Wrong Jungle!

“Wrong Jungle”, as expressed by Stephen Covey and reinforced by John Maxwell is a powerful leadership concept that flies so strongly in the face of instinct regarding leadership behavior it is highly overlooked and rarely exercised. Leaders are supposed to have a touch of omniscience in their decision making, right?

Strong forces at play that keep it from being expressed, likely the most powerful is cognitive dissonance – our innate challenge in admitting that we may, in fact, be in the wrong jungle. Many people believe that it shows weakness, potentially leading to a lack of confidence in our decisions, and increase second guessing. 

Further preventing leaders from course correction when it’s necessary is the culture of change management. We have grown so accepting in change management of overlooking the expressions of naysayers when it comes to charting a new path we have almost grown dismissive to dissent - 'people just don't like change'. While this may be true as an overarching theme, the necessary feedback mechanism of push-back through a change can be too easily overlooked.  This is unfortunate as not every change will deliver expected results in efficiency, and the instigators of change, generally leaders, need to support a culture where ‘wrong jungle’, the capacity to reverse a change, or chart a new path based on new information, is critical to the success of a team and organization.

Where it gets lost in most cases is that we struggle with reversing course on a direction we charted, feeling that an about face would cause us to lose face. Many leaders will struggle through a poorly charted path hoping ‘things will get better’, or at least not disastrous enough to be singled out from an ownership perspective. The more courageous decision when you are deep in the jungle leading a team on a path you charted, having climbed the tallest tree, surveyed the situation, and yell ‘Wrong Jungle’.

We have to give ourselves that license if we are to be effective in our roles. Thankfully, professionals in the airline industry do understand this concept, and exercise it frequently when aborting landings, in most instances due to spacing issues, regardless of how deep they are down the path of a landing. It makes passengers upset and anxious to be sure, they may question the decision making of the pilot, and it is the right thing to do. Legend has it that Steve Jobs was a master here as well – as powerful and determined he could be in his decisions he would, in the face of new compelling information, easily transition to a new path, including reverse tracks, where necessary.

On the flipside, we often see the most exercised ‘wrong jungle’ from new leaders, who again from a potential ego and/or cognitive dissonance perspective, survey the path and jungle charted by their predecessor, and flip the script. While in some cases this is because the team is in the wrong jungle, in many instances this is to establish superiority over the prior regime. We have all seen the ‘new sheriff in town’ approach and how equally damaging this can be. As a leader in a new situation it is imperative you take a rational approach not be over influenced by the need to take a shortcut on the road to establishing value and broadcast ‘wrong jungle’ at the current state of circumstance just for the sake of expressing your sense of worth.

In the long run, if we are true to ourselves committed to our teams and to mutually beneficial outcomes that best represent the interests of all stakeholders, we will have good outcomes and we need to have the conviction to yell ‘wrong jungle’ when warranted, and course correct the paths we chart along the way.