Walnuts and Leaders
While eating lunch at Brixx the other day with a colleague, I was enjoying a delicious Chicken Florentine pizza. I was taken aback, however, when I noticed a foreign object on one of my slices! It was brown, misshapen, and about the size of a beetle. I sat there puzzled. It looked gross--really nasty. For a fraction of a second, I
considered throwing the piece out. But no, a quick flick took care of this mysterious stowaway.
My colleague gingerly picked it up. He pondered the object for a moment and his quizzical expression shifted to one that reflected surprise and satisfaction. He exclaimed, “I know what it is!” He gave me a chance to guess but I came up blank. If he'd have given me 5 or 10 guesses I think I'd have come up short. How in the world could whatever that was have gotten on my pizza? Dumbfounded, I watched as he flecked it apart. Then it dawned on me: "It's a walnut!"
Please understand this isn't my first rodeo. I've seen a walnut before. But in this instance I wasn't expecting a walnut (or anthing walnutty) to be in the immediate vicinity of my pizza. But when I looked at my colleagues pizza I noticed the pears, the gorgonzola cheese, and yes--walnuts. One must have jumped ship when the pizzas were enroute to our table. Now that I had processed the whole scene, I could make sense of the situation. I had to expand my mental framework to include a wider range of options. I had to realize that there were more pizza-topping possibilities than simply the ones used for the Chicken Florentine. Other folks' stuff can get mixed up in my own.
Believe it or not, I see a connection between pizzas, nuts, perspectives, and leadership: Mental models. I've learned about mental models as part of my Leadership Challenge program. Mental models are the frameworks we use to understand our environment. They affect what we see, how we act, and how we react. Mental models help us make sense of our surroundings--they help us make quick decisions and enable us to think efficiently because they permit us to filter out distracting details. My mental model of a Chicken Florentine pizza, for example, included a range of ingredients: crust, sauce, cheese, chicken, spinach...but not a lonesome, solitary walnut. Even though I knew full well what a walnut was, the Chicken Florentine mental model filtered my perceptions. I didn't have a mental placeholder for nuts, so when I was presented with a nut I couldn't interpret what it was. It was beyond my comprehension.
Sometimes it’s hard to see someone as a leader. Sometimes, it’s hard to identify leaders in a group of people or an organization. Positional leaders are often easy to identify because they have a title, sit on the executive board, or run the meetings. Most of our mental models of leadership have placeholders for positional leaders. We see them in media, on our campuses, and we hear stories of their great trials and tribulations. These leaders wield power, status, they speak boldly and they often stand out from the group. Lots of us recognize these kinds of leaders. Consider them the "poultry" on a chicken florentine pizza. But where does the walnut fit in this analogy?
Sometimes leadership happens right under our nose and we completely miss it. Behind the scenes leaders, also known as process-oriented leaders are easy to overlook. They might not stand out and sometimes they do things that may appear out of place for a leader. They don't seek status or even recognition much of the time--they get things done. Rather than telling people what to do (commanding), a process-oriented leader might ask others what they think should be done. They have subtle skills. Instead of telling someone to what to do, they'll frame the scenario as a question and ask the group to provide an answer. Since the group "owns" their response, they are motivated to see it through. Many times these leaders will adopt a servant-leader approach--working hard on behalf of those whom they lead. To the untrained eye, their actions might look like the farthest thing from leadership.
Consider them the aforementiond walnut stowaway. When our mental models of leadership are limited to traditional, stereotypical examples of leadership, we may have difficulty recogizing the process-oriented leader. Even more curious, sometimes these leaders don't even recognize themselves! If their mental models don't account for this form of leadership, then they may not see their contributions as a form of leadership. It’s important to identify these leaders in a group of people and commend their hard work and push them to improve their leadership abilities, because sometimes they themselves don’t even realize that they are being leaders! And that can drive me nuts.
