Scharmer on the Primary Job of a Leader

What's the most important aspect of leading? Seeing reality.

Scharmer writes, "The primary job of leadership...is to enhance the individual and systemic capacity to see, to deeply attend to the reality that people face and enact. Thus the leader's real work is to help people discover the power of seeing and seeing together" (Theory U, 136).

Scharmer has a two postmodern assumptions in this thought. First, there is a realization that systems need to be addressed. Systems--church boards, for example--are, by definition, related to power. The better the system, the more it conserves power. This automatically taints its beliefs. Systems, games of power, form their own knowledge. I think this is neither good or bad; it just is. (As Scharmer argues, both individuals and organizations have blind spots.) Systems, then, have the capacity to see in a way that is different from the individual and vice versa. Second, there is the affirmation that community is a gift: Seeing together is necessary alonside seeing individually.

Implicit in this thought, as well, is a sympathy to narrative. People can play a creative role ("enact") the reality that is before them. Leading is helping people play into this role. Because there is a future coming, one must discern it and play into it well. As a Christian, I can say that God is working in history, moving it in a certain direction. Good leaders participate and enable others to participate in this story's direction.

Another way to think of this is that leadership is not a neutral gift. Going in the wrong direction with many people does not make you a good leader. It makes you a terrible leader. A better leader goes in the right direction with no one. Maybe no one would follow them. They are still a better leader than the one who went in the wrong direction. Why? Because leadership isn't a netural gift and if its used incorrectly, it's detrimental to all involved. This is why the first aspect of leading is seeing reality.