“The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purpose through him.
As a human being he may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he is “man” in a higher sense — he is “collective man” — one who carries and shapes the unconscious, psychic forms of mankind.”
Carl Jung
Carl Jung described the artist as the archetype for the “collective man” — a person who allows a higher vision to be expressed into the world through their ability to tap into the invisible forces and hidden connections that weave the patterns of our world.
It’s interesting to observe how what he articulated 50 years ago is now describing the new leadership paradigm. Similarly to the artist, as systemic leaders we are able to tune into the great rhythms of the world, sense its underlying principles just enough so that we are better able to manage the disruptive effects of change and complexity in organizations, while staying grounded in the natural order; for as the Buddhist saying goes: “This too shall pass”.
In fancy systems thinking language that just means that as leaders we need to act in a way that produces the least amount of “unintended systemic consequences” simply because, as Peter M. Senge brilliantly posits, our success generates our future problems.
Much like the artist archetype described by Jung, as systemic leaders we develop a systemic awareness and are able to attune to the invisible fields of information. Like any decent WiFi, all human systems emit implicit messages that carry precious information about that structure:
- deeply held beliefs (What do we believe to be true about the world?). For example — organizations are created to make profit; NGOs have to struggle to survive because money corrupts the “mission”; you need to fake it to make it and so on…
- norms of belonging (What secures and what jeopardizes our belonging in the system?) For example — you need to show up at team buildings and company events; you cannot talk about the bankruptcy from 3 years ago; you are better liked when you talk badly about the competition and so on…
- invisible dynamics (What do we unconsciously do in order to preserve the wholeness of the organization and prevent its fragmentation?) For example — One person is fired because he addressed the “creativity in reporting the financial data” and the person brought in to take that role has a hard time integrating because the system “re-members” the exclusion
Having more systemic awareness also means that as systemic leaders we start to get a felt sense of what wants to emerge and be created in the world.
That vision naturally calls us to serve and creates a great willingness to see ourselves as “enablers” — simply putting things in motion, as opposed to making things happen.
When we start harnessing the power of communities and we start leveraging the systemic forces governing organizations, as systemic leaders we are fostering generative spaces where positive synergies and spontaneous innovation are more likely to occur.
Ultimately, systemic leadership is a willingness to serve something for which the time has come.
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” — Michelangelo