Leaders Slay Dragons Don't They?

by Jim Rough

Dragon mythology tells a story of transformation – a story that has relevance to both modern day individuals and organizations. Slaying the dragon enables the hero and heroine to live “happily every after” and to govern a kindom more blessed and rich than the world has ever known before. The Star Wars series of finlms is a modern day version of a dragon tale. Through struggle, learning and heroism the dragon, Darth Vadar, is trasformed into Luke Skywalker’s long-lost, loving father.

One key to understanding the mythology is to understand that a large and terrifying reptile-like creature with unusual powers does not a dragon make. It is the special feeling of fear and loathing that makes one.

But you ask, “what do I care about dragons, myths and fairy tales, anyway; I’ve got a business to run!” Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and transformational expert Joseph Campbell tell us that the dragon myth, as well as other myths describes the story of transformation, which happens psychologically.

In their view, rather than being untrue, a myth is an accurate description of psychological reality. It is the story of how fears can be faced and transformed into joy, love, riches, and enthusiasm. It is how a drab kingdom can be transformed into a wonderful new one.

In this article I am seeking to bring this description of the mythical transformation process to the level of practical, organizational decision making. As a result, I hope that you, the reader, will more readily acknowledge the positive potential lurking in dragon-like problems and consider the possibility of unforeseeable but positive developments in a dragon slaying approach.

First we will briefly review the traditional dragon myth, then see how it relates to your organizational life. While reading the brief review of dragon stories, you might find yourself doing a simultaneous translation into organizational life. Great, that will be a sure sign that we are on our way.

The Traditional Dragon Myth

In the typical Western tale, the dragon, a fearful, loathsome beast, is in a dormant phase where, as a harmless creature, it has been banished from the kingdom. It lives in a remote area of the dark forest.

The dragon awaken; a few champions die facing it alone-
For some unknown reason, the dragon is awakened and makes its presence felt. It steals sheep or milk and disturbs the otherwise flourishing kingdom. A few knights make various unsuccessful attempts to kill it, but dragons are not dealt with so easily. The dragon prevails. Eventually, the kingdom tries to manage the dragon’s ferocity through sacrifice. First, the sacrifices are not costly - a few sheep or some milk. But over time the dragon’s demands become more insistent and maidens become the target. Also as the sacrifices continue, over the years the dragon begins to accumulate a treasure of gold and pearls. The treasure symbolizes the rewards to be gained when the kingdom is freed from the terror of the beast.

A hero is needed to kill this dragon-
In this old tale, slaying the dragon requires a single heroic figure. He has had a special birth and is a prince from another kingdom. He must face the dragon and slay it alone. Somehow he overcomes the paralyzing nature of the creature and slays it.

The old kingdom is now transformed. A new and better kingdom is established as the treasures are released and the hero and heroine fall in love and are married. It is the dawning of a new age.

The moral of the dragon tale-
The myth illustrates ordinary life at an unconscious level:

1. Dragon-like feeling are created.
2. Avoiding those feelings becomes a dominant activity.
3. These feeling could be transformed if faced creatively.

Similar psychological dynamics are a part of any organizational setting. Only, rarely, however, is the facilitative leadership present to seek and unlock the transformational potential.

In the remainder of this article, each of these three aspects of the dragon myth will be examined in the context of real organizational situations.

How Organizational Dragons Are Created

In today’s organizations people are extremely interested in quality. The core of quality, I have found, depends on a caring attitude in people. The leader in thinking about quality and the organization often asks: “do our people really care about the customer, their colleagues, their involvement with the organization?” When the answer is no, too often leaders risk becoming quality dragons by demanding that people should care harder.

With more thought, we might see that when people care about something or someone, they are vulnerable to being hurt. So, perhaps it is in caring and risking hurt that dragons are born or awakened. And caring harder is neither a magic sword or an answer.

The caring paradox-
A caring attitude means there is a potential for pain, as well as a potential creativity and spirit of excellence. This pain can start a negative cycle of distrust and defensiveness. When hurt, the sensitive, caring side of people often starts a negative spiral from mediocrity, to inadequacy, and even to pathology. This is a great dilemma and paradox that our leadership must face.

While the quest for excellence must enable and support people to truly care about their work, the organization, fellow workers and customers, it must also find ways of preventing or healing the potential hurts that are experienced along the way.

