What I Learned on Sunday

Our usual pew in church is left side, half way up. Some of that is habit, but a large part of it is due to the view there. I love the sunshine that spills across these pews, but even more I love to look up and out of the high windows. I find myself looking up and out frequently to take in the great expanse of sky, pine and oak, and am inspired by it.

This past Sunday I was running late. Rather than disturb the service, I headed up the stairs and took a seat in the balcony. What a startling difference. All I could do was look down. Those same windows held a very different view – of yard, and sidewalks and cars. Not inspiring in the least.

I frequently use the image of the balcony and the dance floor with leaders, to frame the work of Heifetz and Linsky in Leadership on the Line. The dance floor is the metaphor for the everyday workings of their organization, where people are wildly spinning around and where the action is. The balcony is the place above all the action, where one can view more clearly and objectively the goings on of the dance floor. This is where one can see the patterns, the pace and the players in ways they are unable to when immersed in the action of the dance floor.

The work of the leader is to move out of the day-to-day activity on occasion and to get on the balcony to observe, reflect, and plan.  They then can move back to the dance floor with a different perspective. One that is more holistic, more accurate, and less shaped by the immediacy of the dance floor.

What was striking this Sunday was the deep realization of how much those on the dance floor yearn for the inspiration of the bigger picture, the vision, and how that relates to what is outside of the organization. And the stark realization that advising leaders to “get on the balcony” and then to “enter the dance floor with a new perspective” may be lacking a much needed viewpoint – that of looking outside and up. Looking down from a balcony is NOT the same as looking up and out. Up to a big vision, to a unique possibility the organization can bring forth that will benefit a bigger world than either the dance floor or the balcony.

We know that leaders who get stuck on the dance floor never get out of the day to day emergencies and lack vision and perspective. Those that stay on the balcony are disengaged and lead without ever getting their hands dirty or understanding the real experience in the organization. And those that are purely visionaries are too removed from the day to day workings of the organization to have an impact.

After Sunday, my counsel to leaders has changed.  It will be to look up and out to get the big picture, external view.  It will be to look down from the balcony to get a more balanced view of the day to day gyrations of your organization. And then and only then to engage deeply by being on the dance floor, side by side, doing the work before you.  Repeat… repeat… repeat…