In this lesson we will explore what the actions from groups and individuals that hinder the health and growth of institutions. In our last lesson we discussed how a healthy institution worked. We talked about the people at the edge of the institution. We talked about the constituency, which is in the next layer. We talked about the power people who are part of the constituency, but who have access to the governance. We talked about the governance and also the overt mission of the institution and the covert mission.
We talked about how the governance is supposed to be in charge of both the overt and covert mission by making the covert into the overt, if they are effective . Now we can discuss what can hinder this. We will talk about the predators who exist in many non-profit and voluntary institutions and the tricks that they use. We will basically talk about four types of predators.
Accounting
One type is the person in the governance who feels that he knows more than anyone else, including board members, presidents, staff, anyone else, and who leverages power, against the overt mission of the organization, in order to try to change the overt healthy mission into the covert, unhealthy mission.
The second type is one of the power people who do not respect the democratic process, or the desires of the constituency or governance and who leverages their power, going outside of the democratic process, to get what they want.
The third type is the person who is stopping over, or who is just trying to gain more power and climb the ladder at any cost.
The fourth type is the person who is at the edge. This is the person who hates any type of authority figure and who wants everyone to behave as they do. This person is usually quite charismatic and thinks their should be no structure so someone like them, who is very charismatic, can rise up in power and have control over the mission of the institution.
In this lesson we will focus in on the predators in charge of the institutions and boards. This type of predator is what is known as a person with what is known as a borderline personality disorder. This type of person is close to bein psychotic. They use hate people and authority and love to have the power to manipulate others. They are people who have learned to master social skills. They are usually outgoing and pleasant. They are bright and intelligent, but something inside is missing.
People with this mental illness usually go after anyone who has more power than they. When they attain positions of power they go after anyone who might be a threat to their power and fame. They are immoral, anti-social, and dishonest.
A person with a borderline personality disorder is very dangerous, especially if they are in charge. For some reason non-profit organizations and churches draw these people like a light drawing moths. Other organizations have boundaries that do not permit their destructive behavior. Corporations, for profit organizations, banks, stores, any type of organization that has a tight structure will expel such people as soon as they find them in their midst.
In more competitive institutions like corporations, law firms, etc., they can be spotted easily. In non-profits and churches they are often given the benefit of the doubt until they have done almost irreparable damage to the organization. Such people are well organized when it comes to deception, using triangulation, and outright nastiness, when no one is looking.
The signs of such a person running such an institution is a great deal of hypocrisy in the institution. Employees and board officers at a lower rung don't usually just end up leaving institutions in which they are in charge, they usually end up discredited and destroyed. For such a person the destruction of others is the primary goal. They are sociopathic, so it is not enough to gain power. The idea is to punish other people, especially those who are good, just and innocent. This person has traded his own soul for success and sees this as a strength, and therefor hates his shadow, the decent person.
This type of person will surround himself with people who are like him, or with people who will not make waves. Anyone who is willing or able to say what will has happened or will happen will be dispatched as this person hacks away at the democratic institution to make it a reflection of what she is. She finds ways to work around the democratic process, reduces the freedoms of others, and to maintain control behind the scenes.
There are several type of people in this world. When it comes to working in democratic organizations, certain types of leaderships are better then others. There are two different types of leadership that may seem similar but are vastly different that we often find in democratic organizations. One is the manipulator. This is the manipulator's style.
The manipulator has basically lived with people or worked in organizations where everyone manipulates. They have learned to use their brain to influence other people in order to accomplish their desires. The manipulator works with groups and makes bargains that he doesn't intend to keep himself. For him this is a normal practice, because since he is a manipulator and thinks that he is normal, to him everyone is a manipulator.
The manipulator cannot be trusted to keep promises. She will bargain, the group will make plans together and then she will just do whatever she wanted. This is not out of malice, it is just the way she is. It is due to being raised around other powerful and manipulative people. When the manipulator cannot manipulate his way through and is in a place of power his fall back mode is coercion. He tries to force his ideas into the system by threatening and stifling people with less power and ramming his wants through. This is all done, of course, for the good of the institution and for the maintenance of it.
