Warner and Wilder, Rare Leadership, 20.
[4] Annabel Beerel, Rethinking Leadership, 1st edition (London ; New York: Routledge, 2021), 27.
[5] Joseph Bentley PhD and Michael Toth PhD, Exploring Wicked Problems: What They Are and Why They Are Important (Archway Publishing, 2020).
[6] Marcus Warner, Rare Leadership in the Workplace: Four Habits That Improve Focus, Engagement, and Productivity. (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2021), 50.
[7] “Building a Kingdom Not Our Own,” accessed February 19, 2024, https://blogs.georgefox.edu/dlgp/building-a-kingdom-not-our-own/.
[8] Edwin H. Friedman and Peter Steinke, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix (10th Anniversary, Revised Edition) (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2017).
[9] “US 2.0: Living With Our Differences | Hidden Brain Media,” February 15, 2024, https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/us-2-0-living-with-our-differences/.
About the Author
Jennifer Vernam
8 responses to “Exploring opportunities for RARE leadership in my ‘Wicked’ NPO”
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I thought the tension between the fast and slow track thinking… the intuitive and the technical… was interesting, too. After reading Khanaman I went away chastised that I needed to lean into system 2, and now I’m encouraged to keep developing system 1 through deeply ingrained habits that show up automatically.
Probably the answer isn’t either/or, it’s both/and.
I do think the principles outlined in RARE Leadership will, if embraced, help with difficult conversations. This is one of those few books that will stay on top of my pile when this program is done and that I’ll seek to implement more deeply in my life and leadership.
Hi Jenn,
I love this statement, “This is what I want more of: the ability for us to hear and be heard.” I 100% agree! I’m curious, in the case study you mentioned with the discussion group, did the women do life together outside the discussion group or not? If so, how? Tell me more about discussion groups.
Hi Jenny! From what I recall, the women only interacted in these very structured meetings; at least, at first. It is a good podcast: I think you might find it helpful. Also, the participants wrote an article (which I have not read) that might give more details: https://bostonglobe.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-talking-with-the-enemy/41339983/
Jen, as I read your post, I was reminded how much these doctoral NPOs are beginning to feel more and more wicked (and perhaps every NPO is a wicked problem). My NPO is feeling so wicked today that I had to stop working on my background essay and switch to replying to blog posts.
I do think what your expert shared is super helpful — convening people with varied views in the same room to have difficult conversations is hard, but in your case, the variable is YOU — you have established relationships of trust with the participants, and because they trust you, they CAN interact with others, even if they greatly disagree. With that bit of critical information (the need to have relational trust, as a convener), how does that affect your NPO? I wonder if the “How do I help the people in these conversations move from habits of ‘sandbox’ behavior to more intentional, ‘RARE’ behavior” is as much/more about the “WHO” than the “how.” Maybe that’s too overly obvious? I need to process that more. Which makes me wonder the same about my own NPO.
Interesting applications to your NPO. Maybe this is what you’re hinting at, or maybe I’m just seeing what isn’t there, but how did the ideas of RARE leadership inform your framing of your NPO discussion gatherings? In other words, when people of differing views gather you will start with some guidance and some ground rules. Did any of the principles from this book change your thinking or inform those future ground rules?
Hi Jennifer,
I am taking RARE to guide my discussions in my “Third Space – a space of GRACE?” at the Immigration Symposium on March 9th (prayers welcome). I suppose this is part of my field research, but it also my attempt to initiate a small ‘cascade’ in my little corner of the world in regards to immigration.
I liked your leadership muscle memory…caused by experience. We use this a lot in training our young US officers/soldiers to win the close in fight as well as the operational/strategic war. Both System 1 and 2 thinking required!
Selah…
Hi Jen…thanks for your post. You wrote,
“What is interesting to me is this idea of creating the habits of leadership-or muscle memory for us to fall back on so that when we are triggered to use our fast thinking response, it is trained to respond in ways that reflect our true values.”
I also wrote in my blog that this was the particular part I found interesting about the book….and the part that made the book particularly disappointing. My sincere question: Did you feel like you have a clear understanding on how to go about re-training your fast thinking brain to react more congruently to your true self? I can’t say that I did, so I would be happy for you to enlighten me!
Hi Scott- I also was looking for the answer in the book, but assumed I had missed it in my inspectional read.
I have been thinking about this, though, and I wonder if the trick is simply in maintaining healthy spiritual discipline? Galatians 5 comes to mind. Is that too simplistic? What would you add?