The saying goes, “hope is not a strategy,” yet there are some who say that without hope, no strategy has a chance. When considering the notion of hope, it is important to consider that it is always relative to its twin: despair.
Consider for a moment an audience listening to a CEO stand before them and talk about the strategy that is going to enable her organization to be competitive for the next five years. She has laid out a compelling story about the organization’s position in the market, how they plan to organize to ensure execution, and all of the relevant measures she intends to attend to. Yet when she asks for questions from the audience… nothing.
As a matter of fact, they get up and politely leave, walking away the same way they walked in: despondent, flat, or uninspired. In this case, it stands to reason that they had not been relieved of what they had hoped would be the mounting emotional weight of their current organizational malaise—in other words, despair.
In psychology there is a concept known as projection, where people subconsciously cope with difficult feelings or emotions by projecting them onto someone else rather than admitting to or dealing with them. A therapist deals with this all the time. They understand how to make the interaction a net positive for the patient by creating a container in which the patient can work through issues. While this process is usually examined in terms of the individual, the same process can—and is—seen in organizations.
While I am in no way suggesting that leaders are, or should be, therapists, I am suggesting that one of the most important roles of a leader is to do more than plan and execute a strategy. To be successful, they must have the ability to contain despair so hope can take hold.
Just as in the therapy session, where the therapist and the patient work together so fears and uncertainty can be brought out and worked through in a way that allows the head and heart to make sense of an experience, the leader can create a space where the head of the organization—strategy, execution plans, metrics, and measures—can meet its heart: culture, norms, fears, and expectations.
In therapy, the therapist must be acutely aware of projections because they can become overwhelmed and lose clarity about their role, leading them to become ineffectual. When this happens, the patient has no place to deal with all of the emotional material coherently because there is no containment in which to make sense of both thoughts and feelings.
The same is true for leaders of organizations. They need to contain both the effective—the thinking—and affective—the feeling—parts of the organization so that people can make sense of what is going on and what activities they need to engage in.
When leaders make a space for their people to understand where and how they fit into the growth of the organization in a meaningful way—where head and heart meet—hope (and despair) can make a strategy.