Leading from the Middle

Caption: Statue of Sancho Panza in Madrid by
Lorenzo Coullaut Valera, 1930.

"I tell you, when it comes to asking stupid questions and giving crazy answers, I don't need to go looking for help from my neighbors." - Sancho Panza.

My students – there are 20 of them in the Democratic Workplace class at the University of Latvia – this week are reading Robert E. Kelley’s “Followership”. I’ll juxtaposition my talk about Kelley’s follower taxonomy with Casciaro & Lobo’s perspective about our colleagues at work, the Competent Jerks and Lovable Stars and Fools.
I want the students to enlarge - beyond a rigid taxonomy - their understanding of the people they work with and how they (the students) interact with their colleagues. For example, the lovable fool (Kelley’s "survivor"/ follower with a sense of humor) is there to lubricate the social interchanges, to harmonize the group as it takes on tasks. He or she provides the good will, the bonhomie to get us past the hard parts and to begin to feel better about each other; at least to move us past the negatives of group formation to something more positive.
I’m reminded of the illustrious adventures of the Knight of the Mournful Countenance, Don Quixote, and his erstwhile Squire, Sancho Panza.
It is the mix between the beleaguered Don Quixote and the rascally Sancho - the incompetent leader and the lovable fool -that gets them as far as they get – which is not very far, but their journey is not lacking for adventures and meaning, real and imagined.
Sancho Panza is, for me, the Lovable Fool described by Casciaro and Lobo. He is hardly their “lovable star” but he is not their bifurcated Jerk. For Cervantes, Sancho continues the Plautine tradition of the Aesopic fool, the wily and rascally servant, the lovable fool. Has there ever been a more lovable fool than Sancho?
But, just how foolish is this lovable fool? When Sancho gets his wish to rule an island – as a reward for serving the Knight Errant – he governs with a Solomon-like wisdom. Not much of a fool after all.
The two adventurers share a remarkable honesty. Don Quixote gets angry at Sancho’s antics, his cupidity, his laziness but it is always tempered with fondness and respect. Nor is Sancho afraid to give equal measure to what he gets from his master, as this droll exchange suggests when Don Quixote remarks on Sancho’s becoming less of a dolt:
"Ay,"
 said
 Sancho; 
"it
 must 
be
 that
 some 
of
 your
 worship's 
shrewdness 
sticks
 to 
me; 
 land
 that, of 
itself, 
is 
barren
 and
 dry, 
 will
 come 
to
 yield
 good
 fruit
 if 
you
 fertilize
 it
 and 
till
 it; 
 what 
I
 mean 
is 
that 
your 
worship's 
conversation
 has 
been 
the 
manure
 that
 has 
fallen
 on 
the 
barren
 soil
 of
 my 
dry 
wit, 
 and
 the
 time
 I 
have 
been 
in
 your
 service
 and
 society 
has
 been 
the 
tilling; 
and
 with
 the 
help 
of
 this 
I 
hope 
to
 yield
 fruit 
in
 abundance 
that 
will
 not 
fall
 away 
or
 slide 
from 
those
 paths 
of 
good 
breeding
 that
 your 
worship 
has
 made
 in 
my 
parched 
understanding."

That Don Quixote laughs at this statement suggests his ability to rise above what could be insulting language and to, instead, appreciate the joke. Nor is this the only instance. As they make their way across arid Andalusia, their relationship matures, strengthens. Kind of like what I would like to see happen in the class as the students get to know each other. I’d like for them to expand their horizons beyond those colleagues with whom they are already comfortable. I’d like to see them reach out to a classmate that’s still a bit of a mystery, to get past stereotypes and first impressions.


Copyright 2014 John Lubans

 

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