Humanly Possible: A New Model of Leadership for a More Inclusive World

By Jason D. Patent

Humanly Possible: A New Model of Leadership for a More Inclusive World is about using our power to create spaces where people feel they truly belong-leading to less stress and more happiness, to better and more productive workplaces, and ultimately to more

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: Jan 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798885044677

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Humanly Possible

Humanly Possible

A New Model of Leadership for a More Inclusive World

Jason D. Patent, PhD

New Degree Press

Copyright © 2023 Jason D. Patent, PhD

All rights reserved.

Humanly Possible

A New Model of Leadership for a More Inclusive World

Names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

ISBN

979-8-88504-444-8 Paperback

979-8-88504-467-7 Ebook

For my daughters, Mariette Xiaofei Plum Patent and Francesca Xiaorui Plum Patent. May you inherit a more inclusive world and pass the same along to your children.

Interrupting our destructive habits and awakening our heart is the work of a lifetime.

—Pema Chödrön, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1.

Setting a Baseline

Chapter 2.

Off a Cliff

Chapter 3.

Bridging

Chapter 4.

One Extra Beat

Chapter 5.

Late

Chapter 6.

Careful What You Ask For

Chapter 7.

The Man in Me

Chapter 8.

Don’t Just Do Something. Sit There!

Chapter 9.

Is It Safe?

Chapter 10.

Enough Already

Chapter 11.

By Whose Grace?

Acknowledgments

Appendix

Introduction

Who do you think you are? I say to Liz.

Well, I don’t actually say it. But I do think it.

We’re in a meeting to divvy up the tasks of a departing staff member, Katrina. It’s a tough meeting. I’m Katrina’s boss; Katrina is Liz’s boss. Liz is upset Katrina is leaving. She’s told me as much: she feels like she’s losing a trusted mentor and friend and hinted she thinks it’s my fault.

We dig into the list of tasks. Some go to Liz, some to another colleague, and some to me.

As my list grows, out of nowhere Liz interjects, with a severe tone, We need to be sure to hold you accountable for doing your part.

Wait, what did she say? I’m reeling. Suddenly there’s all this noise in my brain and I don’t know what to do. It’s like a bunch of radio stations vying for my attention: Don’t you know how hard I tried to take care of Katrina? I thought we were on good terms; guess not. Why are you focusing on me, anyway? The chatter makes it impossible to think straight.

What really jumps out, though—what’s yelling at me the loudest—is this: Who do you think you are, talking to me that way? Do you know who I am?

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Humans have a power problem. Years of studies show acquiring power leads us to think and act in ways that harm others—individuals, teams, and entire organizations (Solomon 2015). We become overconfident, more focused on ourselves, and less empathetic. We interrupt more, stop listening to others’ ideas and opinions, and crave public recognition of our greatness—almost always without realizing we’re doing it. The effects on our colleagues include decreased trust and morale, reduced productivity, and increased employee turnover (Chron.com 2020).

Evolution has wired us to act first, think later. When a lion jumps out at us, what matters is that we react quickly to get out of danger. It’s a simple mechanism: the amygdala—the part of the brain that detects threats—immediately orders our bodies to find a way to survive. This is the well-known fight, flight, or freeze response. Lions are dangerous is a helpful mental shortcut.

Because this reaction is so central to our survival, the amygdala is always scanning the environment for potential threats—and it finds them, even if it needs to invent them. It does the same thing it did with the lion, creating mental shortcuts and making sweeping generalizations about entire groups—in this case, groups of human beings. We call these generalizations stereotypes. They show up everywhere in our lives, including the workplace.

Power amplifies the problem: the more power I have, the more damage I can do to others based on whatever stereotypes my amygdala insists I act on. And I may feel more entitled to act on my stereotypes, or at least less ready to question them.

Often, this results in workplaces where entire groups of people feel like they don’t belong.

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In the physical, bodily struggle to survive, power wins. Power means a greater chance both my group and I live to see the next day. The safety of power leaves me wanting more and staying alert against anyone who might take any of my power.

That’s what happened when I reacted to Liz. I heard Liz’s words and the tone she took in saying them; it was game over: Red alert! Threat to power detected! Engage defenses!

