Leading in a Polarized World

We have phenomenal communications systems, and yet polarized groups on the left and right fail to connect. Riots and protests around climate change, race, abortion, immigration, trans-rights, etc.—not to mention global and domestic politics—characterize the current era. An era in which, at the same time, people have grown to view large companies and non-government organizations as forces for social change and thus potential focuses of indignation. This raises the question: how should leaders react if their organization becomes a target? How do they placate their stakeholders’ anger?

In his new book, The Age of Outrage: How to Lead in a Polarized World, Oxford University’s Professor Karthik Ramanna explores how the tensions caused by hyper-polarization, politicization, and identity tribalism, are reflected within organizations. He considers how senior leaders should navigate controversial issues when they arise in the workplace and how to deal with PR crises.

Ramanna explains the need to understand the background and cause of any controversy, so as to formulate a clear and convincing response that the organization’s stakeholders will get behind and support. He cites three fundamental drivers behind the sense of outrage and polarization that seems so prevalent today:

• Fear of the future caused through rapid technological change, threats to the environment, and demographic shifts.
• Raw deal resentment due to feeling marginalized by those in power on issues such as globalization, immigration, and social inequity.
• Growing sense of ‘othering’ brought on by always viewing the world in terms of ‘us’ versus ‘them.’

Democracy is based on people’s right to debate, argue, and protest—allied to a constitutional means to resolve conflict. While it is important that the people we elect into power work to reduce fears of the future, lingering resentment, and feelings of them-versus-us exclusion, it may be less obvious how leaders in business and outside of government can or should address these issues. Yet, Ramanna quotes many examples—from Disney and Meta through to the London Met Police and the Vatican—where the behaviour of large organizations, that play an influential role in our lives, have fed into these drivers of outrage, resulting in PR crises that leaders have had to deal with.

‘Managing in an age of outrage’ sets a context that can exacerbate the difficulty of managing outrage due to specific local issues brought on by organizations themselves. The shameful episode where IKEA airbrushed images of women out of its Saudi Arabian catalogue, to the dismay of many Saudis, or the case of Amazon failing to compensate overworked staff and refusing to deep clean its New York facilities during the Covid-19 pandemic, were examples of bad leadership causing outrage—causes of outrage, highlighted through social media, set within a more general climate of discontent.

Ramanna argues that managing outrage is no longer a side issue for leaders—an occasional irritant to be contained by traditional crisis-management—but is a core leadership capability that requires a new approach and a specific mindset. Exemplifying his approach, he quotes Tina Turner: “We don’t need another hero.” It’s not the leader’s role to address controversial issues head-on, take sides, or expound their personal opinion. It is her or his responsibility to understand the cause of outrage, turn down the temperature, create space for measured discussion, and craft a credible response that the organization’s stakeholders will support.

Support as far as possible—as this approach does not imply compromise and the leader must learn to accept the inevitable unhappiness of some. The response, whether due to a moral responsibility, out of practical necessity, or reputation management, will also need to be calibrated according to the organizations ability to take any meaningful action—avoiding taking positions that are merely gesture.    

Ramanna’s key watchword is temperance. Temperate leadership is built on stoicism, resilience, and circumspection, listening, and questioning. It involves understanding the source of leadership power, how to judiciously devolve power, and how to create an organizational culture that is resilient and capable of working through outrage and turbulence. He gives many real-world examples of leadership failures, insights on how others have acted in the face of outrage and PR crises, and a series of strategies for developing temperate leadership and the capabilities necessary for leading in a polarized world.

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‘The Age of Outrage: How to Lead in a Polarized World,’ Karthik Ramanna. Published by Harvard Business Review Press, 2024, ISBN 978-16478-2629-1