Leadership and Management

Even when he's wrong, tell him that he's right, / You can take the blame for him day and night. ~ Rudy Stevenson

In recent reading about leaders and managers I realized they do many similar things (planning, organizing, coordinating, controlling, staffing, and motivating), but they do them from different places. 'Leader' comes from an Old English and Germanic verb 'laedan' meaning "to guide," "to cause to go with one, or lead," "to travel," "to go," and as a noun "the one in first place"; leaders stand in front of people and inspire them, causing them to go. But 'manager', from Latin 'manus' meaning 'hand', stands behind people and manipulates (same Latin root) them; a manager uses people to accomplish things, and management is the 'handling' of laborers and "the art of getting things done through people" (Mary Parker Follett). When people buy into a vision together, someone leads - when people are a resource to buy, someone manages them.

I exaggerate to make a point, of course; in reality there's a large swath of overlap just as in any female led relationship there's a large swath of overlap, and so my wife's response to my uxorious erotic truth, "I don't want an employee for a partner", wasn't very surprising. And though my honest response was I didn't want to be her employee either, at the time I had a hard time differentiating exactly why, until I thought about blame.

When mistakes happen a manager must fix the bottom line, and so a manager usually assigns blame for mistakes to an employee and (constructively) criticizes inefficiencies. But such blame assignment is a responsibility, extra work and burden, for which managers get benefits and pay recompense; my wife knew she'd be a woefully underpaid manager. Yet fortunately, I wasn't looking for a manager either, didn't want a blame assigner to stand behind me to use and manipulate me; a blame game of bottom line efficiency I think we both knew instinctively was an untenable relationship framework for our love symbols.

Moreover, my wife is, as many people, painfully aware of her shortcomings and also feared being an underqualified leader, especially if she had an employee without opinion, or creativity, or ideas, or character, for when her mistakes are compounded by my unhelpful silence, as the responsible manager, she'd only 'have herself to blame' for what was produced. But just as she didn’t understand I don’t have an employee blame shuffling mindset, she neither understood I wanted to free her to seek and obtain her passions in life and I don't mind sharing mistakes on the way.

Everyone has setbacks and obstacles while learning what they are here on earth to learn, but if we are on a journey together, if we have bought into the same vision, then as partners in something together I am always happy to voice my opinion in order to help us along as best I can, so that we journey forth together as best we can. And sometimes in order to learn value and worth she sometimes needs to make experiential mistakes, and so sometimes even though something seems a mistake to me and I may disagree with her, I follow on anyway because I want to participate in her learning too. I am not with her in order to get to the bottom line or even the finish line, I journey with her to be with her, to be a part of her journey and be a partner in her happiness. I want love and companionship with her ambitious daring and most passionate self, and I want to help her passions and life lessons to fruition, see her satisfied content and happy.

I'm sure we'll travel some places side by side and split leadership fifty-fifty, and sometimes perhaps I'll lead because I'll simply be better equipped for some stretch of road, or because she's injured, or who knows why, but mostly, because she knows where her happiness lies better than I, she'll lead our partnership as we journey together.

And as a leader, I only want her to try to make mistakes constructive (criticism) by educating and inspiring me so we become better and more intimate fellow travelers, more able willing and worthy of our journey together and of our goal, still yet partners with one in the lead position. I think we both want a partner in a journey, a dream, a vision, a partner in passion, someone we can dynamically and intimately interact with on our way somewhere together.

Arguing with 'Wrong' Passions

Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still. ~ Dale Carnegie

I think what I meant about social and political issues is that it's hard for me to tell other people they are wrong for getting the meaning they get from the things they get meaning from. I do act against some things that others believe adamantly, yet I wouldn't tell those who vote against what I vote for, for example, that they are wrong; even though my position may not win, I couldn’t tell someone they are wrong for wanting meaning and significance, for acting to obtain it. I may disagree with their actions and even want some people policed or put in jail for their harmful actions (for example), but if they truly believed they act meaningfully 'right' by their symbols and framework, wouldn’t tell them they are wrong to try gaining meaning and significance with the symbols and framework they have.

