Leadership in the Context of Binary Think

"It looks like spaghetti!"

I’ve heard this sentiment over and over again in the context of describing mapping client journeys in the mental health sector for years. The drive for our binary-programmed brains to find simplicity and replicable patterns is strong. Inherently there is discomfort with an indiscernable pathway. Humans have built complex systems for eons that are ironically counter-intuitive to our evolutionary desire for clear patterns (check out Superior Pattern Processing if you’re interested in a neat brain science deeper dive).

Reality is our world is complex and those of us working in system transformation are quick to point to wicked problems as a defining characteristic of the mental health and substance sector. While we’re working to simplify our complex systems and make outreach, service, referral and navigation more direct, clear and better supported (which is critically important) we also have an opportunity to push our personal and professional comfort with chaos.

So, a proposition: complex health systems with wicked problems can benefit from those of us working within them to embrace chaos and not try to move to more assembly-line approaches.

Here’s some thoughts about the why:

1. Over-investment in singular or highly-defined solutions can result in rigidity that impedes creatively responding to evolving contexts. The world around service is constantly shifting and although baseline standards can enable a quality of experience for clients, investing limited resources and capacity in trying to simplify systems of service may not yield the intended results. We could better utilize resources and time to incentivize partnerships and integrate approaches.

2. Positive leadership impact is overwhelmingly characterized by high emotional intelligence and effective leadership is linked to a growth mindset that can empathize with multiple perspectives. Building leadership skill to embrace chaos can foster more resilient leaders. Impactful leadership across positions, organizations and individuals is critically needed in our sectors right now as we are seeing a growing gap in leadership succession planning and coaching. Future leaders will need to contend with multi-faceted employee, organizational and system realities so more skill development in embracing and managing chaos will serve our sectors best.

3. By attempting to simplify highly complex realities with ready-made solutions we risk tokenizing and minimizing individuals and replicating oppressive harms. Often the more patterned responses we seek to build and replicate serve an already privileged majority and can be reductionist in approach when we need to lead with an expansionary and dismantling approach to build (potentially more complex) equity-first solutions.

These are just some initial thoughts from a chaos theory fan!