“Assassination” - Leadership as a Dangerous Activity with George Papandreou, Part Two

On the eleventh episode of the On the Balcony podcast, Michael continues his conversation with George A. Papandreou, former Prime Minister of Greece, about Chapter 10 of Heifetz’s Leadership Without Easy Answers. Papandreou picks up the discussion by sharing how Heifetz inspired his decision to stage an intervention through an inclusive approach, encouraging the Greek people to take their future in their own hand. His proposal of a referendum was part of this emphasis on inclusion, but it was met by a backlash from the traditional political world, ultimately causing Papandreou’s decision to resign to allow the creation of a new coalition. Papandreou explains that he believes his actions have ultimately been viewed as the right move but that the hesitancy of the old power structures may have lost the opportunity to do deeper adaptive work in the country.

Next, Papandreou discusses his experience as Greek Foreign Minister while dealing with Turkish/Greek relations. He explains that he tackled the tension between both sides by opening a dialogue with his counterpart İsmail Cem, both men finding someone they could trust and thereby beginning to make progress in their discussions. This led to an approach they called “people’s diplomacy”, involving citizens in foreign policy and working together to reframe the countries’ relationship from animosity to one of mutual benefit. Papandreou shares his belief that these kinds of values are what should motivate good leadership, allowing for an approach to conflict that is not angry or violent but respects the dignity of the other, an important part of the adaptive challenge of making change.

The Finer Details of This Episode:

• Inclusive leadership
• Taking a hit to make progress
• Using communication to lower tensions and heat
• Building trust through “people’s diplomacy”
• Managing Pain and Loss
• The values of leadership
• Pacing the work
• Providing technical expertise while also working on the deeper issues

Quotes:

“I was giving power to our citizens: you can make the decision. And the traditional political world didn’t like this because, had the decision been a positive one in this plebiscite, in this referendum, the other parties would have no say, they would’ve lost power. And many others. So inclusion is not a simple thing. You are basically changing the power structure, and the old power structures will very possibly react to this.”

“We showed that we can rethink, reframe this relationship from one of animosity to putting it into a different frame and saying, ‘Okay, what if we can work together? What are the benefits of working together?’ And actually, one of the benefits was very, very clear: we had about three million in trade; in a few years, we had three billion in trade.”

“In times of distress, in times of difficulty and uncertainty, it may be just the values that are the anchor, or if you like, the compass. It’s not trying to find a scapegoat. It is those values where you can say, ‘I am trying to be consistent with working with these values.’”

“Democracy is a way to solve conflict through peaceful means, through debate, by respecting the dignity of the other.”

“If you can really give a sense of dignity, that people feel dignified, they feel they’re being respected, they’re being recognized, their voice is being heard, their pain is being heard, that is very important in this adaptive challenge, to make those changes.”

Links:

On the Balcony on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast

Leadership Without Easy Answers on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Without-Answers

George Papandreou Homepage: https://papandreou.gr/ and on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Papandreou

Young Leaders Project - https://www.youngleadersproject.org/

Mentioned in this episode:

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