Consider the real story which follows. It illustrates how a negative cycle of thinking can be established in an organization and how difficult it is to recover from such a cycle.

A dragon in the sawmill...
In a Northwestern sawmill this particular employee’s task was unloading stacks of lumber with a hoist. Others, her customers, sorted the wood that she unstacked; occasionally stopping the process when the wood came too fast.

She noticed the frequent stopping and determined through experimentation that if she paced her operations at a slightly slower rate, there were fewer stops and overall productivity and quality improved. She was pleased with herself and enthused about her improvement.

When the foreman came by, he saw her more relaxed pace and told her to speed things up. When she tried to explain her motive, he didn’t believe or listen to her. He assumed that she was the only beneficiary of the different pace. He assumed that his responsibility was to control her from dysfunctional behavior. He didn’t trust her enough to seriously consider her viewpoint and missed an opportunity to begin a positive cycle of increasing trust.

Hrrump! I’ll show you! At this point, the woman made an all too typical, but critical decision. It was based on the hurt she felt. She decided, “I’ll show him. I’ll prove to him that I am right and he is wrong.” So, she sped up even faster than the initial pace, reducing productivity instead of improving it.

The moral: the first reaction to a dragon is pain/fear based anger.

This example illustrates the first, natural, and impulsive decision that many people make. It is an angry response to the injury, but more than that, a cry of pain that sounds like: “I’ll show them that I am a unique person with something to contribute. If they won’t acknowledge me, then they will suffer too.”

The decision she made came out of her hurt feelings and because she felt powerless to change the situation. Her instinctive reaction to fight back by maliciously complying with her foreman was a decision to play lose/lose with her own life’s vitality at stake.

This instinctive decision can happen quickly and unconsciously during a meeting, or in a reaction to a letter, or a casual comment. When a caring, creative idea is disregarded or snuffed out, the hurt and urge for revenge can be compulsive and overpowering.

I won’t care anymore. . .
As bad as this first decision was, there are subsequent ones in the negative trust spiral which bring even greater loss and which create more or larger dragons.

Later, the same woman began to realize how hard she was working and that with her union’s protection, she couldn’t be fired anyway.

Her new thinking was: “Why should I care? I get paid for my time. I’ll just put in my time. I don’t have to work so hard.” Her new decision was, “ I won’t care anymore.”

Sacrificing to the dragon will protect me, won’t it?
Deciding that you won’t care is to try to shut down a creative, trusting, and human side of oneself to be protected from the pain of further hurt feelings.

When a person says “I won’t let it bother me” or “I won’t care anymore” they mentally push this “bothering aspect” away from consciousness: They banish the feeling from the kingdom of conscious thought.

The paradox made plain. . .
All too often when American workers express hurt they are told by colleagues and supervisors:

“Don’t be so sensitive, be professional”
“Don’t worry about it”
“Don’t let that bother you”

Such attitudes encourage us to ignore unpleasant feelings; to try not to care so much.

But now, many places of work in America are seeking to inspire people, more than just to control their behavior. They are seeking to re-awaken the emotional, caring qualities in the workplace. And schools are seeking to awaken these same qualities in students.

More than ever before people are beginning to understand that true leadership enlivens and encourages these creative motivations of people.

Dragons are born out of caring and creativity. . .
Because the woman in the sawmill cared, she recognized and acted on an improvement in her workplace. Her caring attitude was expressed creatively. But because she cared, she was vulnerable to being hurt by the supervisor’s lack of trust. Her response was to protect herself by repressing the caring, creative side. The human caring aspect lives on in the psyche but as a newborn dragon; it is dormant for awhile, but eventually expresses itself and causes problems.

The Dragon’s Life Cycle

Repressing her hurt feelings, the woman in the sawmill made her situation tolerable. Without such a response the pain can be too great to function effectively. The “I won’t let that bother me anymore” decision allows people a measure of freedom without being encumbered by an awareness of their awkward feelings. The feelings don’t go away, however. They are merely removed from conscious awareness. People may no longer experience the pain, but their creative passion is diminished, as well.

Organizations that base their functioning on repression become superficial, functioning at a level far less than they might. They are unaware of the lost opportunity. Unfortunately, it’s just this superficial, limited attitude which many organizations consider to be the good employee, or the good student.

