Leadership by Influence vs. Control…

I watched a speech by the former president Bill Clinton this weekend. He spoke to the subject of Iran and attempts to lead by control rather than by influence. His words rang true and I began to reflect on this concept globally and locally.

In the global community, at home, or in our working lives, we each have daily opportunities to show leadership. How do we choose to lead?

We must choose to lead by influence, by example. When we turn on the TV news, we are clearly confronted by the images people who say one thing and then do another. We see countries where leaders choose to try to remain in control of the hearts and minds of people by trying to eliminate the prospects for thought sharing and for disagreements with a proposed approach. They truly believe that by controlling the physical bodies of someone, they will have a say over their hearts and minds. Clearly, the uprisings of young people in Iran, the sharing of ideas via the internet and the cries for freedom literally being heard around the world have made this impossible. Even the raised voices in the dark of night speak clearly to influence over control.

In our own country, we still have neo-cons in politics raising their voices to scream about how we must take some sort of control in Iran. They do not appear to have noticed that the very presence of our recent changes in government already show our solidarity with the people of Iran. They stand again, on the wrong side of history. They are trying to remain in control of a time already passed.

We have no business telling the protesters in Iran just how they should walk forward or how to set up a “democracy”. I am assured that they can and will set up a system of their own and the world will work with them as the change unfolds, but this is not our moment, it is theirs. The horror and the beauty belong to them as it belonged to us in our own revolution many nights back. We can support them by messages large and small and by making sure we do not give the powers that be any reason to clamp down on a blossoming movement for change. It is imperative that we do not become central to the internal discussion in Iran.

At home, as parents, we really do not have the ability to just say, “because I said so” anymore. If we do not try to answer the tough questions raised by our children, they will seek answers elsewhere. We will be left behind as they change and grow. Our best means for staying connected is to have influence, again, not control. Influence is the voice in their hearts that asks what mom or dad would think about a choice. This brake on potentially dangerous decisions comes from a respectful collaboration between parent and child. It comes from a place where your child cares about what you think. Control breeds rebellion because it suggests a secret knowledge owned by the adults. When a teenager begins to discover that us grownups are all just trying to figure it out as we go, they can either look at us with compassion because we have been engaging with them openly about our concerns and challenges, or they can look at us with disgust because we have put up a front of being the “expert”.

At work, we all have had the boss who feels insulted and challenged by any disagreement with something they have decided. There is no way to respectfully share your ideas because to do so can actually threaten your livelihood. An insecure and controlling supervisor may succeed in their very small fiefdom but they will never have influence over the long term path of the organization. Without influence, you will always be purely a cog, no matter what title you may obtain. Leading by control does not bring influence, and never brings respect.

How do you choose to lead?