Narrative Leadership Leading Change: Getting Your Head and Heart to Agree

Recently I talked with a leader who was in the quandary of feeling she should do one thing but thinking she should do something else. In essence, her head and heart weren’t in agreement. She knew what convention expected of her even what the demands were that she placed upon herself but meeting those expectations wasn’t satisfying her emotionally. I asked, “What makes your heart sing?” and after the briefest pause she answered with the thing she loved doing above all. That was her heart; what remained was for her to reconcile her expectations with what brought her satisfaction.

In reality, emotions are formed from chemical reactions within our brains.[1] This makes the notion of head and heart as separate more a false dichotomy than a reality. The wisdom of sacred text established this fact and firmly posited all we are as stemming from our thought life in the saying, “As he thinks in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7).[2] For leaders this holds sobering implications. Here’s why: Our emotions can be coded responses to earlier events in life and may not reflect the reality before us. This means that what we feel can be different from what we see. Put another way, it could mean that what we want to do may not always be the same as what we should do. One reason for this is that our emotions are linked to memories. Caroline Leaf explained,

If you had a math teacher who shouted at you and said you would never be able to do math, you would have stored that memory... Thereafter, every time you do math or anything related to the subject, you will re-experience the negative feelings of shame, hurt and fear... you will struggle to learn anything new about math, because the negative feelings... block the learning process. (28)

If you’ve ever felt fear that defied rational explanation then you’ve encountered the linkage of memory and emotion. In recognition of the emotional quotient in our lived experience Richard Stott said, “We frequently rely on partial information and convenient heuristics in making judgments. Our knowledge and beliefs thus originate and continue to be shaped by a complex mix of perceptions, deductions, guesses, memories, hazy inferences, and gut feelings.”[3] The resulting distraction for those who trust our leadership can be deafening. Its cure is to achieve an internal congruence within ourselves where work reflects our core values and our decisions the awareness of what has formed them. Making the resolve of these a key priority is critical for leaders.

Value Congruence and Inner Congruence
Technically, the expression “leader congruence” refers to the leader’s work life being aligned with his/her values.[4] This is where the leader in our example struggled. There are other forms of Value Congruence: Some point to the common understandings that followers take from a leader’s initiatives[5] as well as the leader’s ability to foster shared values among followers.[6] One additional concept is the leader’s imposition of his/her values on the organization through selecting other leaders who share the same values and in this fashion achieving congruence or agreement within the organization.[7] What these underscore is that the leader’s influence upon both people and organization originates in his/her inner life. However, Value Congruence isn’t the only alignment a leader should seek. Although doing so will increase our effectiveness it will not make us the kind of person that makes better people. That’s the role reserved for Inner Congruence.

Although leading can take many forms it seems that leadership originates in one place: Our self-expression. I believe it possible to achieve all the above forms of Value Congruence yet still be a dysfunctional leader - think of Hitler or Hussein. While developing value alignment is to be prized, even necessary, our leading as a whole person and aware of the influences that have shaped us is even more so. Inner Congruence isn’t oriented toward the degree of influence exerted upon others but asks why we influence people as we do. It may require coming to grips with the why and how of our memories and that in the willingness to forgive and love. The result will be the ability to distinguish our emotional reactions from the facts before us so that our influence isn’t tainted with self-interest but for the welfare of those we serve.

[1]Leaf, C. (2007). Who switched off my brain: Controlling toxic thoughts and emotions.Rivonia, South Africa: Switch on Your Brain Organisation PTY (Ltd.)

[2]The New King James Version of the Holy Bible.

[3]Stott, R. (2007). When head and heart do not agree: A theoretical and clinical analysis of rational-emotional dissociation (RED) in cognitive therapy. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy: An International Quarterly. 21,(1).

[4]Bono, J. and Judge, T. (2003). Self-concordance at work: Toward understanding the motivational effects of transformational leaders. Academy of Management Journal, 45, (5), 554-571.

[5]Scroggins, W. (2006). Managing meaning for strategic change: The role of perception and meaning congruence. Journal of Health and Human Services Administration.Summer.

[6]Brown, M. and Trevino, L. (2006). Socialized charismatic leadership, values congruence, and deviance in work groups. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, (4), 954-962.

[7]Dickson, M., Giberson, T., and Resick, C. (2005). Embedding leader characteristics: An examination of homogeneity of personality and values in organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90,(5), 1002-1010.