The foreman who told the woman to speed up “because I said so” didn’t realize the positive possibility he destroyed. In his mind, he was managing her to become a good employee: to do what she was told. Instead, he was sowing dragon seeds.

Beware of Dormant Dragons-
The dragon is a creature which lives in the forest of the unconscious. It mostly stays in the forest, but after some time it may begin to ravage the kingdom. Dragons do not lie dormant forever.

Dragons Often Strike Out at Innocents-
The “I won’t care anymore” decision of the sawmill worker banished her unpleasant feelings from the kingdom of conscious thinking. . . for awhile.

Later, she saw a machine operator who was reading on the job. At first she had little reaction; she only noted that the person appeared to have free time. Over time, however, it began to bother her. He was paid the same amount of money as she, but did far less work.

Dragons always exact new costs. . .
Her reaction was: “It isn’t fair!” Once again unpleasant feelings arose and she tried to banish them, to sacrifice them, and make them go away. She tried to tell herself that she didn’t care.

She affirmed to herself: “I just put in my eight hours and I get paid for what I do. I just do what I’m told.” With stronger resolution, she struggled to repress a new set of negative and uncomfortable feelings, but the spiral continued. She sacrificed more of her true, caring self to the dragon’s growing treasure.

People in this negative spiral sacrifice more and more and in the process become more superficial and less effective. Gossip, arguing, compulsive behaviors, and dullness of mind can all be caused by unconscious efforts to avoid facing dragons.

Uncovering Dragons and Dragon Responses
Dragons initially evoke a feeling of being powerless, victimized, and without vital energy. To avoid acknowledging this feeling, often people will compulsively leap to the first solution that comes to mind no matter how unlikely its prospect of success.

Dragon problems are best identified by uncreative responses rather than by an objective measure of the problem’s magnitude.

The nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union, for instance, was a major problem. The future existence of the human race was at stake. Despite this significance, seldom was it approached creatively as an issue.

“We have to” responses. . .
Some responded with “we have to build more missiles!” Others responded with “we have to limit nuclear arms!” Neither have to was a creative response. This only thing we can do type of response denies the creative possibility and avoids facing dragon feelings. Eventually, the only thing we can do type solution gets overused and makes the problem even worse.

Imelda Marcos of the Philippines, for example, who had over 3000 new pairs of shoes in her wardrobe was probably responding automatically when she went shopping instead of facing a dragon issue in her life.

Overworked solutions such as, building another missile or buying a new pair of shoes, eventually create problems even more severe than the original one.

Transforming Dragons

The dragon myth illustrates individual and organizational life at the level of elemental feelings: Sacrifices provide immediate relief from the terrifying powerful dragon, but they rob the kingdom. Beautiful maidens represent pride of workmanship, the joy of real relationship, personal creativity, et cetera.

Sacrificing these work maidens does not eliminate the dragon; it only delays and intensifies the day of reckoning; leading inexorably to further crises and the complete impoverishment of the kingdom. A heroic step must be taken to face and slay (transform) the beast.

Facing the Dragon-
When a dragon is faced creatively, the kingdom may be transformed.

Slaying the sawmill dragon. . .
The woman in the sawmill eventually began to attend employee involvement meetings that included the foreman that had started her dragon-like problem. After awhile she shared her hurt feelings and reached a new level of understanding and trust with the foreman. The EI meetings supported people to heroically address the real issue.

The sawmill unit transformed. . .
The foreman radically changed his management style and his relationship with each member of the crew. The woman achieved a level of respect and friendship with him which had previously been unimaginable.

The facilitator and EI meetings supports heroic action. . .
When the caring and creative aspects of people are supported in a safe environment, they bring a new vitality and power. Working through important issues, not covering them up, makes a real and lasting difference for the person, the organization, and for the environment.

Facilitative Leadership and Safe Meetings-
Facilitative leadership insures there are safe opportunities for dragons to be faced. This leadership quality recognizes the potential in a dragon situation and structures a separate meeting environment where transformation can occur.

In a safe meeting, for example, people are helped to resist the natural inclination to act on the first solution that comes to mind. They are challenged to find the courage that seeks truth no matter where the trail might lead.

