RC Perspectives on Leadership
In Re-evaluation Counseling we define leadership as thinking about the functioning of a group as a whole as well as its individual members.
We believe that leadership is necessary if people are to act jointly, especially long-term, toward a common goal. Many organizations have leadership.
We also believe that taking leadership is part of everyone’s inherent human nature. Every person is capable of leading; not only “special” people. Any difficulties in leading are due to a lack of information (which can be acquired) or to past or present oppressions or other hurts. For example, someone who grew up poor might feel, because of their oppression, that they are not “smart enough” to lead—even though they have precisely the expertise, partly from having been raised poor, to move a group forward.
We can overcome any difficulties in leading—by recovering from past hurts and gaining information—so we can benefit from the intelligence of everyone.
INDIVIDUAL LEADERSHIP
For a group to move forward in pursuing its goals, at least one person in the group must be thinking about the group as a whole—not only their individual part in it. And the more members who do this, the better the group will function.
Having an “official” leader can help a group function more efficiently and ensure accountability. With sufficient time, a group can usually reach consensus. But sometimes an important decision needs to be made quickly, and a designated leader is in a position to do that. Afterward, their decision can be tested in practice and modified as needed.
Some groups succeed in using rotating leadership or co-leadership or in operating without a policy regarding leadership. We have decided to have designated individual leadership.
THE FUNCTIONS OF A LEADER
A successful leader does not do the thinking for the group. They elicit the thinking of the group members and then make proposals based on that collected thinking. This ensures that there is broad and diverse input into the group’s decisions and actions.
After eliciting the group’s thinking, the designated leader can organize it, fill in any gaps, communicate it back to the group, and (when pertinent) secure the group’s agreement with and commitment to a plan of action. With enough time, listening, and work, a group consensus can usually be reached.
A leader also keeps a long-range perspective, including thinking about the long-term implications of any present action, and lends confidence, takes initiative, and models humanness and integrity.
An RC leader takes leadership in the context of RC theory, practice, and policy. This means listening well to group members, encouraging them to take leadership (in particular, those from marginalized groups), and helping them solve difficulties that come up between them. It also includes the leader keeping in mind, and planning for, their own eventual replacement as the leader of the group.
Accountability is important. The leader needs to be accountable to the group’s members. And the members need to be accountable to the leader.
USEFUL IDEAS AND PRACTICES FOR LEADERS
The following ideas and practices have been useful in improving the functioning of a leader:
- A leader needs to have a well-balanced life that includes, for example, exercise, learning, fun, loving relationships, and counseling on their difficulties as a leader.
- They need to release feelings of desperation or urgency, challenge timidities, and reach for solidarity with others.
- They and their constituency need to consult the Guidelines for the Re-evaluation Counseling Communities for information on how to take leadership, improve it, correct it, and more. Here are some examples from the Guidelines:
* The RC “counsel the leader” format provides a way for a leader’s constituency to think about and offer suggestions for counseling the leader. (Participation is voluntary.)
* In the RC “self-estimation” format, a leader speaks to members of their constituency about the leader’s strengths and difficulties in the leadership role. Then the constituency members share their thinking about the leader’s strengths and offer counseling suggestions in areas of difficulty. This works best when the members are open and honest.
* The RC Guidelines on “Reaching Decision” and “Handling Disagreement, Criticism, and Upset” are useful for handling and resolving disagreements. They include suggestions for building relationships, voicing ideas and criticisms, and assisting the RC Community to become more effective.
- If after being counseled, and making other efforts, a leader still cannot function well in their leadership role, they may need to step down [no longer play the role]. Then they are offered counseling, so they can work on the difficulty until it no longer impairs their functioning.
SUPPORTING LEADERS
Group members can best support a leader by helping them with the work.
They can also do the following:
- Listen to the leader as the leader thinks about the group
- Appreciate the leader’s work
- Make suggestions and offer counseling when something interferes with the leader’s functioning in the leadership role
- Build working relationships with other Community members and leaders
- Work through feelings from past experiences with authority figures that could “attach” to the present leader
- Intervene in any spurious targeting of the leader
- Continue to develop their own leadership
Distress patterns—often from oppression—of feeling timid, confused, defensive, or uncertain or being slow to speak up or take action can make it hard for group members to give accurate and timely guidance to a leader.
Sometimes members may listen to people in oppressed groups about mistakes a leader has made and not act to change things. Or they may “protect” a leader whom they think is being criticized unjustly.
Most of us find it difficult to speak directly to someone we believe has made a mistake. We can have Co-Counseling sessions on the underlying hurts and regain our courage. We need not abandon someone who has made a mistake or acted in a harmful way.
