THAT GRAY AREA: Leadership Application in Today
THAT GRAY AREA: Leadership Application in Today’s Socio-cultural Workforce and Society
Jacob Desuyo | 2022
Abstract
The premise for which “That Gray Area” was founded is in direct correlation with today’s evolving socio-cultural landscape. The shift in sociocultural behavior from generation to generation is not an unforeseen occurrence and society has naturally evolved alongside such changes. Consider a few major shifts in societal behavior: The abolishing of slavery, women’s rights, and LGBTQ rights. All of which were movements that have progressed substantially over time. However, these movements only serve as a small portion of the complex groups and individuals that make up our society, and workforce much less. Therefore, suggesting that a deeper understanding of how to interact with such diverse individuals is needed, especially in an organizational setting. Despite the need for deeper understanding of such diversity, an alternative precedent has been established that has created an entirely different set of complex rules pertaining to leader-member interaction.
The precedent that has been established continues to recognize a correlation between organizational success and management style. However, the leader’s management style has reverted to accommodate for the follower’s expectations as opposed to the follower living up to the expectations established by the leader more so in comparison to previous decades and generations. Although it can be argued that effective leadership has always taken into account the perspective of followers, this shift in leader-follower interaction collaterally introduces new and complex variables. Such variables have become the foundation for which an individual is viewed as being an “effective leader”. Individuals that attempt to apply a generalized approach to leadership while assuming that followers must adapt to their specific method of leadership will, ultimately, face challenges that occurred less often in previous generations.
Such a viewpoint can be seen as a “black and white” method of leadership application. Leaders that are able to operate successfully in “That Gray Area” take the time to perceive and apply leadership from a place of humility while accommodating for individual’s receptiveness to alternative methods of leadership. While a leader that is able to operate successfully in “That Gray Area” makes an effort to understand how a follower receives leadership at an individual level, such a leader also focuses on qualities that the follower possesses on an individual level as well, not according to the demographic that they belong to from a cultural, racial, or biological perspective. And finally, leaders that operate successfully in “That Gray Area” are also able to instill valuable traits, such as “perceiving constructive criticism” or “overcoming adversity”, that they were able to accrue in previous versions of the workforce that did not accommodate for followers as much as modern society.
The interviews that were conducted for the “That Gray Area” documentary serve as a foundation in which leadership can be perceived and applied moving forward in today’s more sensitive social-cultural environment. Although the individuals that were interviewed in the documentary only serve as a small sample of our workforce’s leadership population, the range of industries that are represented allows viewers to gain insight into how leadership and followership should be perceived from a broad perspective. The hypothesis upon entering the interviews with the leaders in the “That Gray Area” documentary was that leadership in today’s evolving socio-cultural environment must evolve as well, to remain relevant and ethically appropriate. However, the practical application of principles and life-lessons obtained from experiences that took place in the less fragile socio-cultural state of our workforce serves as a critical factor that separates mediocre leaders from great leaders. Findings suggest that leaders in various industries acknowledge the evolution of the state of our socio-cultural environment and minor adjustments must be made as to how to approach followers today. However, the standard for which job performance is graded must not fluctuate to align with modern-day evolution of leader-follower interaction.
View the documentary here or search on Youtube: “THAT GRAY AREA: The Leadership Documentary.”