There’s no shortage of metaphors for leadership, often using sports, which is not always helpful since running an organisation is not playing a game. Nonetheless, using a metaphor for elements of leadership can help distill values, concepts and skills.
Managing risk is a core part of leadership, in particular in schools since the stakes are high and there is an intertwined network of human emotions, expectations, beliefs and stories to contend with. What sort of leader should we aspire to be to manage risk deftly? The answer is intuitive and not surprising: proactive rather than reactive, systemic rather than improvised, collective rather than alone.
About two years ago, the coach and workshop leader Robert Dilts took me through a powerful metaphor to which I have referred ever since for it exemplifies foundational principles. It’s a dichotomy, perhaps a slightly false one as there is a degree of caricature in it, but I believe it is a helpful schema to use when considering how to manage risk.
The frog
The frog is a cold blooded, fairly solitudinous amphibian, heavily dependent on the specifics of its ecosystem with a short life span (2 to 10 years). Frogs tend to conserve their energy, sit for hours, motionless, until an unsuspecting insect happens to wander by and then, only when very close, will they react. To reproduce, frogs lay massive amounts of eggs on the off chance that one or two will survive and their defence mechanism is essentially camouflage or, in some cases, poison. Frogs only see insects when they move, they are essentially incapable of detecting a stationary presence.
Frog leaders manage risk poorly, by sitting (in their office) and waiting for something to happen. They cannot pick up weak signals and will not survive for long outside of their comfort zone. They have a capacity to disappear in times of crisis. These leaders act alone, and are therefore prone to mistakes and incapable of focussing on any root cause analysis. Unsurprisingly, they do not last long.
The bat
The bat is a warm blooded, highly gregarious creature that flies at high speed across large distances. It eats roughly the equivalent of its weight every day in a high energy cycle. Bats are famous for their extraordinary perception, using echolocation to detect extremely subtle and minute objects in darkness. They use hearing to see. Bats live for up to 40 years and will have one pup per year, investing time and effort into the upbringing of their young.
Bat leaders have their ear to the ground and listen carefully. They can pick up very weak signals and pre-empt crises rather than waiting for them to happen. They are present all over the organisation, moving energetically and passionately from point to point. They know how to work in teams. The bat leader invests in people and builds up successors and future leaders (what we could call “metaleadership” – or leading leaders to lead). Risk management is not only done collectively, but using talent and skill from within the group. These leaders stick around.
If you’re a leader, ask yourself these questions to know if you are more of a frog or a bat:
- Where do you spend most of your day? Sitting down in your office or moving about? How many different people do you interact with every day?
- How would you grade yourself on ear-to-the ground alertness? Do you know what is happening across your organisation and are people confident telling you and unearthing warning signs?
- Do you have a solid action and communication plan for crises or do you have a long written risk matrix which is unspecific and is only pulled up to review when there is a problem?
- Do you recruit people who are better than you in something and do you learn from them or is your team full of “yes” people”?
As we pre-empt and manage risk, let’s keep these metaphorical representations of leadership in mind and keep asking ourselves tough questions.
