I’m sure you’ve all heard the concept of the alpha male or the alpha female. The alpha male is the male in any given tribe who is primarily responsible for the tribe and who is the key breadwinner for the tribe. The alpha female is the lead female who the other, subservient females look to for guidance.
There is no question that it’s a gender thing. There is also no question that it is an archaic thought process in a lot of ways. It worked well for the Neanderthals, and a whole lot less effectively for the post-60’s generation of Americans.
All of that notwithstanding, there is a concept in the alpha which makes an awful lot of sense. It’s not the alpha male or the alpha female. It’s the alpha driver, or the alpha lead, or the alpha decider, or whatever.
In other words, it’s the person who at the alpha level is the one who is ultimately making the decisions, after being fully briefed with the information, facts and interpretations of the others.
I had an interesting episode the other day. I found an opportunity to have a discussion with a group of people who were relatively unknown. Each had a very different point of view. My objective, as I began to hear some very significant comments, was to elicit out of intelligent human beings their own interpretation not only of the facts, but also what they would suggest based upon their own interpretation of the facts. Each of them, one at a time, went through their strokes. They huffed; they puffed; and they didn’t blow the house down, and while they didn’t blow the house down, they certainly blew as ferociously as they could.
As each one expressed their views, and identified their salient comments and observations, I took note and continued to move forward. I gave each the respect each one was due and then moved on to the next.
Each time that I heard affirmation, I felt that a particular position was substantiated. On the other hand, each time that I felt negation, I attempted to explore, with respect to the two negating people, where the synthesis lay between the two of them. Obviously, they were intelligent human beings who had different viewpoints, based on different experiences. Wherever I saw that, my job was to figure out why their positions were different and what, if any, could assimilate those positions into an observation broader and more tolerant.
When the entire process was completed, I thanked everybody for their views, and offered a suggestion with respect to what I thought was the consensus of opinion as to the subject we were discussing. It was a broad view, summarizing the main observations from me to them, and incorporating an opportunity to meld views which would otherwise be considered inconsistent but for the fact that there was a common nexus between them.
When it was all said and done, and I said something like, “So that’s what my thoughts are with respect to what you are all saying….” there was absolute silence. The silence resounded more loudly than anything that I had ever heard before. I wasn’t asking for their agreement, but I simply wanted to determine whether they saw something similar to me.
And the reaction began.
“So, Larry, are you telling me …? “
“Larry, are you really telling us that…”
“You can’t be serious in telling me that …”
And I simply said, “I’m not telling you anything at all. What I’m saying is that each one of you expressed a view which can be best represented by my observations. The best course of conduct, based upon those observations, is as follows: …”
More silence, until someone finally said, “Larry it makes a lot of sense. We’re a lot closer than what we thought. And based on your comments it looks like we could …”
Exactly. The alpha lead is not necessarily filled with testosterone. The alpha decider is just filled with the desire to listen intently for what the truth is and to act accordingly.