Of course I might argue they should know better than to have such a closed or untenable (in some way) framework, someone should teach them better, or have already taught them better; yet I wonder if these 'shoulds' and 'oughts', dependent as they are upon another different framework being 'right', are an attempt to invalidate (and justify the invalidation of) a person's humanity by taking away what they do have, their symbols, their framework, their life meaning and significance.

I certainly believe in educating those who want education, those who are open to thinking to considering, to dialogue, to dialectic, to the education of their frameworks and themselves; but when they are not open and willing, when they are convinced of their rightness and will consider no alternative to the rightness of their meaning, significance or framework, I think it is wrong (in addition to likely being unfruitful) even to try to convince people of anything different. I believe there may be some things we shouldn't or can't effectively argue about; and though I may vote against them or stop their actions if I can, I rather feel I should treat other's passion as valid to their humanity, as my passions are valid to my humanity.

I don't believe anything should go, but when I think about the larger picture of our common humanity, inevitably someone's passion does win out, someone's human desire wins, the power of meaning and significance wins, (some part of) humanity wins significance – and significance building through passion and experience is, to me, part of the fascinating point, if not possibly the whole point, to being human.

Different People, Different Passions

I haven’t always been this way, but I avoid confrontation and the threat of confrontation in general these days, avoid social and political issues, though I often pay close attention to people's opinions because they are so indicative of their frameworks, of their symbols, of their passions, and of the meaning and significance they find in being alive. The flip side of feeling there are so few people I can have a thoughtful topical discussion with is that there are so many people with whom I may discuss their opinions and passions, their frameworks and symbols, their life meaning and life significance.

Of course on one hand I can afford to ignore so many issues because my social and political circumstances allow me to ignore. Yet on the other hand it occurs to me people may have been ignoring and watching other people for millennia even when it may have behooved them not to; and I like to think they simply liked their particular outlook, attitude and framework more than they feared whatever social and political threat they faced. Of course on the more cynical hand, they may have feared changing their particular outlook, attitude and framework (or feared the consequences of standing up in society) more than they liked what they could have stood up for. Yet all these people, their attitudes, passions, symbols - their lives and the significance of their lives are different, and I can’t help but think, different isn't necessarily wrong.

So while there lurk issues of immediate relevance to the subjects I generally explore, such as female supremacy for example, I simply avoid it. It isn't just that any sort of supremacy isn't my thing (and it isn't), it's more accurate to say I have different passions, different symbols and a different framework. So I don’t argue, I either watch in fascination or ignore, as with so many social and political issues; while these things matter to people and matter to current life and the living of current life they are fully functioning symbols and flashpoints to people just as much as people who firmly believe and hold opposing points of view.

Yet a line must be drawn; at some point I have to say I am going to do something about this issue – but without an current exemplative issue I have a hard time knowing quite where to draw that line.

Passion Connection

Last night my wife asked me if I thought my deep, uxorious, abiding and passionate love for her would ever stop (No), and how I could be so sure, after all even I admit a changing and dynamic mental framework is part of living life, surely there is the possibility the framework might change to reduce or even exclude this love or its features.

And this made me wonder (again) how much I am framed by my framework, how much my framework addicts me to the symbols I use and the behaviors I choose, how much of me is what I am by nature, how much of me is what I am by nurture. I have always been certain any meaningful answers to these kinds of questions are always a little bit of both, my uxorious character for example is likely a bit of both nature and nurture, yet I rather think now there is more to it than only these dichotomies.

There is always been reference to the je ne sais quoi about a woman, and I have seen and felt this, met and experienced its flavor about many women; yet there is something more I have only ever experienced with my wife. The very way she experiences life and the world about her draws me, pulls me, connects me not only to her but also again to more of myself; between us it is as if there were an integrated circuit made from the many different parts of our selves.

Of course, in a way this might be calling forth some unnecessary mystery around our human nature, or naming our nature by another name; after all it is easy to attribute these sorts of experiences to some scientistic evolutionary attunement to potential mating compatibility. Yet again, for me, such theories work well for things I do not sense, but they have little explanatory power over what I experience; and I, like everyone, need explanations in symbols I, and my mental framework, can understand. Even if I am simply discovering new worth within an otherwise previously known fact, the symbolized significance and meaning (to my experience anyway) is in no way diminished.