This kind of meeting also provides a space where people can confront and acknowledge dragon-like issues directly. Wallowing in the negative isn’t helpful but there is a need to acknowledge the dragon before it can become something else.

A Dragon in Service Land

In their effort to help clients, employees in a state social work agency would occasionally bend minor rules. Supervision tolerated the deviations until there was a change in management. Then there was a decision to take corrective measures in the form of stronger rules and increased direction to the staff.

The Dragon Strikes-
The caseworkers described their response to these new directives, “When I’m told what to do and not to do, I feel angry and want to push back.” A cycle of push and counter push resulted, taking such forms as labor grievances, malicious compliance with rules, disciplinary actions, etc. These only thing we can do type solutions, led each side to a crisis. Both sides could point with exasperation at the extent to which the other party had misbehaved, citing incredible examples. The pillaging dragon took the form of a justifiable rage demanding only what is fair!

Facing the Dragon-
Eventually a crisis occurred in which all nine people in the group sent a letter to the department head stating that their supervisor was “ a real problem.” The department head decided to face the dragon and with the aid of a consultant, she held a short series of meetings in which the problems was addressed.

Transforming the Dragon-
Over the course of the meeting a courageous attitude of wrestling with the dilemma allowed the dragon to be transformed. It was difficult for the group to address the problem at first. There were uncomfortable feelings and a strong reluctance to experience those feelings. It was more comfortable to hold the opponent responsible for the problem and require her to change.

The division manager exercised facilitative leadership by recognizing the transformational potential and by insuring a safe format for the group to confront the issue. The environment she created encouraged openness and supported the struggle with the dragon of hurt feelings.

As people worked on the problem in this environment they saw themselves and their colleagues in a new light. Actually, the people in the group became different-they were transformed.

Their anger subsided. Ideas flowed more freely. People responded to one another with respect, with different body language and voice tone.

The Transformation Outcomes-
Before the meetings, the group thought that the supervisor was the problem. After the meetings, it was agreed she had become a vital asset to the department.

Before the meetings, the supervisor’s goal had been to make/force the group respect her authority. After the meetings her authority was respected in a new and different way. They were respecting her, instead of her authority.

For those social workers, the transformation process produced a shift in energy. The group’s discussion of the awful problem soon had little vitality. It was no longer a problem. In its place, the vitality which had been bottled up was released for other, more creative tasks. The group energetically began to tackle the task of “how to become the best department in the state!”

However, even though the transformation process ended up being very energizing, it wasn’t painless. It required real workplace heroism by everyone involved.

The Facilitative Leader’s Tasks

The facilitative leader has three important tasks to address when facing workplace dragons.

1. They must be able to recognize the transformational potential in this environment and act in ways that allow this potential to be realized.
2. It is critical that the leader provide a safe space in which a creative discussion of the issue can happen.
3. The leader must insure that the meeting process helps people to stay creative and open-minded.

It’s hard but stay the course. . .
Over time people develop an understanding and a trust in this transformation process of change. They achieve breakthrough solutions to issues that seemed impossible to solve.

When people heroically face and overcome dragon issues they grow in trust and overall effectiveness.

Good news/bad news for dragon slayers. . .
First, the bad news. Defensive behaviors, cries of unfairness, burnout, and it’s the only thing we can do type attitudes are sure signs that the beautiful workplace maidens (pride, joy and trust) are being sacrificed to a healthy, growing dragon.

The good news is that this represents transformational potential and a possibility to become more than what now seems possible.

The other good news is that workplace heroism doesn’t require magic-just courage and humane leadership.

What’s so courageous about being a facilitative leader? Traditional management training and designs assume that people should just behave logically. They should leave their feelings at home and be professional. But as the dragon myth illustrates, at the elemental feeling level people are much richer than this. We must make seemingly illogical choices which inspire hearts as well as those which direct thoughts and actions.

So, it takes some considerable courage just to say “when people try to bury an essential part of their being or when we try to force them to do so, that energy has to go someplace. And all too often such energy is hidden as impossible to solve problems, poor communication, or people problems.”

Courage is needed to accept the reality of these issues and the reality of the heroic process to overcome them. The consequences of not providing opportunity and encouragement in organizations for people to resolve these issues is to create a ravaged kingdom in which human vitality and creativity are sacrificed.