Leadership Divided by Ron Carucci

On Monday, in class, we had a visit by Ron Carucci. Ron is the COO of Mars Hill Graduate School and is business consultant. He recently released his book, Leadership Divided: What Emerging Leaders Need and What You Might Be Missing.

Carucci is an expert on the interaction be incumbent leadership (primarily baby boomers who run companies and churches today) and emerging leadership (people in their 20's and 30's).

Central to Carucci's thesis are the differences of values that cause misunderstanding and conflict between these groups of leaders. Some of these differences include:

1. Incumbent leaders tend to safeguard their position and its privilege through a carefully crafted public image. Emerging leaders value openness and equality.
2. Incumbent leaders tend to view the emerging leader as disrespectful and "not a team player" whereas the emerging leader doesn't give respect unless its earned, and may not demonstrate respect through quiet submission, but through thoughtful debate followed by full buy-in.
3. Incumbent leaders don't usually invite emerging leaders to the table as a peer, but often only for fact-finding or opinions. Emerging leaders long for a seat at the table to bring their gifts to the mix.
4. Incumbent leaders often misunderstand the big dreams ("we can change the world") and seemingly excessive self-confidence as arrogance whereas the emerging leader just believes that the world can be changed by even a single person.

In reality, Carucci says, we all display a mix of these characteristics, and I can certainly see all of these in me -- often depending on the context (see below).

Here's some strategies for Incumbents:

• Know that respect doesn't come with the position. Earn respect each day through listening and responding.
• Risk inviting divergent opinions to the table.
• Demonstrate sincere gratitude and respect for the contributions. "That's great. How did you do that?"

Here's some strategies for Emergents:

• When invited to the table, come to the table. Don't refuse or "make them pay" or resent any limitations placed upon you. It's growth to be invited.
• Develop skills in sharing vision and ideas in an honoring way that educates and assists the incumbent leaders to process the ideas and how they could change their own view of the world.
• Honor the contributions and foundation that the incumbents have prepared. They aren't (usually) leaders for no reason.
  

Personally, I feel like I live in both of these worlds.

At work, the company is primarily led by younger people. Our senior leadership is between 37 and 44 (I was 28 and Zach was 31 when Front Porch began in 1998). I feel like an incumbent leader in this context because: I'm a founder in the company so I have seniority over everyone except Zach and we've had a pretty young organization over the years. A quick thought about the 20+ people who work in my part of the company indicates this as the distribution of ages: (20's: 9, 30's: 10, 40's: 3, 50's:3). So, I'm certainly in the top half (median age) of the group. I tend to display characteristics descriptive of incumbent leaders in Carucci's book.

At church, the leadership is more senior. As an elder at Sierra Bible, I'm about 10 years younger than the next younger leader. In this context, I clearly feel and act as an emerging leader would. This can be frustrating because I often feel that we're speaking different languages on the board.

So, being aware of these contexts and the different roles and relationships that I engage in as a result is very helpful to my ability to navigate through the waters.

-Derek