Leaders Should Resist Pressure to Respond to the 24 Hr News Cycle
I recently wrote on the fact that the leaders of our institutions are weary (Our Future Rests in the Hands of Weary Leaders) and one key reason why (Peacekeeping is Exhausting Our Leaders).
Leaders face constant pressure to respond to the 24 hour news and social media cycle. This can be exhausting to manage.
The cycle offers endless material for media consumers to digest: school shootings, leadership scandals, outlandish statements and behavior by political leaders and celebrities, botched police incidents, blatant examples of racism, and the list goes on. In addition, people within my own network are reporting personal news (marriages, divorces, births, deaths, new jobs, job losses, etc).
One of the reasons I pay attention to the news cycle is that I don’t want to be out of the loop. I recall being interviewed by a local TV station and asked to respond to a comment made that day by then former President Trump. I had not seen that particular piece of news and did not feel it prudent to respond.
Social media has built in new structures and expectations for how we engage the news. At times, it can feel like an obligation to like a post, choose the right emoji, or retweet or share some news. As the pressure builds, I might even feel the sense to write some brief commentary expressing just the right amount of righteous indignation without coming across as unhinged. We are discouraged from simply reading the news, we have to react to it.
This pressure to respond to the 24 hour news cycle comes in two forms: the feeling of perceived pressure or the demand of direct pressure.
Perceived Pressure to Respond
The perceived pressure to respond is psychological and very subjective. The leader put this on themselves and, in many ways, has been conditioned to do so.
Sometimes this perceived pressure is accurate and even reliable. As the CEO of Logos Academy, I represent a diverse student population with two-thirds of our students who are black or brown. When George Floyd died in a botched policing incident in Minneapolis, our students, families, and employees were reeling. It is because of the diversity of our student body, and my desire to see their community fairly policed, that I facilitate leading the Chiefs & Clergy Partnership. I helped draft a joint statement from this group and signed it as CEO of Logos Academy.
The perceived pressure I felt to respond was correct because it was connected to my duty as CEO to represent and advocate for our students, and to make clear where we as an institution stood on a matter so personal and potentially threatening to them.
Angry Mobs & Virtue Signaling
Perceived pressure to respond can also come from the fact that everyone else is commenting, raging, and posting angry emojis. This can create questions in the leaders psyche such as, “Should I speak out publicly on this event? If everyone else is doing it, will I be perceived as on the wrong side of this issue?”
When we choose to speak out of fear of being somehow out of step with the crowd, we are at risk of virtue signaling. When I speak out so that you don’t think I am on the wrong side of an issue, I might be virtue signaling. If I feel the need, even the urge, to convince you of my moral uprightness and social orthodoxy, I will make sure that you see my righteous indignation about a news event.
Virtue signaling is being more concerned about looking right than actually being right.
I was talking with one of my kid’s teenage friends who confessed to me the pressure to virtue signal. She told me that she recently refused to post something on Instagram even though everyone else was raging on the topic. She said that she knew she would not follow through and do anything about the subject matter and therefore decided to remain silent. I respect the fact that she rejected empty self-promotion when given the opportunity.
Yes, there are times when silence can equal complicity. I am not advocating for a silence that maintains status quo. I am arguing that the leader needs to understand the mission, niche, and focus of their organization and the people it serves. I am an educator. This draws some boundaries that help me understand when I should feel appropriate pressure to speak.
There is a pressure that comes to virtue signal when the masses are expressing their outrage. I have watched friends on social media suddenly become champions of causes that I have never heard them speak of or advocate. I am not a cynic. Social changes do happen and people can change. That said, the perceive pressure to “be on the right side of history” or to “speak truth to power” when the masses are raging is a powerful motivator to respond.
This form of pressure is most akin to peer pressure. There is no question that the angry mob has become a problem. These mobs are not exclusive to the left or the right. They have become our de facto means of achieving change. The wise reader would do well to research Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s four steps to nonviolent resistance.
We have lost the ability to quietly advocate, to gently confront, to utilize the procedures available to make change. Where is the understanding that sometimes the most powerful changes can come from building relationships or simply working quietly behind the noise to get things done?
Angry mobs are at risk of becoming obnoxious about their own righteousness. We are becoming a people who are demanding of repentance and short on grace. We are quick to want to dig for the splinter in our neighbor’s eye while we ignore the massive plank in our own eye.
What is worse is that angry mobs have a short attention span. They are incessantly jerked around by the news cycle. They do not produced sustained action because they are effective only in the short sprint and not in the marathon required to achieve lasting change.
