(Italics are mine)BATMANYou either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. I can do those things because I’m not a hero, like Dent. I killed those people. That’s what I can be.GORDON (angry)No, you can’t! You’re not!
BATMANI’m whatever Gotham needs me to be.
…..JAMES (As Batman runs away / James looks at his father, confused. )He didn’t do anything wrong! Why, dad? Why?!GORDONBecause……he’s the hero Gotham deserves… but not the one it needs right now. So we’ll hunt him, because he can take it. (emphasis mine)Because he’s not our hero……he’s a silent guardian, a watchful protector… a dark knight.As I conclude this brief series on the Dark Knight and systems thinking, perhaps the most heroic component to the movie is Batman’s willingness to take on all of the angst, all of the blame, and all of the anger and anxiety of the people of Gotham because he knows that all of that angst has to go somewhere. He chooses to take it on himself and responds non-reactively to it because of his love for the city and a long term vision of what is needed.Many of us in the face of backlash and blame-shifting and anxiety experience the temptation to just bail quickly or fight back or continue to shift the blame around. The problem is that this doesn’t diffuse system anxiety, it only shifts it around or even escalates it. This points to the need for leaders to be able to handle emotion from the people they lead and their communities. I did a two-part series back in February about what I called “Bounty” or paper-towel leadership. A leader’s capacity to absorb angst and anxiety and handle it appropriately can be a make or break indicator for the long term success of the group, team, or community. The original post is http://brianvirtue.org/2009/02/bounty-leadership/ while the follow-up post on how lack of maturity, differentiation, and character influences these moments is http://brianvirtue.org/2009/02/waterproof-paper-towels/.Now obviously no one in their right mind would advocate a view of leadership along the lines of “leaders as punching bags.” However, sometimes it’s not really an issue of whether the leader is wrong or right, but whether the leader is allowing for the system to work out its latent anxiety and emotion in a way in which is allowing the community to work its way back to emotional stability. How a leader responds in these moments really dictates how quickly or how able the system can be restored to a stable place. That’s why the end of the Dark Knight was powerful to me. Batman recognizes that for a season Gotham needs a hero that can absorb all of its anger, grief, frustration, and fear – its anxiety. He doesn’t embrace the role of villain, but for a season he embraces the role of being perceived as the villain as people work their emotional action out.As I read the accounts of the passion week, I continue to see so much from a systems perspective though there is also so much more going on as well. Both well-known or unknown “Heroes” that can exercise self-control as well as maintain healthy differentiation in the face of present anxiety out of a light of long term vision can exercise far more influence over a community than we might ever know or recognize.If you get a chance, watch this movie or watch it again if you have the opportunity and think about the ways in which a leader’s capacity is intimately connected with the overall emotional dynamics of a larger human system.Previous posts in this series:Because We Have to Chase Him…The Dark Knight and Systems Thinking
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