I really appreciate your perspective on this topic Zane and thank you so much for sharing it. It’s so complex, isn’t it? I wonder about the different contexts that you and I work in and how much that might play a part in our differing experiences.
I’ve been working in the inner city for my entire career, yet my work has been focused on mental health and education, working primarily with people of color. I imagine the adults that we work with might be similar to those from the inner city that you employ.
What I often see is generational poverty and trauma that keeps people functioning in a fight/flight/freeze mode
all the time and no one – regardless of background- makes great decisions when they are flooded with toxic emotions and cortisol constantly. Brains are literally changed by it. And that’s what can make the work of systemic shifts incredibly challenging.
So I completely understand your frustration. Our approach to working with families definitely falls into the collaborative quadrant and works well. I can appreciate that in your setting, autocratic leadership is what works well. I think the inner city often
has a strong negative narrative that surrounds it, and my experience has been that it’s way more nuanced than that single story. I feel like the material in the working with people module perhaps contributes to that narrative. Again, thanks so much for your
thoughts – love the conversation!
Heather
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heather Bryant
Director of Innovation & Impact
106 e 10th st
| dallas, TX 75203
214.915.1852
| hbryant@momentousinstitute.org
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As much as I wish it were not the case, that type of leadership is about the only way our company has been able to lead this group(depending on the parents of the individuals). Leading a company with over 400 rural and inner city employees
we have tried everything. Kindness and compassion seem to be mistaken for weakness, then they are exploited. The majority of my management team are inner city and rural employees that have moved up from the bottom to management, and they say the same thing.
It’s very exhausting dealing with individuals who have zero respect for their fellow coworkers or the equipment they operate. I own and manage various entities that employ bankers and account execs to shop sweepers. So my knowledge of how to lead different
groups is first-hand knowledge. My wife and I spend a ton of time helping inner city families, but when the kids go home to the same type of “what are you going to do for me attitude”, it’s very hard to break that culture and therefore the cycle repeats itself.
I will also say that the rural employees are almost always white, so skin color really doesn’t make a difference. I have a bi-weekly recruitment and retention meeting to gauge whether or not the things we are trying to change in this behavior is working. So,
any ideas I can share would be welcome, because most days I want to just sell that particular business and let someone else deal with this type of workforce.
Hi. I’ve been mulling over something since reviewing the understanding people module. On page 5, it says that Autocratic Leadership works with combat units, small-crew physical labor jobs, rural or inner city environments. I am wondering
about the last two – rural and inner city. I get that these are generalizations – but that seems fairly extreme to me and I’m wondering what it’s based on. I’ll also throw out that the majority of leadership study seems to have been done primarily by white
men – and I wonder how much day to day inner city experience went into the research about what was effective.
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heather Bryant
Director of Innovation & Impact
106 e 10th st
| dallas, TX 75203
214.915.1852
| hbryant@momentousinstitute.org
Follow us:
website
|
Facebook
| Twitter
| Instagram
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