As leaders we often do our very best to be positive and use golden behaviours such as compassion, inclusion and honesty to fulfil our functions. Similarly, most organisations will try to be ethical and value-based in how they function, what they expect from employees and the cultures they create and maintain.
However, says clinical psychologist and author Anna Eliatamby, alongside the golden lies the shadow side of ourselves and organisations. All of us, regardless of how ethical and value-based we are, have shadow behaviours we use, hopefully, rarely. Similarly, organisational roles, cultures and structures can possess shadow elements.
The problem is that we don’t tend to name or address these shadow elements. “We may notice them but we generally tend not to recognise or acknowledge them,” says Eliatamby.
For leaders and organisations to operate healthily we need to look at both the golden and shadow sides, she argues. And then we can think about how we can enhance the positive and golden while addressing the shadow side and incorporating it so that it does not overwhelm the leader in their role or the organisation in its function.
In this video interview Eliatamby explains more about golden and shadow behaviours, the role HR can play in helping to address such behaviours and what steps leaders can take to start healthily addressing the negative aspects of themselves – and their organisation.
About Anna Eliatamby
Anna Eliatamby is a clinical psychologist and workplace wellbeing expert. Anna has helped both the UN and other organisations develop organisational wellbeing strategies. Her new book Healthy Leadership & Organisations: Beyond the Shadow Side provides clear definitions of healthy leadership and organisations (matched with the principles for corporate governance of the Financial Reporting Council).
Transcript
Somebody who's a healthy leader will be somebody who's ethical, kind and shows respect to themselves and to other people, so that influences how they are as a leader. And also that they use purpose and values to guide them in what they say and do. And so they keep purpose and values centre stage. And very importantly and crucially, is that they look at the shadow side, the negative aspects of themselves and work on that. And they do the same for their organisations and the people that they manage. So those are the key elements of healthy leadership.
Your model for healthy leadership and organisations is based on the concept of golden and shadow aspects. Can you please explain what you mean by this?
So the concept of golden and shadow is that within us as human beings, we have golden sides to ourselves and shadow sides. So the golden aspects are things like being honest, being kind, having compassion, living honourably. And most of the positive aspects, the golden sides of ourselves, we do know and we do acknowledge and we see it in ourselves.
Whereas the converse applies to the shadow side where the shadow side is where we may know of their existence – things like occasionally lying or not telling the truth or sometimes being rude. We may notice it but we generally tend not to recognise it or acknowledge it. Now, most of us will work from the golden side and occasionally we will shift to the shadow side, but then realise it and come back.
So an example from my point of view is, from my experience, is that a while ago I had to chair quite a difficult mediation and I had to be patient and considerate throughout the day and fortunately the meeting came to a good successful outcome. And then as the meeting closed and as I was relaxing I took a phone call from a junior colleague who needed some advice. And thinking back to that phone call, I actually wasn't as patient with that person as I could have been and I should have been. So that was an example of me moving to the shadow side.
Most of us will work from the golden as I said. There are very few people who just will operate from the shadow side. They use the negative behaviours. They like it. They enjoy it. Some may deny that they are shadow but they continue working from the shadow side.
What are some examples of what golden and shadow behaviours?
I think in terms of leaders there are three that I think are really, really important. One is respect for yourself and other people, to be honest, alongside being ethical and being kind. So, if you have respect for yourself, you're more likely to be a centred leader. And if you respect others, you will treat them with courtesy, with kindness. And honesty with yourself and with others will build trust. And kindness is just really, really important because it's a basic human quality that we should have. It's good for us to think of being kind to ourselves and also kind to others.
And in terms of the organisation, I would still say respect because when there is respect in an organisation from the leadership to the staff, from the staff to the leadership, you're going to see people who are comfortable working, who will be prepared to do that extra thing who will be prepared to work, who will be prepared to really do their utmost.
The key shadow behaviours I think that we tend to see In leadership generally, arrogance and hubris, which then reflects through to others in the organisation.
And unfortunately these days it's still a lot of bullying, discrimination and harassment. Those are the key things that you will see in an organisation across sectors. Very unfortunately. Those are the main ones.
Is there any one of these shadow behaviours that is particularly damaging to an organisation?
If you just look at the research, even if you just look at the last 20/30 years of research, bullying and harassment and discrimination come across as the top behaviours when people look at toxicity. And because there is a serial failure to address these behaviours, what you're seeing, what's happening, is those who are carrying out those behaviours are not being tackled. They're not being addressed. And, in fairness to them, they're not being given the help they need to look at those behaviours to be given an opportunity to change. And because nothing significant is being done in most instances, people continue suffering, sometimes in silence, and the impact of those shadow behaviours is huge. It has a massive psychological effect.
How can HR and people leaders help move the organisation and leadership from shadow to golden?
I think people, they think they don't know what to do to tackle those individuals with those behaviours. And you need a certain amount of courage to properly address those behaviours.
I've only ever worked with one director of human resources who did appropriately tackle those behaviours. Generally, the person is moved from one part of the organisation to the other. And because those behaviours aren't tackled they're being tacitly reinforced to continue because nobody's saying this is not acceptable.
And I think it's also that policies and procedures are not being implemented. Or they don't exist. And if there is an internal justice system, like an ombudsperson, they may not be working effectively. Then those systems will not be trusted. So a variety of reasons. But the key thing is a lack of courage and willingness to take that risk.
If I think about the various experiences I've had over the years in different sectors, what makes an organisation move from golden to shadow, I think is what type of person the powerful are and whether they are promoting golden or whether they're promoting shadow.
I'll give one example - there's an organisation that actually didn't exist, it was asked to be created and the key group developed a very value-based strategy, an excellent strategy, and they developed this strategy, it was extremely value-based, they employed staff who are like-minded, who wanted again to implement values. And their junior staff were taking part, people were working, the aim, the purpose, was being achieved, but there weren't too many policies. The minimum amount of policy and procedures were there. But I would describe that as a golden organisation.
What then happened is some of the leadership left and they brought in a new chief executive who didn't like the amount of freedom in the organisation. Who was really worried about the number of policies and procedures that he felt were missing. And he was quite risk averse. So he spent his first six months producing a whole swathe of policies and procedures, which he then implemented. And he also stopped junior staff being involved in some of the policy initiatives and attending senior meetings. So that led to people being very stifled. They did the job but not as wholeheartedly as before. And they felt excluded because they were actually excluded.
What steps can leaders take to start healthily addressing the negative aspects of themselves – and their organisations?
Well for themselves is to create a time and space where they will feel relaxed enough to explore their golden and their shadow side. And it may be as simple as writing down key words that describe their golden side and key words that describe their shadow side, just leaving that and then coming away and reflecting and seeing what it says about themselves and what's true about what they've written about themselves. And then think about how they can use the golden aspects to maybe shift and change one shadow. It's important to change a little bit, not hugely. So if you start that journey and you keep repeating that you're going to grow in terms of having a better balance between golden and shadow.
From an organisational perspective, I think just stop and think about where you would locate your organisation in terms of golden or shadow. And if it's more on the golden side, then working with your deputies or team, maybe easier to look at both golden and shadow, perhaps in the way that I've just described for an individual leader. But if you're more on the shadow side, then I would say take time to work out how you can get more openness to at least have that discussion. Often you can start it by declaring your shadow side yourself so that you start that discussion in a non-threatening way and you don't get swallowed by any backlash.
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