Did any of you catch the Oscars a few weeks ago? I wrote about it in my newsletter, but I want to share my thoughts here! There were some upsets (Spotlight beat The Revenant for Best Picture!) and some moments of pure joy (Leo finally got his Oscar…) as well as some serious moments of… well, I was going to say awkwardness, but in the end I’m not sure that’s what I mean.
Host for the night Chris Rock did not pull any punches, and I have to say — I admire him for that. It seems to me there is a brilliant leadership lesson in Mr. Rock’s courage and his willingness to be comfortable with the uncomfortable, and to hold the audience in that space longer than many thought necessary.
Our job as leaders is not to make ourselves or everyone else feel comfy; it’s to hold the mirror up so people can see the truth, and to hold it up long enough that we feel the pain and understand where it’s coming from. That’s what spurs people to action to make real change. But the truth is hard. And people feel…awkward. It’s at about that time, the awkward time, that leaders too often back down to make it easier and safer for themselves or those they are leading. So when your listeners become uncomfortable, that is not the time to stop. For real change to happen, for real truth to be seen, we have to hold that mirror up for longer than our viewers would like. But where’s the line? Where’s the line between holding the mirror up long enough for real change to have a chance, and being disrespectful? That might be a matter of opinion, but in mine I’d say Chris Rock did a pretty good job Sunday night.
Yes, it did get uncomfortable, but I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. We’ve built a society that protects us from discomfort. When you have a headache, you just take an Advil. Heaven forbid we sit with the pain, or search for the source, right? Just get comfortable. It takes courage to really feel that pain, to learn what really hurts, what causes it and therefore what really needs to be fixed. I applaud Chris Rock for having that courage. He stayed strong and stuck to the message and we got uncomfortable. And we should have. The pain is real and the solution is hard, and until we really feel it, it will never change.
Leadership is the courage to keep holding that mirror of reality up, even when we make people uncomfortable.