So yes, I believe all of us in our basic and essential selves have a transcendent awareness, more than consciousness, more than a mere solidity of self, but an ineffable meaning and significance brought about by our very existence. If we close our eyes and focus long enough we can find that center place of self, and occasionally we might glimpse it about another person, that je ne sais quoi.

Yet while my wife has her interior center sense self and I have my interior center sense of self, sometimes I do believe I do more then glimpse her interior center sense of self. It is as if I had her 'interior hand' between my two 'interior hands' and can feel the definition, shape, temperature and texture of her interior too, as if there is a connection between us but one external to both of us (cf. internal destiny and external fate). I don't believe such a connection comes by nature or by nurture, but I know it is more than I have ever experienced before in my life – and why I do not believe my deep, uxorious, abiding and passionate love for her will ever cease.

Passion Addiction

Of course between our desire for something and what we think we desire there may be some wiggle room. The missing puzzle piece on the interior may be love and affection but we may think what we need is sex and sexuality; perhaps we have specific love symbols that work for us and unintentionally focus on the symbol more than the love. Or perhaps we intentionally try to use something like sex as a substitute symbol, even though we know the interior 'hole' is for something different, because we sometimes can only use the symbols that are currently available to us.

And sometimes our mental wires just get crossed, we might even know they're crossed and simply cannot manage to uncross them; we may know our interior need and inside need is for something different than what we find ourselves wanting, but we cannot manage to stop wanting what we desire even if it doesn't wholly fulfill that 'hole'. In a way perhaps sometimes our frameworks addict us to certain symbols because it just isn't flexible enough in some area to accept other symbols; and all frameworks have areas of comparatively more or less flexibility and even the occasional blind spot. Thus a symbol may fulfill our needs just enough to keep us going back for more in a sort of symbol addiction of the mental framework.

Yet we all want meaning, need meaning, in symbols we can understand, and in this regard I rather think we're all symbol addicted, we just don't usually use the word 'addict' to describe it because we're all in the same boat, all having an interior reference framework telling us we're missing some semi-specific piece of lived life coherency, some particular experience, value and worth. And though many of us may be addicted to symbols involving behaviors less than physically or mentally healthy or sometimes to behaviors and symbols that do not actually fulfill the interior 'hole' very well at all (porn or other women, etc.), yet when a symbol really works for our interior need and desire, it really works and we know it.

I recently read "I do have a sexual addiction. By this I mean that I'm not totally on control of when I seek out sexual material and I think about it way more than I would like to". I immediately saw this as an interior description of a 'need' for symbols one can understand (all actual behavior aside), and it made me wonder if we only use 'addict' when we understand, or are suggesting, the interior symbol the external behavior represents isn't working well enough, or clearly enough, or healthy enough, etc.

Yet when the external behavior is working for our interior symbology and mental framework, we may make cheeky reference to 'addiction' but we don't really mean it and we'll go on to try describing the ineffable goodness of effective exterior symbol to interior symbol through mental framework fitting: "The fact that we were there together and that she was really truly enjoying herself […] was what satisfied me. […] It's not that I'm selflessly giving her pleasure -- it's that she's sharing with me her sexual energy and getting so into it that she is ... Something. I can't really express what it is about that moment."

I can't really express what it is about that moment either, but I know what he means because I too have experienced it, and this is why I rather don't think of it as sex addiction or even an addiction to sexual energy; sex by itself does not equal the erotic truth or the desire dynamic I experience. I (now) think of it as a passion addiction, and this I believe is the culminating point of this past week's worth of posts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6): as all people have their framework symbol addictions, the particular form of my framework symbol addiction is to want, desire, and love passionately my wife, and to want to experience the same (or a similar) desire and passion of my wife. (I wonder if this compaction of our simultaneous separate passions is related to, possibly an expression of [?], the sensed unity of partners that we express as 'being soulmates', cf. Love's Fate, Love's Destiny)

And I rather wonder how true this 'passion addiction' is of submissive, uxorious, female led men in general - regardless of the variant exterior behavior symbols by which they express and communicate passion with their partner.

