Redento Raffinato

Bella Forte Studio's signature piece--Redento Raffinato

FRAGILE GLASS AND CONCRETE FLOORS

I enjoy watching Netflix's show, Blown Away. Every season, the show features ten glassblowers in competition; the last one standing gets a life-changing prize! The glassblowers amaze me with their creativity and skill as they fashion goblets and vases and more esoteric pieces out of molten, glowing-hot glass. The most breath-taking moments, however, are in the final stages. Whether taking the glass masterpiece out of the kiln or moving it to the cooler, I can't help holding my breath, as, inevitably, one or more of the creations falls--in slow motion, it seems--and meets the hard, immovable floor in one bright, spectacular, collision, sending shards of broken glass everywhere!

REDEEMED ELEGANCE

What does one do with these shards of shattered glass? Out comes the broom . . . out comes the dustpan . . . into the garbage can goes the fragmented pieces of glass and dreams. This is the general way of glass, but there is one glassblower who flips that script! Chris and Micah McGahan, of Oklahoma City OK, have developed a signature method of glassblowing called Redento Raffinato, Italian for "redeemed elegance". They take these broken, shattered pieces of glass, and work them into a new creation, redeeming them out of their brokenness and restoring their elegance (learn more about their studio here; watch the video, Redento Raffinato, on the media page).

SEVEN REDEMPTIVE TOOLS

This same redemptive concept is what excites me most about leadership, for no matter how much work one puts into various team members, one or more is bound to fail. When that failure occurs, leaders are left with one of two choices: either imitate Lord Vader ("You have failed me for the last time") or model Uncle Iroh ("Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely"). The redemptive leader sees failure as the chance to start over. There are seven tools the redemptive leader might use.

Model redemption through self-accountability.

Leaders set the tone for the organization. If the leader fails and is unwilling to model the process of reforming those broken pieces into something new and better, the organization will also be unwilling to do so. The first step to building an organization which seeks to redeem failure is accountability of self to the organization for beginning again more wisely.

Nurture a new nature

The McGahans do not pick up pieces of broken glass and leave them broken. Instead, they form them into something new. Redemptive leaders must do the same through mentoring and nurturing. Some members of our team legitimately do not know better. Other members have grown accustomed to using certain means for their ends. There are a myriad of reasons why people fail. The redemptive leader will advocate, communicate, and educate towards a better foundational nature.

Give space for healing, reflection, and growth

The tragedy of death hits our team members at the most inconvenient times. And too often, organizations only allow about two months for those who are grieving to heal. It may not be so overtly stated, but rather felt in the workplace. As life moves on, the expectation is that the hurting member move at that same pace. The redemptive leader will allow for space to healing, and not only from grief! The healthy organization will allow for space to change. The new nature is not generally an instantaneous happening, but rather occurs over time.

Set healthy boundaries

The Air Force tries not to be a "1 mistake Air Force." In other words, no longer does one piece of punitive paperwork or one failure result in the end of a person's career. That's the goal, at any rate, and--to be honest--one that is met with varying rates of success. The other side of that, however, is to continue allowing for mistake after mistake after mistake with no enduring consequences. This leads to the fine art of can-kicking and that leads to an organization with no standards and no boundaries. The redemptive leader, however, sets healthy boundaries. Personally, I try to follow the three-strike rule. One failure? Let's do better and more wisely. A second failure? Hmmm, I'm beginning to see a pattern here. A third failure? The pattern is established and the team member is asking for harsher consequences.

Redirect

Let's be honest--some jobs and some team members are simply not the best fit for each other. In that case, the best method may be to facilitate a parting of ways. Glass can be redeemed, but it may take another artist's hands to do so! This is NOT failure on the part of the leader. Enabling the team member to find a path more amenable to his or her passions and personality is still redemptive.

Value the person

The redemptive leader fights to differentiate between the failure and the person. I learned this step from my mother when I was a new parent. It's what allows the previous two steps (setting boundaries and revectoring) to be redemptive and not retributory. At the age of three, my elder daughter made a mistake, and I was hopping mad. In relaying the incident to my mother, I said, "Your granddaughter was a bad kid today." Oooof, you'd have thought I called Kayla a mass murderer! Mom said, "She is not a bad kid. She might have done something bad, but that does not make her bad. Don't let me hear that from you again about my granddaughter!" The point was well-taken, if unappreciated at the time. The redemptive leader maintains a multi-dimensional view of the one who failed and does not allow failure to define that person in his or her totality. Thanks, Mom!

Discipline with rehabilitation in mind

My wife and I have learned that disciplining our kids is more effective when we have the goal in mind from the start. If we waited until we were angry or upset or in the midst of the failure, discipline was going to be off-the-cuff and less effective (I threatened to send my youngest "to the moon" once!). So we composed a list of disciplinary measures ahead of time. This ensured that the punishment was more likely to fit the crime, that efficacy was achieved, and that our actions were not in the heat of the moment and thus less likely to uncontrolled and emotional. The redemptive leader recognizes that discipline for failure is often a necessity, but has the goal of rehabilitation in mind and has either planned it ahead of time or taken the time to think through the appropriate disciplinary measures (all while keeping in mind the value of the person).

CONCLUSION

The possibility of "redeemed elegance," or taking the broken pieces of failure and reforming them into something more beautiful, is one of the more exciting aspects of redemptive leadership. At the end of one's leadership journey, this question remains: Did you leave behind an apocalyptic landscape littered with piles of broken people, or did you create a garden filled with elegant, redeemed human beings?

REFLECTION

1. What is your philosophy for failures and brokenness among your team members (or yourself)?

2. Are you more like Lord Vader (Star Wars) or Uncle Iroh (Avatar: The Last Airbender)?

3. What tone are you setting for your organization?

4. What is your rule for beginning consequences?

5. Describe a time when you were revectored out of a job and later realized that was, in fact, a redemptive moment.

6. Describe a time when you experienced disciplinary measures that were actually knee-jerk reactions and thus ineffective.

7. Is your leadership style rehabilitative or punitive in nature?