Collaborative Leadership by Jonathan Flier

Jonathan Flier, LMFT

CAMFT's misguided attempt to drop the founding core value and purpose of our association, which is to represent the relational perspective and practices of Marriage and Family Therapists, caused a reaction of shock and dismay among CAMFT members. By ignoring the importance of educating the membership and by not providing time for debate and deliberation, CAMFT created a furious response from a large group of members who organized and demanded a return of control of our association board to MFTs. The professional leadership immediately amended the bylaws and reinstated the rule that all the officers and key positions on the board be filled by MFTs.

Along with many of the largest chapters of CAMFT, The Board of the Los Angeles Chapter has taken on the task of educating members about the issues raised by the creation of the new bylaws and is in the process of working with the San Fernando and San Gabriel Chapters to create a town hall kind of meeting to review the controversy. The town hall meetings and listservs have thus far primarily focused on the idea of repealing the bylaws or having a new election to return to the previous bylaws with about a one-year process of education and debate on what "new" bylaws should address. The listserv, "SaveCAMFT" is beginning to make a shift, evolving and expanding the examination of why the board and staff acted as they did and I write this message to add to that examination.

We won the short battle of returning  MFTs to important board positions but the current crisis that has been created has uncovered a basic flaw in our association. This flaw was first revealed when a strong core of our membership displayed their discontent with CAMFT distancing itself from protecting the rights of the LGBT community to marry, and later in the battle to protect that community from the ravages of so called Sexual Orientation Conversion Therapy. I think those decisions CAMFT made regarding the LGBT community were driven by the risk- averse lawyers who populate our association’s staff along with some of the volunteer board members who share the sentiment of fearing the effects of controversy on our political lobbying efforts.  I believe that there is a cultural norm behind CAMFT’s current efforts to shift our organization, and it is that norm with its notion of "knowing what is best for our professional interests" that orchestrated the recent bylaws vote and ensuing controversy.

In my mind, it is not the new Bylaws or the Board majority who favored these changes that should be the focus of our efforts. I believe what is needed is a shift away from the top down "Modernist" model in the CAMFT leadership, a model that has been the dominant culture, to a more "Post Modern" bottom-up model of collaboration. 

The professional staff of CAMFT has been focused on the role of our association as a lobbying force in Sacramento and Washington DC. That is a vital representation of our trade to the forces that hold the purse strings and decide how mental health services are provided to the public. Unfortunately, our congressional leaders are focused on the forces that control the purse strings in their own vital election process – a process dominated by business corporations seeing to their own interests. 

The CAMFT Board and volunteer professional staff, from their "Modernist - experts" perspective saw our trade association as nearly powerless to pass legislation providing us equity among competing mental health professionals. Their solution was to create an omnibus organization that would welcome newly licensed LPCCs and other mental health professionals, and, by size, compete and win against the other narrowly based mental health trades.

In my opinion, however, there is a good chance that the future nationwide representatives of the Licensed Professional Counselors will guard their territory and compete against our nationwide organization of MFTs known as AAMFT. Rather than joining us, the already powerful associations of Social Workers and Psychologists will likely continue to fight to maintain their strongholds in State and Federal Congresses.   
It is my point of view that the best way for MFTs to strengthen our representation and lobbying clout would be through activating and widening the participation of our membership in the organization. The current practice of CAMFT's top-down style of leadership creates passivity, indifference and apathy among those beneath. The best organizational research has consistently shown that collaborative systems of management increase levels of satisfaction,participation and production. We need to increase the "stake", the experience of ownership, in our association and increase the sense of empowerment that comes with feeling welcomed, valued and heard.

With that increased stake will come increased active participation, and an activated body of potential donors and motivated voters would be seen and responded to by congressional leaders who will want to harness that energy to keep them in office. An activated membership could be sitting in the viewing stands of hearings demanding equal access to Medicare and shouting for protection from the predatory anti-competitive practices of insurance corporations keeping affordable mental health care from those in need. 

An active Association would, in the future, draw Licensed Professional Counselors who would want to be connected to such a vital source of energy. It is even possible that we could become such a strong and consistent voice that it would begin to wake up Social Workers to the fact that "a house divided can not stand" and bring pressure to their association to chose to stop undermining other mental health professionals and unite with them to bring parity to all Master's level therapists.

Uniting our association through collaborative practice would become the new norm for us and provide a model for a stronger connection with AAMFT, our national brethren who have already been moving toward a more progressive, less top-down organizational cultural model. Then we can move forward in strength, toward collaboration and not absorption, with our fellow mental health professionals.