Power doesn’t only come in the form of organizational authority. It also comes in the form of privilege. Unearned advantage is often used as a synonym for privilege: based on factors such as race, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability, and many more, society makes things easier or harder for us. Through media, parents, peers, and countless other influences, society engraves into us far-reaching sets of beliefs and expectations about how people think and behave. These expectations shape our ideas about people’s inherent strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, they tell us how much we should value someone’s life.

Privilege is alive and well in the workplace. A white male in a US workplace is in nearly every case going to have power over a Black woman. This power shows up everywhere. Others will listen to a white man more, more readily forgive him for his mistakes, and see him as more competent. He will also not have to deal with a host of issues a Black woman will face, from having her accomplishments diminished, to being stereotyped as aggressive when she directly expresses an opinion, to having her hair commented on and even touched (for a recent summary of challenges faced by Black women in the workplace, see Lloyd 2021).

Privilege isn’t just about race. It’s about any unearned advantage we might have lucked into, based on any number of factors, including gender, physical ability, mental health status, socioeconomic status, and countless others.

Just as organizational power feels good and we resist giving it up, privilege feels good and we resist giving it up. Unlike organizational power, privilege can be hard to recognize: organizational charts—formal records of who reports to whom—are explicit, public artifacts that consciously reflect and reinforce power structures. In the world of privilege, there’s nothing like an organizational chart. This makes privilege an especially insidious form of power.

Adrienne Rich once wrote, All privilege is ignorant at the core (Rich 1984, 226). When we have privilege, we don’t see it. Even if we see it, we rarely see how it specifically benefits us and harms others. The same is often true of power: even when we’re conscious of our power, it can be hard to see how our power affects others: because our power can be perceived as threatening, others might fear how we’ll react if they share difficult feedback with us.

Power (including privilege) also influences what teams, organizations, and entire societies believe to be normal and acceptable (and what isn’t)—in short, culture at every level. And because power feels good and we have the status quo to thank for our power, power usually resists change.

We’re left with some uncomfortable truths:

Power gives us a sense of entitlement.

Power often causes harm.

It can be hard for us to see this harm.

Power shapes cultural norms at every level.

Power tends to resist change.

Taken together, that’s a daunting set of obstacles to creating a world where everyone feels they belong.

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How, then, have I dared to call this book Humanly Possible?

First, each of us already knows how to do what we need to do. If you’ve ever questioned your own perspective on something from a position of power, compromised with someone you’re arguing with even though you know more than they do, or agreed to change your behavior to make things better for someone you care about simply because you care about them, then you’ve done exactly what needs to be done to create a sense of belonging in the workplace.

Second, we understand human behavior much better now than we did just a half century ago. Sure, philosophers have been writing for millennia about how to improve ourselves in various ways, but they didn’t have what we have now: scientific knowledge about behavior and how to change it. Recent advances in the social sciences and in neuroscience have been staggering. In the social sciences, we have an array of new tools for understanding how we react and respond to human difference and how power affects this. Discoveries in neuroscience have pulled back the curtain on how our brains work, such as the tricks of the amygdala mentioned above. It’s helpful to know that when difference makes us feel threatened, the amygdala is trying to fool us by inventing false threats.

Together, these two factors lead directly to a conclusion that seems airtight: we already have everything we need to radically evolve how we treat one another, including how we use our own power.

It’s as if, all along, we’ve been toting around a Swiss Army knife, thinking all it could do was cut. We’ve made good enough use of the tool in some ways and maybe we’ve occasionally noticed there’s more the tool might be able to do, but mostly we’re happy just to keep cutting and only cutting. With all the new knowledge available to us, we’re beginning to discover the can opener, the awl, the screwdriver, the tweezers, the scissors, and the corkscrew. And, gradually, we’re learning how to use these tools, opening vast new possibilities for our species. Getting in the habit of using these tools can accelerate our journey toward a more equitable future, through daily words and deeds, multiplied by millions and billions and trillions, resulting in new norms on teams, new policies in organizations, and new laws in societies.

I can’t picture this world. My own vision is blurred by where we are right now, and by all there is still to overcome. But I know this beautiful world is possible. I’ve seen and felt too many glimpses of this world to believe otherwise. 

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I’ve had the good fortune of being immersed in rich learning environments throughout my life and career. I’ve had many opportunities to engage