Leadership Axiom #2

You Cannot be Better than the System You are in!
When I used to visit potential work sites, I focused on what would be "beneath" me (terrible choice of words), i.e., those I would supervise. Now I look above! I have learned that without the support of my supervisors, and more importantly, a logical system, I cannot achieve much. I don't need to have a great relationship with those I report to, but I do need to have an honest, consistent working relationship with these decision makers and decision supporters.
Too often, I think, we focus on our personal, idiographic relationships with our supervisors. Hindsight has shown me this is not a necessary antecedent to a good working relationship. I have had a supervisor that I did not respect personally, but she supported our mutual goals and decisions unilaterally. She didn't always make sure I got credit for what I had accomplished, but she never left me hanging in the wind, thrown under a bus (sorry, passive aggressive memories of my first graduate professor who worshipped Orwell and railed against the literary use of "prepackaged phrases"). We accomplished a lot together, and that was really all that mattered.
I have also worked in environments with a great deal of good people, but they were connected by capricious, self-serving systems. Virtue and valor acquiesced to the navigation of the labile vagaries of a corrupt enterprise. Many eventually retreated into their own spheres of efficacy, and removed themselves from much of the surrounding environment. Others battled hopelessly against a sea of ambiguity, eventually giving up, feeling beaten up and betrayed by nothing. I was one of these combatants - however, I would flee the battlefield (change jobs) before the inevitable surrender.
After contemplating these phenomena for several years, I have settled on a new concept, a new focus: Heroic Systems vs Heroic Individuals. I realized that the most productive periods in my life have been when I worked actively and enthusiastically within a healthy, consistent system. My efforts were magnified by those of other and vice versa. No matter how difficult things became, the unity of the group gave me solace that we would survive and eventually accomplish our goals (i.e., then can kill us but they can't eat us). I no longer want to be a hero or a martyr, just another caring, committed individual who improves the lives of other by creating the right system.
This system is demanding though - it loathes ego (especially my kind), often disdains personal recognition, and requires a great deal of acquiescence. Academic Freedom is often one of its first causalities, or I should say the self-serving perversion of Academic Freedom. In order to build a good system, a heroic one, individuals have to give up selfish, discordant, mercurial "rights." We all have to sit together and decide what is best for the system and act accordingly. I have learned from quality control concepts that a group of individuals reacting immediately to variation in a process actually create more variation than if they had let the process run unabated. It amazes me to this day that professionals who acknowledge the rigorous discipline of their own fields, ironically posit that they should be able to act independently in their classrooms, and that that course is best for students. Very incongruent, if not hypocritical.
This has been a hard lesson for me, as building and then imposing a communally developed system on myself is difficult. But I have seen the virtue of consistency and transparency, particularly when working with at-risk and underpresented students. Time and time again, they have told me they just want to "know the rules, and to have them consistently applied." I was shocked when I first heard these complaints, many aimed at more liberal colleagues. The students didn't respect or trust inconsistent treatment, even if it was temporarily favorable to them.
So, I am no longer longing to tilt at windmills, battling the evil empires I find myself in. I am no longer the lone hero, sacrificing for the benefit of my poor, downtrodden students. I am responsible to help build a consistent, equitable system that serves us all. And although this may not be as fun on a daily basis, I am sure it will be far more rewarding on graduation days when I see more familiar faces beaming broadly as they climb up the stage, reveling in their own achievement and loving the system that helped them achieve it.