Kicking the proverbial can down the road often occurs for many reasons, some of them quite pure in nature. But the practitioner of can-kicking fails to realize that the bill for this leadership game always comes due.
Kicking the Old Can Is Great Fun
Remember can-kicking? You're walking aimlessly along, perhaps formulating some random mischievousness, when you spy a can in the road. That can is probably minding its own business and has no interest in your plans, but you make a beeline for it nevertheless. And then there you are, kicking that can down the road. It becomes a game. What can you target? Can you keep it in the road? Can you kick it in a straight line? Can you curve it around the obstacle in its path? Suddenly, it becomes the football that wins the Super Bowl or the winning goal for the World Cup! Kicking a can down the road is an avenue for adventure and imagination and endless entertainment. What can-kicking is not, however, is good leadership.
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But Not Good Leadership
"Kicking the can down the road" in a leadership sense, is a metaphor for procrastinating and delaying action, usually in the hope that someone else will resolve whatever situation is at hand or the problem itself will simply disappear. It is a tool used for varying reasons:
The Constitutional Convention of 1787, fearing the Southern States would not support the newly-written Constitution, opted to kick the issue of slavery down the road. Compromising on this issue created a new government for the United States of America and the Convention is a seminal event in American history. However, the unwillingness to tackle the issue ultimately led to the bloodiest conflict in American history, with 620,000 to 750,000 American soldiers dead and repercussions reverberating throughout the centuries to the present day.
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"Social promotion", where students are promoted to the next grade even when failing their classes, regularly cycles back into the educational system. While buttressed by the idea that the student can work on his/her learning issues and still maintain healthy self-esteem, this philosophy merely kicks the student down the road and makes that student someone else's problem (How Social Promotion Hurts).
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A mid-level military officer, with a well-deserved reputation for demonstrating the Peter Principle, continues in leadership positions because previous supervisors would not hold him accountable for his incompetence. Without disciplinary paperwork, Assignments has no choice but to continue giving him opportunities to harm people through his ineptitude.
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A senior enlisted member is given disciplinary paperwork for a pattern of insubordination. A previous supervisor states that paperwork should have been given sooner, but "We all knew she was leaving, so we decided not to bother." Because rehabilitative correction was not administered early on, it became punitive in nature.
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Kicking the proverbial can down the road often occurs for many reasons, some of them quite pure in nature (e.g., constantly giving "second chances" without providing accountability). However, the practitioner of can-kicking fails to realize that the bill for this leadership game always comes due.
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Antidotes to Can-kicking
If procrastinating and delaying action is poor leadership, what is good leadership? I can think of five leadership attributes that are antidotes to can-kicking:
Commitment to truth-telling and accountability;
Recognition that the situation will grow and more people will be hurt later if not dealt with now (imagine if the Constitutional Convention had dealt with slavery right away!);
Using tough disciplinary measures to rehabilitate before they become punitive;
Willingness to give honest feedback for the person's improvement and growth;
Acting with intention and purpose.
Reflection
When were you forced to fix a problem allowed to go on too long?
What is the point where discipline crosses from rehabilitative to punitive?
Proverbs 27:6a in the Jewish Scriptures says, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend...". Describe a time a faithful friend wounded you for your own good.
When is delaying action NOT the same as kicking the can down the road?