It is useful to remember that RC leaders are not immune to self-doubt. As they work through their own harsh early beginnings, we can cherish and care for them as much as we would any other member of the RC Community.
MISTAKES
A mistake can be defined as an action or judgment that is misguided or wrong.
Mistakes will happen. If we are growing, we will likely be operating beyond the frontiers of our assimilated information, we will be tackling difficulties that demand fresh actions for which we have no clear answers, and we will make occasional mistakes.
We can gather as much data as possible, but sometimes collecting data takes a long time, and a situation requires acting before the data can be collected. We can make the best decision we can and then test it in practice.
We live in oppressive societies. We cannot pretend that they don’t affect us and won’t lead to our making mistakes. But we have safeguards:
- We have rigorous Guidelines. They include who can be certified to teach, zero tolerance for sexual exploitation, and no use of alcohol or drugs by certified RC teachers. (Alcohol and drugs are also prohibited in any Co-Counseling setting, because they interfere with re-evaluation and cloud one’s judgment.) Other helpful Guidelines include not expanding relationships begun in Co-Counseling to anything beyond a Co-Counseling relationship, “referencing” one another (staying in good communication and offering each other feedback), and keeping up-to-date on Co-Counseling theory and policy.
- We also address oppression directly. People targeted by various oppressions meet with others in their targeted groups—in RC classes, support groups, and workshops—to share their experiences, figure out policy, reclaim their inherent abilities, and inform others in the RC Community about their constituencies and expectations. Allies to targeted groups listen respectfully, resist defensiveness, act to end the targeted group’s oppression, and meet with each other for support in doing these things.
These safeguards can’t guarantee there will be no mistakes. However, they make it possible for us to make fewer mistakes, learn from them, and keep improving our functioning.
We assume that there is no inherent conflict between people. However, societal conditioning and accumulated hurts can make anyone vulnerable to acting destructively, and such behavior must be stopped. If the person were able to think clearly, they would wish to be stopped and would welcome a chance to repair any damage.
CORRECTING A LEADERS MISTAKES
We have policies and tools in RC for intervening when a leader makes a mistake:
- We offer counseling to all the group members involved in the situation.
- The leader who has made the mistake is asked to face it, not defend it, not repeat it, admit it openly, apologize for it, and remedy any harm.
- When a leader is unable to function in the leadership role; when their own or others’ well-being is being jeopardized; or when they cannot distinguish patterned, possibly damaging, behaviors from RC theory, practice, and policy, they are required to step down [stop functioning in their leadership role].
- Leaders can commit to intervening with and offering counseling to each other. Two leaders can make a “paired commitment.” Before a difficulty appears, they can promise each other that they will intercede if either of them gets confused by old distress. This clarifies ahead of time that they have permission and are expected to intervene if either of them is in difficulty.
Co-Counseling leaders are expected to be especially rigorous in their RC practice, including their being attentive to RC Guidelines, continually reassessing their work, and using RC tools to grow in their job.
ATTACKS
In RC we define an “attack”—within the framework of our Guidelines—as an attempt, intentional or not, to disrupt the functioning of an organization or to smear one of its leaders or members. Experience has shown us that attacks are not attempts to correct mistakes or to make necessary changes or corrections.
Criticism related to solving a problem is not an attack. Nor is thinking an error has been made, being upset with someone, questioning others about their thinking, or arguing for a different point of view.
Sometimes a leader is attacked for a mistake they have actually made. Other times they are attacked for something that’s perceived as a mistake but is not—for example, when an RC leader challenges a Co-Counselor’s harmful behavior.
A leader’s perceived or actual mistake may be used to try to invalidate the leader’s entire body of work or all the work of their organization.
Someone engaged in an attack may try to get others to join in and spread an unquestioned, unsubstantiated rumor in an attempt to “prove” its validity.
Attacks are destructive. Someone who has engaged in an attack needs to make a good-faith effort to repair the damage. In RC that includes using our policies and tools that exist for that purpose. If someone continues to attack the RC Community or its members and disrupt the work of the Community, they are no longer welcome in RC.
An attack may spring from someone’s desperate attempt to get attention and help for what is actually an early hurt and lack of help. Although we understand the pulls that can lead to attacks, we cannot allow an attack to continue. To do so would be detrimental to the person being attacked as well as the attacker and would use resources needed to build the RC Community.
Co-Counselors can ask an RC leader for help in resolving an attack situation.
Addressing an attack needs to be done fairly, allow for growth, and firmly address any wrongdoing. When done successfully, everyone involved benefits.
New York, New York, USA
(Present Time 205, October 2021)