Home » The Leadership Triangle - Part III

The Leadership Triangle - Part III

Posted: Saturday, February 23, 2008

by Sam Shorrosh
Shepherd's Way Consulting

Are you still here?

Great! Perhaps that means you might be a leader!

Leaders love to learn and love to put into practice what they learn. You have come this far, so keep going. Though knowledge can hurt you in the short run, in the long run it cannot harm you.

(e.g. The surgeon's knife, without anesthia, will indeed hurt, but removing the cancer underlying the need for surgery, cannot harm you.)

Now, for the sake of some stubborn people who have a hard time with learning anything new, let me suggest that you don't waste people's time trying to come up with all the exceptions to the rule. That is just another passive way of reacting to change, or the potential for change. People whose lives are consumed with finding "exceptions to the rule" rarely accomplish positive change as they are so enamored with the status quo. Perhaps, in a future series of articles, I will address the motivations and the mindset behind people who fight change no matter how despirately it is needed. For those folks, I have the advice of a firefighter friend of mine. "Sometimes when we arrive at the scene of a fire, we discover people who will not accept the danger they are in, and refuse to come out of the burning building. We leave the building with them in it! We find that when it gets hot enough inside, their instinct for self-preservation will overrule their stubbornness, and they will get out to safety. And, if they are so stubborn as to refuse, then they choose to end their gene pool, for the sake of all mankind!"

Harsh but true!

Now, to the discussion at hand. We talked about Authority in Part I, and Power in Part II. I want to address Responsibility/Accountability here in Part III.

Authority with responsibility makes spoiled brats out of children. Put a sixteen year old boy who has been bought off all his life by parents who gave gifts rather than discipline and love, and you create an entitled monster who demands everyone cater to his every whim. That is the worst form of parenting and an outward expression of the parent's own self hatred. That is not love. True love disciplines and then affirms the discipline with appropriate expressions of love. Never express love to a child who is acting out of control as you only reinforce his selfishness by rewarding it.

What I am speaking of is our responsiblity as parents, and our accountability to our culture, to take the time and make the effort to learn better parenting skills. We all love to say "nobody is perfect" and yet accord ourselves perfect excuses for not trying. When authority breaks down in the home, or at work, power, normally restrained by the position, is released in acts of chaos. Responsibility and accountability are the boundaries to unrestrained power.

Authority from above, and responsibility/accountability to one another, are the channels through which power must flow. Every wire has a core and an insulation layer. The bigger the core the larger the ability to carry power. At the same time, high energy wires require high energy insulation. That insulation is accountability. It defines the outer limits of power in the same way that the size of the core wire defines the level of authority to transmit power. I hope that illustration makes sense to you as it did to me when an electrician explained it to me.

Let's pull all these strands together and set this triangle on its base.

Authority carries an inherent purpose.
Authority must therefore have with it, the power to accomplish the purpose.
Power is expressed through leadership, training, mentoring, setting an example, and sometimes through threat of and fulfillment of punishment.
Power expressed through punishment reveals a failure either in the leader to lead, or the follower to lead.
Responsibility/Accountability provides the boundary for understanding how far personal authority extends as well as how much power should be used to accomplish the purpose.

How does a two-sided trianglo look?

The exercise of authority and power, without responsibility, creates a dictatorship.
The exercise of authority and responsibility, without power, creates frustration.
The exercise of power, without authority and responsibility, creates anarchy.

Where you find a leadership problem, you will find one or more of these areas out of balance. Identify the side out of balance and work towards repairing that area. You will discover a world that you CAN change. Then, teach what you have learned to others.

Best of Luck,

Sam Shorrosh, Ph.D.

Bio: Dr. Sam Shorrosh is President of Shepherd's Way Consulting (www.shepherdswayonline.org), a business and non-profit consulting group providing leadership training, education conferences, leader assessment tools, and access to funding solutions for churches and other not-for profit organizations.

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