Author:
Eric Durham
President of The Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity
While eating lunch at Brixx the other day with a colleague, I was enjoying a delicious Chicken Florentine pizza. I was taken aback, however, when I noticed a foreign object on one of my slices! It was brown, misshapen, and about the size of a beetle. I sat there puzzled. It looked gross--really nasty. For a fraction of a second, I
considered throwing the piece out. But no, a quick flick took care of this mysterious stowaway.My colleague gingerly picked it up. He pondered the object for a moment and his quizzical expression shifted to one that reflected surprise and satisfaction. He exclaimed, “I know what it is!” He gave me a chance to guess but I came up blank. If he'd have given me 5 or 10 guesses I think I'd have come up short. How in the world could whatever that was have gotten on my pizza? Dumbfounded, I watched as he flecked it apart. Then it dawned on me: "It's a walnut!"
Please understand this isn't my first rodeo. I've seen a walnut before. But in this instance I wasn't expecting a walnut (or anthing walnutty) to be in the immediate vicinity of my pizza. But when I looked at my colleagues pizza I noticed the pears, the gorgonzola cheese, and yes--walnuts. One must have jumped ship when the pizzas were enroute to our table. Now that I had processed the whole scene, I could make sense of the situation. I had to expand my mental framework to include a wider range of options. I had to realize that there were more pizza-topping possibilities than simply the ones used for the Chicken Florentine. Other folks' stuff can get mixed up in my own.
Believe it or not, I see a connection between pizzas, nuts, perspectives, and leadership: Mental models. I've learned about mental models as part of my Leadership Challenge program. Mental models are the frameworks we use to understand our environment. They affect what we see, how we act, and how we react. Mental models help us make sense of our surroundings--they help us make quick decisions and enable us to think efficiently because they permit us to filter out distracting details. My mental model of a Chicken Florentine pizza, for example, included a range of ingredients: crust, sauce, cheese, chicken, spinach...but not a lonesome, solitary walnut. Even though I knew full well what a walnut was, the Chicken Florentine mental model filtered my perceptions. I didn't have a mental placeholder for nuts, so when I was presented with a nut I couldn't interpret what it was. It was beyond my comprehension.
Sometimes it’s hard to see someone as a leader. Sometimes, it’s hard to identify leaders in a group of people or an organization. Positional leaders are often easy to identify because they have a title, sit on the executive board, or run the meetings. Most of our mental models of leadership have placeholders for positional leaders. We see them in media, on our campuses, and we hear stories of their great trials and tribulations. These leaders wield power, status, they speak boldly and they often stand out from the group. Lots of us recognize these kinds of leaders. Consider them the "poultry" on a chicken florentine pizza. But where does the walnut fit in this analogy?
Sometimes leadership happens right under our nose and we completely miss it. Behind the scenes leaders, also known as process-oriented leaders are easy to overlook. They might not stand out and sometimes they do things that may appear out of place for a leader. They don't seek status or even recognition much of the time--they get things done. Rather than telling people what to do (commanding), a process-oriented leader might ask others what they think should be done. They have subtle skills. Instead of telling someone to what to do, they'll frame the scenario as a question and ask the group to provide an answer. Since the group "owns" their response, they are motivated to see it through. Many times these leaders will adopt a servant-leader approach--working hard on behalf of those whom they lead. To the untrained eye, their actions might look like the farthest thing from leadership.
Consider them the aforementiond walnut stowaway. When our mental models of leadership are limited to traditional, stereotypical examples of leadership, we may have difficulty recogizing the process-oriented leader. Even more curious, sometimes these leaders don't even recognize themselves! If their mental models don't account for this form of leadership, then they may not see their contributions as a form of leadership. It’s important to identify these leaders in a group of people and commend their hard work and push them to improve their leadership abilities, because sometimes they themselves don’t even realize that they are being leaders! And that can drive me nuts.
Author:
Eric Durham
President of The Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity
