Leadership lessons

At times, lately, it may feel like our leaders are more engaged in arguing with each other than seeing to the needs of the long-suffering populace.

Sometimes, we, the public, get hooked on these arguments ourselves, which then makes it a battle of camps and loyalties rather than principle or ideology. Rarely do we think about what it all means, or what it says about us as a people. When we disagree, what does the way we behave reveal about who we are?

Every workplace has them: the moments when disagreements stop being about the work and start being about the people doing it.

We saw one such moment during the 15th hearing of the impeachment trial, when lawyers Lorna Kapunan and Kristine Ferrer clashed in a tense exchange that eventually required the presiding officer to remind both sides to temper their words.

It was easy to dismiss it as courtroom drama. But anyone who has spent enough time in an office knows the feeling. A disagreement begins with a question, becomes a challenge, then somehow turns into a contest over who has the greater authority to speak.

Once egos enter the room, the discussion can stop being about whether an idea is good and becomes about who gets to be right.

In any workplace, disagreements happen. They are normal and should not be avoided. With disagreements, you can develop and grow. What it does not need is disrespect, and disrespect comes in many forms, including head-on verbal jousts or the more underhanded intrigue-mongering.

Good arguments, and good leadership, aren’t about winning the argument. They are about making the relationship — and the organization — strong enough to continue after the argument is over.

Afterwards, when so many had weighed in on the Kapunan-Ferrer face-off, the two lawyers made it clear that they were friends outside of the courtroom. For the people who were watching the spectacle in the course of the impeachment trial, it did seem to be a generational divide.

Opinions were given about the audacity of the young, but then again, was that really the point?

People who are so-called next in line often face a temptation: to demonstrate that they are ready by acting as though they already have the authority of the person they will replace. But succession isn’t achieved by occupying someone else’s space prematurely.

Being next in line does not mean being first in line to speak. It does not mean experience suddenly becomes irrelevant, let alone jurassic. And it certainly does not mean that leadership can be claimed through force of personality.

Of course, experience carries its own responsibility. Seniority should not become a permanent veto on younger voices. The best leaders don’t demand deference; they create an environment where people can disagree without losing respect for one another. An organization that punishes every challenge will eventually surround itself with people who simply nod.

But leadership requires something more difficult than confidence: judgment.

What does this mean? Knowing “when” to push. Knowing “how” to push. Knowing when you’re challenging an idea rather than challenging a person. And, most importantly, knowing when to stop.

Leadership is not about how forcefully we assert ourselves, but by how wisely we use the authority we are given.

We will always have disagreements — in courtrooms, newsrooms, boardrooms and dinner tables. And the measure of maturity is not whether we can avoid conflict, but whether we can disagree without diminishing the person across the table.

Because the best leaders don’t merely know how to speak. They know how to listen, when to yield, and when the point of the argument has already been made.