The young chief executive and I discussed friendship and marriage as possible examples of personal relations that – at least in their higher forms – come close to having a character of ‘unlimited liability’. Even with marriage or being a parent, however, we found that more often than not there was some limit, some unspoken condition, even if it never came into operation. The slogan My country right or wrong struck us both as an unsatisfactory statement.
‘It’s as if there is a hierarchy of loyalties,’ he continued. ‘A leader who orders his followers to commit a crime or something that is immoral should not be obeyed because a higher loyalty comes into play, namely a loyalty to what is good or true. It’s a matter of values.’
‘Yes, when someone gives you an order, there is a fraction of a second when your brain computes whether or not to obey it. Even the most strenuous attempts to “brainwash” humans so that they act under command like robots – efficient, insensitive, brutalized – can seldom totally eradicate the moral reflexes of the soul, at least where the brain of the person concerned is not vitiated by mental disease.’
‘Then it is as if values are a third element, as it were distinct from the two parties. It reminds me of the idea that integrity means adhering to values outside oneself, especially truth. Isn’t this a fundamental principle about human relations, that they are always triangular – there is always a reference point?’
‘Whether or not it’s a fundamental principle, it’s true that it makes a difference whether you regard relations as essentially dual – consisting only of persons or parties relating to each other – when it is as if the two are looking together at, say, a landscape or a road ahead.
‘The classic example of the dual relation must be the first stages of romantic love, when two lovers are absorbed by each other to the exclusion of anything or anyone else. Shakespeare is full of such pairs of lovesick lovers.’
‘In real life, a few couples spin a cocoon of an egoism à deux for themselves. But most discover a third focus of interest…’
‘The arrival of children does it, if nothing else,’ interjected the young chief executive. ‘A crying baby in the middle of the night is definitely “triangular” – I speak from recent experience! Your three-circle model – I notice you always put the TASK on the top – suggests that what each INDIVIDUAL (which includes the designated leader or leaders) and the TEAM triangulate on is the TASK. Therefore, by definition, it is common, or at least capable of becoming so.’
‘Yes, but I am not arguing here that it necessarily feels common. It’s just a fact. There is a job to be done that one person cannot do on their own. However the situation has been reached, it is a common task for this pair of individuals or group of people. Therefore all relations involving leadership are triangular. Talk about leaders and followers can obscure that fundamental fact.’
‘Has that always been the case?’
‘It probably goes back to our prehistoric past as hunter-gatherers, when men were companions in the endless chase. Evolution conditioned us to work together in pursuit of an elusive quarry. Writing in The Four Loves (1966), C S Lewis sees the origins of male companionship and friendship in “early communities where the cooperation of the males as hunters and fighters was no less necessary than the begetting and rearing of children. And to like doing what must be done is a characteristic that has survival value. We not only had to do the things, we had to talk about them. We had to plan the hunt and the battle. When they were over we had to hold a post mortem and draw conclusions for the future. We like this even better…” ‘
‘In terms of the three-circles, then,’ commented the young chief executive, ‘the common TASK is the hunt, and the needs of INDIVIDUALS are met by sharing out the meat. As for the functions, Lewis has mentioned two already – planning and reviewing.’
‘Yes, but he isn’t looking at it through the lens of the three-circles model as such. What Lewis highlights is the “pleasure in co-operation, in talking shop, in the mutual respect and understanding of men who daily see one another tested, that underlies the whole process”.’
‘Rather sexist, isn’t he?’
‘Well, he was a man of his time,’ I replied. ‘Lewis saw this necessary companionship of hunters in order to survive as the matrix of friendship. Here is what he has to say:
Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste that the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden)…
Companionship was between people who were doing something together – hunting, studying, painting or what you will. The Friends will still be looking together, but at something inward, less widely shared and less easily defined; still hunters, but of some immaterial quarry; still collaborating, but in some work the world does not, or not yet take account of; still travelling companions, but on a different kind of journey. Hence we picture lovers face to face but Friends side by side; their eyes look ahead.
‘I should add that Lewis does not undervalue companionship. “We do not disparage silver by distinguishing it from gold,” he says.’
‘Both companionship and friendship then are – in your phrase – triangular relations,’ said the young chief executive. ‘I suppose the corollary is that people who want to do nothing or who lack any interests can hardly find companions or friends. If you are not going anywhere, how can you find yourself among fellow-travellers?’
Life Has Taught Us That Love Does Not
Consist In Gazing At Each Other
But In Looking Outward Together
In The Same Direction
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
‘That is what Lewis is suggesting. Notice his use of the journey motif, both in the literal and metaphorical senses. The shared journey or quest, if you like, is the third point of the triangle.’
‘So it can be an actual journey, like the hunt, or a more abstract one like the search for a scientific truth…’
‘Yes, all military operations are examples of actual journeys by land, sea or air – journeys made especially hazardous by being made into the face of an enemy. As you say, many other journeys we make are non-physical in nature, but nonetheless real. They involve colleagues and usually a leader – the first companion. Banesh Hoffman wrote of his experience as a colleague of Albert Einstein: If you worked with him he made you aware of a common enemy – the problem. But you became his partner in battle.’
‘Partner in battle,’ said the young chief executive, ‘I like that phrase. Just to summarize where we are. There is a transactional dimension in all relations. Where it is explicit a leader should ensure that contracts are fairly, fully and honourably met. There is also an implicit or “psychological” contract, which has to be honoured in spirit, but it’s not a blank cheque. A third force, such as values, may set limits or conditions on the leader–follower relation. In fact there is always a third element – in any leadership equation – namely the common TASK. Could you now help me to see where transformational leadership that I heard about in New York fits into this picture?’