Leaders on Top o' Leaders on Top o' Leaders

Let's do a little thought experiment together, shall we? I want you to imagine a world where everyone thinks they are a "leader." Everyone. Not only do they think they are leaders, but they think they are the "best" leaders. The cream of the crop. Perhaps they believe they have been "hand-selected" as the next round of individuals to lead our great nation. Now I want you to imagine putting 100 of them into a room together. This is a class on leadership. And within this class, give them a leadership exercise in which they must analyze their own leadership, as well as the leadership of others. Finally, mix in the fact that grades are assigned, add a little bit of institutional arrogance, and prime the pot by telling the students that in all likelihood, none of them have ever truly been a "leader." Now what happens?

I'll tell you what happens: an all out Lord of the Flies world, aka my Mondays and Wednesdays from 11:40am to 1pm.

I should be getting used to this by now. In my Leadership and Management class last year, we had a similar scenario occur during a clothing drive for the homeless (yes, for the homeless; class competition + #EveryoneWantsToBeALeader = angsty passive-aggressive email strings and more). And my Leadership class this semester is turning into something similar. Neither of these examples, however, can compete with my experience this past weekend during a Hidden Lives of Groups workshop at the Center for Public Leadership. Yes, I am that nerdy; I volunteer for weekend leadership seminars, although this might be my last...

What was discussed within and among groups is confidential out of respect for my peers, but I think I can paint a pretty good picture. You can fill in the details. The event was a day and a half, mainly consisting of three 1-hour "group" sessions, and one longer "intergroup" event. There were five groups, each with about 11 Harvard students in them. Each group session was an hour long, with the only task being to "analyze and understand the behavior of the group in the context of leadership and authority." That's it. Oh, and there was a psychologist sitting with each group to constantly fan the flame. The groups met twice, and then had a two hour event where all the groups could intermingle. Then the individual groups talked again on their own. Sounds like pretty benign exercise, right?

Wrong. Social psychology initially became popular after World War II. People wanted to understand how the Nazis could commit such atrocities. How did they convince good people to do bad things, or were all the Nazis just innately evil? The latter was the prevailing theory for some time, until experiments were conducted that demonstrated how "Lord of the Flies" we really are. Famous experiments showed how willing people were to obey an authority figure's request (even one they just met), to repeatedly inflict electric shocks on another human being (here's the link to the Wiki on Milgram's famous study). In reality, no one was actually being shocked, but the experiment was designed such that the individual being tested thought so. Other well known research studies have shown the divisiveness of simply giving half a third grade class red shirts to wear, and the other half blue shirts. Perceived differences can be very dangerous.

Back to our story. By the end of the weekend, the groups were at each other's throats. You're not doing the exercise right! We are! We have conflict! You are a bunch of babies! Rah rah us!! The language used amongst the groups was gross. Power struggles ensued. Groups allied. Collectively, many believed their group was "better." Thank God I'm not in one of those other groups! But many of us asked, what were we competing for? Why did people feel the need to be in the "best" group? What would they gain in the end? Nothing. Nothing would be gained (except hopefully some new insight to group dynamics). Nobody won power or money; no one got an "A" or extra credit. Nobody's careers were on the line. We all would simply walk away that Saturday night, back into our own lives. Yet there was such an intense need to be the "best," to be powerful, to be a "winner."

I left the exercise defeated and exhausted. On Monday, when I realized that my Leadership class may be similar to the Hidden Lives of Groups in a lot of ways, I was concerned. I've never held a Hobbesian view of our world, but it's hard not to after this much time with intense "leaders." There are some wonderful people here, but I ain't in Kansas anymore. I've always thought I wanted to be a leader, but I left on Saturday wondering why. And I know I wasn't the only one who thought this (in reflection, what does this say about my own leadership?).

Sometimes I ponder: if we are supposed to be the future leaders of this country, America is screwed.