Leading with Lunch

An excerpt from Chad’s book “Thinking Aloud: Reflections on Ethical Leadership”. We hope you enjoy the essay – and perhaps introduce the questions below as a way to start conversations with your teammates. – ELA Team

Leading with Lunch

This week I had a great lunch with my friend David, who was hired as a manager to drive change in a well-established organization. As an experienced leader, David could see the organization’s strengths, shortcomings, and idiosyncrasies with fresh eyes. Mostly, he saw interpersonal conflicts. Some of these conflicts are new and fresh, some old and stale, and some are ancient and festering. This is David’s honeymoon: nobody resents him. He is using this magic time to forge new relationships and to prepare his team to pursue new strategies.

I asked about his strategic priorities. The answer surprised me. “Our strategic priorities are less important than operations at the moment; I’m very hands-on right now,” David said. “A lot of times, I’m doing what we’re doing here, having lunch.” These aren’t working lunches, either. They are for getting acquainted, for connecting and relaxing together in the midst of hectic work days.

It is easy to forget how powerful a casual lunch can be, in establishing (or repairing) relationships. We sit down, we face one another and we talk. We eat, we relax, we enjoy a meal in one another’s company, and before we know it, we are enjoying one another’s company. At the very least, we are learning more about the people with whom we work and allowing them to know us better. How can that not help us later on, as we work together to solve problems or to pursue our common objectives?
David sees changes already. When he mentioned that a technician was coming in to repair some equipment, one of his team members was surprised. “We’ve been asking them to work on that for months and months,” she said. “How did you do it?”

“We had lunch a few weeks ago, so it was easy to call and ask for their help.”

What else is possible?

Gazillions of dollars have been spent across the nation to convince voters that one candidate or another is incompetent, ill-intentioned, somehow dangerous, or just plain scuzzy. If I had a little of that money back, I’d spend it differently: on pizzas and sandwiches. I’d buy lunches for the people who have been elected, and for those who will be appointed, to public office. I would invite them to get to know one another as people. They need to connect across party lines as adults, and to acknowledge their common objectives before they start hammering on their differences. When old-timers reflect on more civil times, they always tell the same story, of cocktail hours and dinners over which political rivals could relax and find common ground.

This isn’t just true of officials, either. They function as part of a system that includes political parties, interest groups, advocates, media organizations, and voters. We are all, collectively and in different ways, responsible for public policy and governance. As participants in public leadership, we generally need to grow up, come together when we can, and then reach thoughtful compromises and wise decisions on the issues that remain.

What better way to start than over lunch?

Conversation Starters:
The public would be well-served if political adversaries could show respect for one another. A meal is a good context for the kinds of civil conversations that build respectful relationships.
•  Would you consider reaching out to an adversary to try to make a connection over lunch?
•  How would you respond if an adversary reached out to you?
•  What are the barriers to civil and constructive discourse among elected officials?
•  What kind of leadership will be required to break them down?

At Ethical Leaders in Action we believe that most, if not all people, can develop themselves to play leadership roles in many different spheres both large and small. The foundation of this development process is a short but powerful list of virtues which can be developed and improved through conscious effort. For more information feel free to take the Virtues of Ethical Leadership Self Inventory (VELSI) which breaks these virtues down into features that can be individually developed. The results of the VELSI come with a quick reference guide to help you understand how the virtues and their individual features fit together. https://ethinact.com/velsi/

See a list of other posts in this series at Blog Post Series

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