We love when a leader shows superhuman abilities. It tells us that they have earned their place as a leader because they can indeed show up better than we can and better than we can.
But it always seems to turn out to be a lie.
Leaders may have great abilities (or just charisma) but it's always anyone's guess how far they have learned to master the power given to them by their role.
Abilities (and the right mentors) offer some capacity to use power well, but only experience can truly lead to mastery... if such experience doesn't lead to downfall first.
It's always fascinated me how leaders often engage with reckless use of their power, and by the virtue of having that power, lose the ability to have empathy for others (see the book "The Power Paradox")
It's also always fascinated me how non-leaders look up to leaders in reckless abandon of their own power, believing that leaders are better humans but simultaneously losing empathy for them as *humans* in just the same way.
So you have leaders who lose their empathy because their power causes them to try to engage with more humans than they can realistically feel (beyond the dunbar number).
But are also still human, just with less capacity to engage with the sheer large number of humans their job calls for.
And, non-leaders seeing them as archetypes rather than humans, furthering turning leaders into something that is no longer human... but still is.
Much like leaders end up turning the humans who are downpower from them into "fans" or "followers" or "constituents", etc... those same humans end up turning leaders into archetypes that are either the greatest or worst version of leaders, including narcissists and sociopaths.
It's no surprise that the two can no longer meet in coherent realities and people end up getting hurt.
But everyone is still human, just unable to see and relate to each other.
It truly takes someone who can imagine themselves in the other's shoes in order to relate, and neither side can do it.
In some ways, this can make the leader an outcast among the people they lead, unable to be vulnerable, unable to engage with their people, unable to be themselves, unable to be open, and unable to make any mistakes for fear of being branded a "bad leader", called out, chastized, blamed, and stripped of their power, and reputation.
And fair enough, it's no bueno to have leaders who make mistakes even with the best of intentions.
And yet, it's also no bueno to have leaders who aren't allowed to be human as they learn to do the very difficult task of showing up for more humans than they can realistically track and love as complex individuals.
We give less latitude to leaders because their mistakes can be at the cost of many, but we rarely think of the cost they have to pay to be in their role.
This is usually because we haven't been there yet. We don't get it yet.
The cost of leadership, the cost of being turned into archetypes, the cost of being seen as more than human while our humanness is less seen, less recognized, less accepted, less welcomed.
Power doesn't just corrupt leaders by making them less empathetic: it also corrupts the way people see them by reducing the details and nuances.
This is what the "halo effect" is: we see the halo around the human instead of the human themselves, and we either react well to it or negatively to it.
And this, too, impacts the human via the pygmalion effect (where our collective perception/bias of someone's faults or qualities plays into making them so, either supporting someone's performance or impacting it.
And yet, real messy humans full of shadows remain underneath the surface, with an inner child full of fears, with an inner animal full of needs and traumas, and parts that still need to be integrated.
Throughout all of this, the leader doesn't get to abdicate responsibilities by walking way to go on "retreat" to figure out their shadows: these shadows need to be worked on, worked out, and integrated WHILE these responsibilities are held, as best as one can, because shadows will never be gone.
The leader who has gone through the gauntlet of an accountability process may have worked out some things and repaired the impact of their actions, but their humanness remains, and their shadows continue to exist, with perhaps *some* of them better integrated.
As with all of us.
So where does this leave us?
To me, this leaves us with a deeper understanding of the gaping chasm of understanding between humans in position of power and humans who are not, while humanness simultaneously remains ever so present and salient.
And what this means, is for us to continue to bridge this gap so we don't lose touch with each other because of the roles and archetypes we occupy.
What this means, is that we have to continue to communicate about our experiences in these roles if we are to be able to understand what its like for each of us to be there, with the challenges that are present.
Nothing else will do, and certainly not silence. Sharing is crucial.
How do YOU engage with this paradox?
