Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Leadership and anger

Chris Fitzsimon wrote an interesting piece yesterday on the vehemence and anger in response to the Obama healthcare plan, and how much of the content and affect had little to do with healthcare.

New leaders have an interesting developmental trajectory, with excessive hope and expectation followed by rage when everything isn't "fixed" right away. Having the moral courage to stay the course is a challenge in the face of this kind of vitriol, often irrational and personal rather than issue focused. What should a leader do in the face of irrational and impossible demands (like "don't raise my taxes, but make sure we can all get all the healthcare we want when we want it and with total choice and control.")?

Are there ways to prevent this pattern of honeymoon and rebound rage? Is there a way to build front-end buy-in to minimize this? Or is this simply a stage a good leader needs to weather?

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