Discovering my Leadership Blind Spots in Guatemala

Submitted by Penny Lane

Tomorrow morning I will be landing very early at the airport in Guatemala City.  This is my first time to Guatemala and I am eagerly anticipating the opportunity to explore this beautiful country.  My time there will also be an opportunity to explore my own internal leadership territory.  Despite having spent many years being a leader and learning about leadership, at this point in my life I am even more aware that the quality of my leadership is directly related to my awareness of what behaviors and biases I personally bring to my leadership.

  At times I bring many strengths.  I have been intentional in learning to listen, to ask questions, to be curious, to look for the common ground, to reflect on my on intent in regards to the work at hand and to clarify what the intent of the group or organization is.  And yet I know that I have my blind spots - the assumptions about the world and how things work, my cultural mindset and values and my unintentional influences on those around me.  Lately I have been reflecting on my tendency to want to give advice and my ability to articulate what I am seeing in the systems and networks around me that  might lead to creative solutions.  While I am in Guatemala these are the aspects of my internal landscape that I want to explore and learn the skills that I want to incorporate into my way of being as a leader.

I am travelling to Guatemala with my colleague and friend Christine Bonney.  Over this next week we will be applying the road map for The Acacia Group's Socially Responsible Leadership experiences.  We will be coaching each other as we apply leadership theory and intentionally begin to practice new and emergent skills and ways of being.  We will be travelling to Nebaj with our community partners Social Entrepreneur Corp (SEC) and participating in community work - helping at the Centro Explorativo as well as helping local entrepreneurs bring their goods to markets in the surrounding communities.  Walking into a new environment is a powerful opportunity to think and reflect upon what I see, how I interpret it, and how I choose to respond and interact in a positive and generative way.  This is what I want to be able to bring back to my way of leading in my life - the practice of reflection, the choices I make in interpreting what I experience, and the behaviors that I want to express.

On a contextual note, I have noticed recently that the Extractive Sector (i.e., mining sector) in Canada is coming under increasing scrutiny for their lack of CSR practices.  Amnesty International and other organizations are drawing attention to the negative impact Canadian Companies are having in their off shore development - particularly in developing countries.  Guatemala is one of the countries where Canadian companies are being called to account for their lack of attention to social justice and human rights, and environmental damage.  Perhaps one day executives from the Extractive Sector will experience this type of leadership development experience and bring back to their organizations the awareness and skills to lead in a way that addresses all three priorities - people - planet - profit.

The Acacia Group’s purpose and passion is transformative and unique leadership development for organizations and individuals seeking to live out their global citizenship. To do this we blend knowledge from Corporate Social Responsibility, Community Development and Leadership Development and Learning to emerge new opportunities for leadership excellence for our clients

Gender Bias in CSR - Where Are All the Men?

Over the last several weeks our company has engaged in a series of social media notices leading up to a webinar on FAQs regarding our leadership development experience in Guatemala. Of those who showed an interest and signed up for the webinar - entirely 100% were women. Now, our numbers would certainly show a limiting and therefore non-valid sample size. But there is a reality that of the people that we have engaged with over the last several months the disproportionate majority are women. Leading me to ask….Where have all the men gone? – and, given the equally disproportionate number of men in the C-Suite –is the gender difference an issue to be reconciled in order to have corporate social responsibility move to the strategic front burner?

Aman Singh at Vault CSR did a nice job of summarizing the Boston College Centre for Corporate Citizenship report on the Profile of the Profession – In her blog Aman pointed out the ten leading characteristics/identifiers of a CSR professional – but for the purpose of this discussion let’s stick to the top four –

1. They hold a bachelors degree
2. They are a women
3. They are white
4. They are more than 35 years old.

I can safely say that these descriptors definitely correspond to those who showed an interest in our work. So of course we need to understand the Why?

A quick search discovered an intriguing diploma thesis argument by Elena Bueble that addresses CSR from a communications and consumer alignment perspective. She illustrates that the connectedness that consumers feel with a company’s CSR activities (and therefore contributing to their purchasing behavior) has a lot to do with the alignment of ethics between the individual and the company. She then cites references that illustrate that women are more ethically sensitive than men and in a philanthropic arena are more likely to donate money and their own time via volunteerism than men.

The Guatemala experience focuses on development of insight related to leadership skills, intense application of those insights and skills and in social enterprise in a small village and then with accredited coaching support, taking away those lessons and applying them to various components such as career, community and family over a period of several months.
This combination of learning, leadership development and “hands-on” CSR – would of course appeal to those with a strong ethical base, and those who are curious about the world and their place in it. But I do not believe that this is the sole (or soul) domain of women. Gender differences are rarely black and white, so I do imagine that CSR, leadership and learning are of interest to many men too – yet there is clearly a difference in how this is pursued by men.
So…some questions.

1. Is social and environmental good still seen as a “soft” benefit versus that resides outside the traditional profit and loss statement that is “hard” evidence of success pursued by men?

2. Is CSR seen as a skill of nurturance – that can be performed by men, but more comfortably by women?

3. Our program focuses on leadership development alongside CSR – would more men consider leadership innate whereas women would place value on the introspection, and analysis required to be more effective?

4. These questions lead to a black and white orientation that is overly simplistic to say the least and only supports the maintenance of stereotypes. However, they do play at the corners of a more troubling scenario. If one assumes that promoting a CSR/leadership agenda is a good thing, then it should be of equal importance to both men and women. Women are the typical CSR practitioner but are underrepresented at the most senior levels – aside from trying to achieve parity in this regard; does it also make sense for us to rethink the communications context to engage men at a senior level in this dialogue. Or…..

5. Is this all nonsense and can concerns be safely dismissed simply by what we see in the relatively egalitarian social media world, i.e. witness the work and ideas of Fabian Pattberg, Elaine Cohen, Aman Singh, David Connor, Chris Jarvis, Christine Arena, Julie Urlaub, Jeffrey Hollender, or Lavinia Weissman and many others.

What do you think? Do you have answers or opinions on the above questions? Is this all a red herring? Let us know your thoughts.

The Acacia Group’s mission is to offer transformative and unique leadership development for organizations and individuals seeking to live out their global citizenship. To do this we blend knowledge from Corporate Social Responsibility, Community Development and Leadership Development and Learning to emerge new opportunities for excellence for our clients.