In this second article about developing system leaders, psychologist and leadership development coach Mike Mullins explains how to recognise your tendency to systems blindness – and what to do about it. This is the second in a series of five articles. You can read the first one here.
Systems blindness gets in the way of waking up to patterns of behaviour. It prevents you from noticing what causes you to fall out of partnership with others in the system.
Think about some of the language you might hear about colleagues, patients or service users in the health and care system. In my experience, it’s not uncommon to hear about ‘difficult patients’, ‘uncooperative providers’, ‘uncaring senior leaders’, ‘ineffective middle managers’, or ‘unhelpful staff’.
These stereotypes are used so frequently that we have to ask ourselves whether it’s the people or something about the system within which we’re operating that drives certain types of attitudes and behaviour.
Context
Let me paint a picture of what I mean.
Imagine for a moment that you’re standing outside a beautiful church on a hot summer’s day. As you enter through the door, you feel the refreshing cool air. It’s dark, lit only by candlelight. A choir sings. Stillness and reverence pervade the space. People walk slowly; others kneel and pray. Imagine how this atmosphere might affect your being, your behaviour.
Suddenly, a young child runs down the aisle laughing and shouting and blowing out the candles. How would you respond? How might others in the church respond? Probably to hush the child or to ask the parents to control their offspring.
So, what’s going on here?
Creating a system
When we come together as human beings in groups of more than two, something strange happens. We create a hierarchy, a context or a system. That can be a family, a sports team, a church, or an organisation like the health and care system.
For people who are part of that system, that context creates an experience of feelings, thoughts and assumptions about our role within the system, and stereotypes about others within the system. Those in turn create certain behaviours.
Barry Oshry describes how we all move in and out of four distinct system contexts or conditions – tops, middles, bottoms and the customer. Sometimes we’re blind to the context that we and/or others are operating in. We tend not to see the context. Instead, we see individuals and we experience our interactions as personal.
Let’s explore those four contexts and, as we do, ask yourself which contexts you find yourself in as a leader.
System conditions
We and/or our colleagues in our health and care system are in the context of being.
Tops: when we/they are in positions of authority.
Tops can be burdened by what feels like unimaginable complexity and responsibility. They may struggle with the need to make decisions with limited information. They have a tendency to become disconnected from those lower in the hierarchy, leading to decisions that might not take into account the broader impact on the organisation.
Middles: when we/they are caught between the tops and the bottoms.
Middles face the challenge of mediating between senior leaders and frontline employees, while also trying to drive goals. Middles feel torn, pulled between conflicting demands, struggling to balance loyalty to tops and bottoms.
Bottoms: when we/they have no formal authority over others.
Bottoms often feel uninformed, powerless, and subject to the decisions and actions of ‘uncaring tops’. Enthusiasm and commitment may morph into confusion, boredom, frustration and eventually cynicism and rebellion. The challenge for bottoms is to overcome a sense of victimisation to find a sense of responsibility and influence.
Customers: when we/they depend on the organisation for services or products.
They may struggle with feeling neglected or underserved. Their challenge is to communicate their needs without becoming overly demanding or disengaged.
Systems blindness
The challenge for leaders in all four system contexts is to be aware of our own contexts and to have empathy for others in different parts of the system, and not to get triggered. They need to remain grounded.
This is about leaders moving past their initial habitual responses and strengthening themselves and their relationships with others in different parts of the system.
So, we have two fundamental blind spots as leaders:
- We can fail to see how the context is driving our feelings
- We can lose sight of how our behaviour can reinforce, or change the context for the better
There are three key messages here for those aspiring to be systems leaders within the health and care system.
How to address systems blindness
First, much of what happens in organisations like the health and care system is systemic. It’s critical to remember that it’s not personal. See the dynamics as the product of a system rather than something that’s aimed at you personally.
Secondly, learn to notice and to challenge your blindness when you’re hooked by the system. For example, when you find yourself blaming others, or when you find yourself telling stories about other parts of the system without necessarily being curious about what’s going on for them and stepping into their shoes.
Finally, when you find yourself being caught up in compulsive ways of thinking and behaving – holding onto ‘shoulds’ or ‘oughts’ – remember that these are signs that the system is triggering you. It is preventing you from building deeper levels of partnership for better patient and service user outcomes.
The next article will look at the second step in developing systems leadership: understanding and developing your current way of ‘meaning making’ as a leader.
Mike Mullins is the founder of Mike Mullins Consulting Ltd
