Slow Leadership: Actors, Reactors and Reflectors

Business is full of Actors, both in the sense of people taking action and in the sense of people playing a part. It is also replete with Reactors: people who wait for something to happen, then jump to some conclusion and act upon it. What it needs—and sadly lacks—are sufficient Reflectors: people who note what is happening, then stand back to think about it and work out an appropriate course before doing anything.

The result is an organization filled with corporate sheep, all following an invisible leader along the same, conventional, well-worn paths of unthinking activity.

Action is so highly valued today that many people do nothing else. Since you cannot think properly when you are distracted by constant busyness and activity, all that action has to be based on something other than thought. What usually comes to hand is memory: the recalling of what you did last time that seemed to work, or remembering what someone told you was the right thing to do in these circumstances. People are sent on training courses, so that their minds can be filled with still more automatic courses of action that they can recall whenever they seem to be needed. The result is an organization filled with corporate sheep, all following an invisible leader along the same, conventional, well-worn paths of unthinking activity. And since memory is notoriously fallible, sometimes a sheep remembers the wrong thing and goes wandering off on its own until it falls into a bog. The value of Actors depends entirely on the script that they have been handed. If it is a poor one, or if the Actor is miscast, the results are more likely to be painful (or hilarious) than effective.

All it takes to be a Reactor is egotism, aggression, and blind self-belief: which is pretty much what it takes to become a top executive in many organizations as well.

Reactors are, if anything, even more prized, because they combine predictable action with high speed responses. They often claim that either experience or intuition are the bases for their decisions, and a cottage industry has grown up around books claiming that the mind somehow becomes more effective and accurate the less time you spend actually thinking. This is a comforting belief, but it has little or no basis in anything other than magic. Of course, thinking is often difficult, time-consuming, and requires effort, so a belief that you can short-circuit the whole messy, tedious business of using your brain is a convenient one, especially for those who fear that their brains are not their most well-developed organs. All it takes to be a Reactor is egotism, aggression, and blind self-belief: which is pretty much what it takes to become a top executive in many organizations as well. Never mind intelligence or rational consideration of the issues. Who has time for useless things like those?

Far better to dismiss intelligence as something faintly disreputable: the province of “geeks” and weirdoes, who may be clever, but lack every other qualification for important positions.

Intelligence has always been suspect amongst those who wish to control others and stay on top of the heap, come what may. It causes people to ask awkward questions. It encourages them to challenge what they have been told, and doubt the wisdom of their betters. It upsets the ordered basis of hierarchies with the idea that those who are better at what they do should be at the top, instead of allowing the long-cherished processes of political maneuvering and influence peddling to operate unchecked. It keeps top people awake a night, wondering whether they are quite as smart as they believe, or whether their subordinates may have the edge when it comes to brain power. Far better to dismiss intelligence as something faintly disreputable: the province of “geeks” and weirdoes, who may be clever, but lack every other qualification for important positions.

Of course, genuine leaders are never taken in by such rubbish for a moment. They take action, but only after reflecting first on the best action to take. They are not jealous of clever subordinates. Instead, they welcome as many as they can find, knowing that being surrounded by smart, able people, is the very best way to look good yourself. Nor do they compete with their subordinates, preferring to help them develop and fulfill their potential. As a result, they become loved and respected mentors, remembered as role models for everyone who was fortunate enough to encounter them.

One true Reflector among a group of smart people can produce enough light to illumine a whole business and help everyone see their way through the pitfalls and difficulties that lie ahead.

Reflectors don’t simply think for themselves. They also reflect and enhance the thinking of others, the way that a reflector in a searchlight collects, focuses, and enhances the light from the bulb within, until it becomes a pure beam reaching far across the land. One true Reflector among a group of smart people can produce enough light to illumine a whole business and help everyone see their way through the pitfalls and difficulties that lie ahead.

Actors are useful, but only when someone else has written them a good script. Reactors are usually a liability, given to jumping to conclusions and rushing into risky situations in a blind urge to do something, anything, rather than stand still and think. Many are so convinced that their intuitions are infallible that they cannot even learn from all their mistakes. Reflectors are like nuggets of gold in a mountain of rock: things to be prized and sought out with diligence, if you want to be successful in just about any endeavor.