When Leaders Lack Answers

We humans seem to be of two minds about leadership.  On the one hand, we embrace the notion of a leader as someone who focuses and aims the energy of others toward shared goals.  From this we get the band leader or mayoral metaphor of leadership, especially in highly political environments like schools.  At the same time, we still hold fast to the lone warrior notion of leadership, expecting those in charge to offer solutions or, in extreme instances, to save us from whatever threatens.

These notions of leadership compete with each other in normal life.  We go back and forth within some normalistic range depending on a raft of factors.  However, when the threat is severe (“worst economic crisis since the 1930’s”), we seem to want the savior leader to emerge.  Then we panic or become disappointed when Tim Geithner or Ben Bernanke seem as clueless about what to do as the rest of us.  

In all likelihood, recovery is going to be a long, difficult slog filled with starts and stops and ups and downs.  No one has a magic wand.

So, what does this mean for your school, department, business or practice?  We had all best begin facing this by harnessing the collective thinking of everyone in our organizations.  And stop hoping that someone else--someone in charge--will have an easy answer.  They don’t.  Now what?