Ruby Red
The Ruby Red form of leadership is embedded in a perspective and value system that encourages achievement and accountability. It is a form of leadership that is filled with energy and action. It is a leadership of fire and resolve, of courage and valor. While this mode of leadership can produce remarkable results that lead to successful operations, it can also produce great harm. People working with the Ruby Red leader can be trampled while a leader and their dedicated followers charge down the chosen path. The Ruby Red leader can be a bully, who countenances no disagreement or disloyalty. Wounding is inevitable in an organizational culture that is saturated with Ruby Red. The very act of employment is wounding and those who remain employed in this toxic environment are often trapped in a world that places job security and income above self-dignity and a sense of work-related justice.
To add a related perspective to this analysis of Ruby Red, we can turn to the widely acknowledged description of the life led by our ancestors on the savanna of Africa. In what in many ways is only a few years ago (in evolutionary terms), we survived in an environment that was highly anxiety producing. We were among the slowest and weakest animals on the Savannah and only survived because of our capacity to form supportive, protective communities (aided in large part by our capacity to readily communicate with one another).
We know that highly anxious settings are highly destructive for human being regarding both physical and mental health—especially when this anxiety is sustained and when little action is being taken. The anxiety produces neurochemicals and (in particular) hormones that are coursing through the body and preparing human beings for battle. Fortunately, human beings living on the Savannah had a good way to diffuse this anxiety—they could fight and do battle against a menacing foe. This probably didn’t mean struggling with attacking lions (only Tarzan could do this in 20th Century movies). It did mean struggling with lesser animals and, most importantly, struggling with other families or tribes.
The Ruby Red style of leadership is a throw-back essentially to the battleground of the Savannah. Like our ancestors, we can address our anxiety by doing battle. Furthermore, as Robert Sapolski (2004) has so dramatically noted, we don’t need to be threatened by real lions or an actually attacking tribe from next door – we can readily imagine the lion and the attacking tribe. We prepare to do battle with the anxiety-producing lion or tribe by engaging in Ruby Red leadership. We mobilize for the battle and demand loyalty of those joining us in the battle. Much harm can be done in not only creating anxiety associated with an imagined foe, but also in the decisions made and actions taken to engage in the warfare. Casualties mount – and often for no good reason. Bottom line economic measurements take the place of the defeat of an enemy. We earn profit share rather than acquire land or slaves from the defeated foe. Fight creates harm.
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