The other type of leadership style is that of the collaborator. The collaborator will work with many people, learn their views and opinions and then offer a direction in which to proceed. After much collaboration, if that position is not accepted the collaborator's fall back style is to negotiate. This negotiation consists of agreeing on the things that can happen and then the organization moves in the direction that is decided on by the people and the leader. This second style works better in the spirit of democracy, while the first style, the manipulative style, may work well for quite some time to get things done, but will end up in an explosion. It undermines the overt mission of the institution and ultimately destroys it.
There is also no accountability for the manipulator, so her dreams are usually the only ones carried out and fulfilled while others wonder why they are moving in a certain direction. When one has a manipulator who is a predator it is even worse. People who know him for what he really is, are afraid to speak out against him for fear of reprisals. Most of the time everybody who knows the predator and can see that she is immoral and internally damaged, but it is the elephant in the room and no one dares to speak out.
Such a person draws like minded people to herself until the institution becomes top heavy with people who are not interested in carrying out the agenda of the people, but their own agenda and their small groups agenda, that it becomes laughable. They may even consider it doing whatever it takes for the good of the institution, since they think they are superior to the constituency in the institution and should be making all of the decisions. This is dangerous because it breaks the social contract and is a betrayal to the people of the institution and the mission that all of the people worked on to decide together.
The signs of such a person are:
1. Long term members and employees disappearing, suddenly.
2. Upstanding individuals reputations destroyed covertly, and then by rumors, instead of overtly by the structures of accountability already in place.
3. People leaving and not being willing to explain why they are going.
4. Leadership spreading rumors about individuals instead of being the ones to quell the rumors and to create healthy ways to address issues of conflict.
5. Meetings to clarify complex situations where a person, or people not invited become the subject of the conversation without the leadership intervening to stop it.
6. Meetings done in secret and decision made in secret by people that are not readily visible to the larger constituency.
7. Lastly and very visible, those who speak out against the institution are celebrated in public, and then within three to five years, are shut out and pushed out behind the scenes, or after a scandal is created.
There is a myth about the death of the God of light and wisdom, Osirus. His evil brother Seth presents him with a casket at a party. He wants to see if it fits him. When Osirus tries it on it is so tight that he gets stuck. Seth seals it shut and kills him. When one is in an organization run by predators every Osirus is eventually put into a situation or position that looks like an opportunity. The situation, however, is constructed up front, or behind the scene, to destroy that person.
Ways to deal with such a situation for an institution are:
o Having independent, diverse, oversight committees with random appointments.
o The majority of the constituency having more interest in participatory leadership than representative leadership.
o The maintenance of professional boundaries between the leadership and their constituency.
o Officers and internal affair constituency being willing to be responsible for the fulfillment of their duties with more loyalty to the ideals of the association and overt mission, than one leader or constituency group.
o The support of whistle blowers and voices near the edge who speak out on such behavior.
o The overt creation of boundaries, rules and regulation that don't permit absolute power, so it doesn't corrupt.
Some of the tricks of the trade from these predators:
Putting troublesome subordinates in non-winnable situations in order to evaluate them negatively and drive them out.
Slowing down the individual in order to create an air of incompetence.
Highlighting subordinates accomplishments when they are aligned with positive stereotype of the particular for the race, class, or gender from which she is from.
Examples:
o A woman: She is very nurturing, but very scattered sometimes. She has a bad attitude.
o An African American: He is very passionate and moving, but he doesn't have much skill when it comes to leadership.
o A Gay person: She is very good at what she does, but I just think that she can't be affective enough in most environments
Assignment
In the institution of which you are a part, or the one that you have adopted for study, can you think of any of the elephants that people are afraid to mention? These elephants are some action, rule, or procedure that is in total opposition to the mission of the institution.
Think about them for a moment. Do some exploring if you need to and write them down. Are there ways you can address them? Do you need to address them?
In our next lesson we will discuss what a predator who is climbing the latter at all costs. These are the people who have perfected the art of getting recognition, even when it involves cutting down the competition and stealing the ideas of subordinates.
Casing Your Institution IV Timbaland - Hands In The Air ft. Ne-Yo Tube. Duration : 4.13 Mins.Rating: 4.8840103
Music video by Timbaland performing Hands In The Air. (C) 2012 Interscope Records
Keywords: timbaland, step, up, hands, in, the, air, new, limbo, music, video, vid
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