Two seemingly unrelated and unexpected stories told recently just weeks apart:
Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez, the baseball great who is fourth on the all-time home run list – only Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth have hit more – shared his story of redemption at a lunch I attended.
And Andres Agudo, a 30-year old Bolivian guide, showed off a world-class collection of masks at the Ethnographic Folklore Museum I toured in La Paz, Bolivia, with a casual, almost throw-away comment about people hiding behind their masks.
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“This is my favorite room,” said Agudo, as we turned the corner to go into a long, dark room filled with more than two dozen intricate, colorful masks, each one lit with a spotlight, many of them used in Carnival celebrations in years past. One of the masks depicted the Devil, another a Spanish conquistador, another El Tio, a malevolent character who turns into the Devil.
His favorite room, he said, “because people hide behind masks, several masks.” He explained, “Not until someone has recognized and integrated all his masks into his personality, is that person a truly whole, authentic person.”
Rodriguez confessed in his lunch talk in Dallas at a St.Philip’s School and Community Center fundraiser that years of living behind masks caused him enormous pain. It wasn’t accomplishments in baseball and in business with his current partner, Jennifer Lopez, that made him nearly as proud as moving beyond his masks.
Baseball standout Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez
When he played baseball, Rodriguez used performance enhancing drugs, once admitting he did so because of the enormous pressure he felt to perform. He also went through a divorce with his wife, Cynthia, who cited “emotional abandonment” and “marital misconduct” in divorce papers. He said he hired an array of coaches and counselors to help him deal with the problems. But the problems never would go away.
Three years ago, he said, he looked himself in the mirror one morning and realized the problems were of his own making. The masks he had been hiding behind for years would not work. And if he was to resolve them, he would have to do something to find the peace he so desperately sought. It meant, he decided, asking for forgiveness. He made a list of 10 people, including his two daughters. He then proceeded to meet in person with each person on the list. It was supposed to take a week or two. It took six months. The hardest were his daughters.
Now, the A-Rod standing before you is the real deal, he said. No masks.
Part of what it takes to become a great leader is to deal with your masks. It is about strengthening personal and interpersonal awareness, increasing understanding of personal emotions, strengthening empathy. To do so gives access to enhanced and new capacities that others don’t have. In turn, it strengthens leaders’ ability to respond to complex, ambiguous and sophisticated challenges.
Just five to six percent of the general adult population, according to researchers, have developed capacities to take a systems view of what’s going on around them, simultaneously hold and manage conflicting perspectives and emotions and deeply accept oneself, others and the moment without judgment.
In other words, just five to six percent of the general population are leaders capable of leading large organizational and societal change. That in the face of enormous organization and societal needs.
The call to action: If you want to be among the five percent, what are you waiting for? Ultimately, you must deal with your masks. Executive coaching, however, can help. It helps you understand your masks and points to ways to deal with them. Over time with coaching one of my clients who feared his superiors learned how to engage with them and now has been asked by those same superiors to lead important initiatives in his company. In other words, owning his masks has led others to draw him closer and give him more responsibility.
Coaching, too, helps teams deal with dysfunction. Team members who push their masks aside and speak honestly to each other get better results. They do so because they deepen trust, come together on vision and make clear team members’ roles and commitments. Over the years, I’ve seen several teams reach high performing levels when team members really have been honest with each other.
Again, what are you waiting for?
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Executive coaching: A Sherpa for Those Who Really Want to Learn and Change
Leaders and Character: Know Thyself
Barking at the Troops: Leaders and Communication
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