The wise leader has to discern whether their perceive pressure to respond flows out of a sense of duty and a desire to promote truth, beauty, goodness, and justice, or whether the pressure they feel is born out of a desire to look good and avoid getting mauled by the crowd.
Direct Pressure to Respond
The second type of pressure a leader feels to respond is direct pressure. Following some appalling news event, I have been contacted by students, employees, or community members with the question, “Did you see this news event? I think you should respond (because you are the CEO).”
Sometimes these advocates are right. My role and duty to represent my constituents necessitates that I be clear. I do not want to equivocate on matters that concern my students.
In addition, it would be hypocritical for me to avoid speaking on difficult matters. We encourage our students to promote goodness and challenge evil and they are quite good at it.
At other times, I have chosen to not respond to the direct demand to respond. This is usually disappointing to the one requesting a statement from their leader. Suffice it to say, they may not understand the full, and albeit subjective, calculation that a leader has to make about the total impact of such a statement on the entire enterprise.
Inevitably the leader can feel like they are letting people down, are wishy-washy, or just a weak-willed peacekeeper. Yet, I maintain that a leader should not respond to every pressure to respond to the news cycle, perceived or direct.
Leaders Should Resist Pressure to Respond
Leader: do not shirk your responsibility to lead your organization well by speaking on behalf of your constituents. Know your parameters and walk boldly within them. But, wisdom says you should resist the pressure to respond to everything in the news cycle.
Let me offer a bit of wisdom for how to resist the pressure to respond.
Wisdom is not made in a microwave. The news cycle is incredibly fast. Leaders are expected to respond at lightning speed. There are numerous occasions where I have been asked to make a public statement as a leader when news was hot off the press. An old proverb says, “The first to speak in court sounds right—until the cross-examination begins” (Proverbs 18:17).
Sometimes the facts are obvious. At other times the facts are not all in just yet. Wisdom is not produced in a microwave. The most complex situations I have had to address take time to process, to listen to perspective, to research, to draft a response to and to edit carefully. Hasty responses will inevitably miss a key point or potentially even offend someone albeit unintentionally. Take your time and slow down. I usually pray on it.
Wisdom says you don’t have the bandwidth or expertise to be a 24 hour PR machine. If you are taking your precious time to respond to an event that does not directly impact your organization, you are wasting vital energy. Perhaps it would be wiser to admit that you lack expertise.
I was asked on local radio recently about the recent GameStop short issue. It felt like a clear David vs. Goliath to me. I commented briefly but recognized that I am not a financial professional. There are facets of this issue that I don’t fully understand. I confess my ignorance and we should allow our leaders the grace of focusing on what they do know.
Why do we need our leaders to comment on everything going on all the time? Do we really need our leaders to provide constant commentary on the latest political news, the outlandish behavior of Hollywood or an athlete, or some significant event happening across the globe. Let’s allow the leaders in the appropriate spheres to comment in those spaces.
Public statements should be carefully crafted based on expertise and pertinence to the organization you lead.
Wisdom says you are casting your pearls before the swine. Angry mobs are on the prowl looking for prey. Make a wrong statement and you will be called out publicly for your scheduled shaming. When a leader is pressured to respond quickly to an event outside their sphere of expertise they might get it wrong. They might not consider the full range of perspectives, have researched adequately, or talked to the necessary groups that could give them insight. I know this might be surprising given that the most recent event happened 30 minutes ago and everyone is already posting and responding on social media.
There are issues in our world that are a sort of Pandora’s box. Open them and there is no way to close it shut. Before you go diving into the latest news event or tricky social issue you may want to do a calculation. You will have immediate fans who cheer you on as well as enemies who call you out. Your organization may not be fully prepared to deal with the implications.
I get asked frequently by organizations to help them solve questions around racial justice. I am eager to help because this is an area that demands real progress and an area in my own school that requires continued energy and progress. I have watched organizations frantically jump into the fray to issue statements on racial issues. While I welcome action, I have typically challenged these groups to think about the long game, to plan a meaningful strategy to prove they are seriously committed to making change. I would rather see serious resources committed to a meaningful strategy than to watch a leader or organization get the quick fix of being applauded in social media.
Being on the receiving end of an angry mob because you hastily stepped into an issue will cost you substantial emotional energy and could cause unnecessary damage to your organization.
The ordinary task of leading an organization is hard work. Leaders should expend their energy on caring for their organization, and leading well by speaking out on issues that clearly pertain to their constituents. This will mean that you choose not to touch the hot issue de jour. This choice is not weak or wishy-washy, but wise.
Wisdom will help you resist the unnecessary pressures to respond to the endless cycle.
