Leadership in the Age of Outrage

No matter where you are on the political spectrum, we can all probably agree we are living in an age of outrage. Societal polarization, exacerbated by social media’s echo chamber, has been utilized for political power grabs. Aggression plays a role, not only in the public arena but in the workplace too.

How did we get here and how can leaders move beyond the outrage – or, at the very least, move through it?

Professor Karthik Ramanna recently published the book The Age of Outrage: How to Lead in a Polarized World. He takes a brave look at the ways in which business leaders can work with enraged customers and/or employees by turning down the temperature, making sense of the moment, assessing the organization’s capabilities, understanding where the leader has power (or not) and building organization and personal resilience to work through the challenges.

Ramanna identifies three core drivers that feed rage:

• The fear of the future, often informed by disruptive technology, climate change and demographic shifts through immigration, an aging population and more)
• A belief that we’ve been handed a raw deal by those in power (such as globalization, immigration and wrongfully levied taxes)
• A rising sense of the “other” (scapegoating minorities, suppressing women’s rights, blaming immigrants)

Ramanna uses multiple case studies to illustrate the ways in which business leaders have navigated outrage. One historic example is the way in which then Johnson & Johnson Chairman and CEO James Burke handled the cyanide-laced Tylenol crisis. In 1982 cyanide was found in Tylenol bottles in Chicago, forcing Burke to recall 31 million bottles of the product from the shelves. While it cost the company millions in the short term, it paid off in terms of reputation management in the long term. Instead of shirking his responsibility, Burke faced the crisis head-on through preventative measures. He offset any impending outrage by removing any doubt about the safety of J&J’s product line.

In a recent webinar, Ramanna discussed his five-part framework of leadership in an age of outrage.

A Leader’s 5-Part Framework

Step 1: Turning down the temperature. Move people from a state of aggression. The guiding principle is ‘do no harm.’

Review the ambient conditions you find yourself in. A hot-crowded room makes people more likely to be aggressive than a relaxed, cool lounge. So literally, turn down the temperature of the room.

Step 2: Making sense of the moment. Understand what’s really happening here. It is an analytic moment supported by a diverse and trusted group of voices. What is driving the outrage that you are experiencing as a manager/leader? What is causal and what is catalytic? Some of the causes can be addressed. Some cannot.

Step 3: Scoping the organization’s response. What should you do? Your response should be based on the organization’s culture. Be deliberate on what you lean in on and what you lean out of.

Step 4: Understanding the leader’s power. In which ways can you exercise your power so that it is repletive, not depletive?

Step 5: Building organizational and personal resilience. Doing the first four steps is difficult. It is important to keep your batteries charged.

Replacing fear with action is a bold leadership move missing in politics today. If more leaders embrace Ramanna’s framework, outrage may retreat. At the very least, leaders will be equipped to manage it better.

_{Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.}