Passion from Puzzle Pieces

Perhaps I should not have said I have no conscious experience of my genetics, after all I certainly have some experiences because of my genetics, for example medical predispositions, or even social stigma (or status) attached to various ethnic phenotypes. It might be more accurate to say mechanistic, scientistic, or evolutionary-biologic explanations of my experiences simply do not reference enough (important) pieces of my puzzle interior to have satisfactory explanatory power. I think such symbols hold more sway with people who already have frameworks of predominantly similar kinds, i.e. scientistic, evolutionary, materialist; of course I don’t think such frameworks are wrong, they're just different.

My framework, and consequently my symbols, are a bit more experiential, and this is what I mean when I say I am an experientialist; the symbols that work for me are ones that focus, refine and describe my conscious experience. Not that more materialistic symbols and experiential symbols can't coexist; for example I know my sexuality is affected by my evolutionary heritage but I only allow such a fact inform my decisions about sexuality, and I try not to let my biology rule my decision making process. Indeed, I would say everyone reconciles these and more seemingly different symbols in their mental framework, with the natural caveat that different people do this differently at different points in their mental frameworks.

Thus I arrive at passion and desire as wanting completing piece(s) of our interior framework picture, and yet another reason why I am 'passion positive'. While mental frameworks are far from infallible they do help us organize our interior puzzle piece space, and it is by such organizing frameworks we perceive an absence of some (interior puzzle) piece, and we begin to desire. ('Absence makes the heart grow fonder.') Yet curiously, just as we might notice a hole in a fabric more than we notice the fabric, we tend to notice absence (and it's corresponding desire) more than the fabric, or the pieces of fabric, from which it arises.

So, I asked whence cometh the meaning and now I believe a fair answer is dynamic: that meaning arises from the relationship between ourselves, our interior mental spaces (our interior puzzle pieces) and (the organizing authority of) our mental frameworks. Our desires and passions may be negative indicators of what we believe is missing and absent on our interior, but they are also positive searches for experiential meaning and significance in symbols compatible with our current interior framework; we all want meaning in symbols we can understand.

Meaning from Puzzle Pieces

It seems more common for people to increase meaning and significance in their lives incrementally than the explosive gains of a ecstatic vision for example, and such incremental gains fit a materialistic theory of where meaning arises. Within the context of something like evolutionary theory, such incremental gains of meaning make much sense; some things are more important because they help us better survive and give us a genetic advantage. Yet I have no conscious experience of my genetics or of this survival advantage; as an experientialist in my historical and evolutionary present, to say meaning is simply an epiphenomenal evolutionary byproduct holds little explanatory power for me.

On the other hand, when I think about why those incremental gains have the meaning they do, it is seemingly because, in the manner of an 'important' puzzle piece, it fits with other pieces of meaning on our interior, and perhaps the new piece gains its level of meaning due to the greater or lesser number of interior pieces, or greater or lesser meaningful pieces, that it fits with. And of course, it might be said the scheme of the puzzle is determined by the current authoritative framework, and the way in which we choose exterior pieces for an attempted interior fitting might be how differentiated or compact we view our world.

Perhaps those occasional experiences of meaning that are so powerful it overwhelms the 'framework puzzle system' are so powerful due to a much greater number of interior pieces being suddenly fit together that the larger picture they make becomes so much clearer. Moreover, the way the new piece of meaning fits old puzzle pieces together, ways the previous framework might never allowed for, might now make a far more coherent picture; and when we apply the new way to the rest of our interior, for coherency's sake, more new insights and meaning might turn up.

Lastly while this 'framework and meaning puzzle theory' does have some explanatory power over where some meaning comes from, it might also have some explanatory power over where some desires and passions come from. When we have enough interior pieces, and again their varying degrees of importance may have influence, to create a clear need for a specific kind of piece, the intent manner in which we begin looking for that piece, might easily be described as desire or even a passion. Such a yearning for the perceived missing piece and for the completion of our interior puzzle picture might even be often described as having 'a hole in our heart'.