At a recent event on a leadership programme we’re facilitating, I had a flash of insight – in the form of a metaphor. In my enthusiasm, I jumped right in and shared the story – to many blank faces all round. When I asked my friend and co-facilitator, Alan about it afterwards he said he couldn’t follow what I was trying to say.
Lesson No 1 – just because you’ve joined the dots in your own mind, and what you are thinking makes perfect sense, don’t assume it will makes sense to others!
OK, my metaphor was around dependency and the Wizard of Oz (by the way, the movie was released in 1939, over 70 years ago), in particular referring to the idealisation of the Wizard as the one who had the answer.
We all know the story, Dorothy, the main character finds herself in this strange land, and comes across the rag-tag band, a Scarecrow looking for a brain, a Tin Man looking for a heart, and a Lion looking for courage. She finds herself in the unlikely role of leader – but not in the conventional sense. She accompanies them on their journey, on the yellow brick road, to see the Wizard – ‘the wonderful Wizard of Oz’ – as he is the one who has all the answers.
What struck me in the group I was part of was how often we can lapse into a dependancy mindset. And an important aspect of that is idealisation of the (great) leader – ‘the wonderful wizard’.
Of course, we find in the story, that the Wizard is a charlatan, a con man. He (literally) projects a much larger than life persona for two reasons. Firstly in a desire to meet the needs of the group who crave such an idealised all powerful leader, and secondly to maintain his own identity as the all powerful one.
There is a key part of the movie when Dorothy’s dog Toto runs round the back of the curtain, followed by Dorothy, who pulls back the curtain to expose the all powerful wizard.
What struck me was when I get caught up in the double bind of idealisation and dependency, then I’m left in a position of powerlessness. I can’t do anything. I may feel helpless, or disorientated, ore even despair; or I may get frustrated, angry and blame others. But all of these feelings are passive – it’s outside me, I can’t change it. Of course this denies my own power and my own ability to choose – my free will to act as a human agent.
But if I can follow Toto behind the curtain, I can see that there’s nothing there but a man pulling some (meaningless) levers, I can see that he does not have the answers. Then I can begin to take responsibility for my own choices, exercise my own power to use my free will – and engage in acts of leadership.
