When I read John’s post it really made me think about leadership. I thought of my own role as a leader in corporate America. Was I trying to make a difference? Was I part of the solution or just perpetuating the problem? Was I even leading at all?
We should all be asking these questions right now. It seems we are all searching for leaders to get us to a better place. We want heroes that will step up and show us the way out of life’s messes. The problem is that, as we search for leaders, leadership opportunities are all around us just begging us to jump into the fray.
As I thought about leadership, my mind was drawn back to a few years ago when I had the opportunity to see it in a whole new light. At the time, I worked for The Timberland Company and we had a sales meeting in New Orleans just months after Hurricane Katrina hit. I went a day early to view the hurricane's path of destruction through New Orleans, including the 9th ward which was right where the levy broke. What was once the site for miles of neighborhoods that housed 30,000 people was now a seeminingly endless stretch of empty lots, piles of rubble or quarantined structures that barely stood, awaiting demolition. So many different human lives were affected; the destruction did not discriminate by race or social class.
We later had the chance to speak to some who had lived in the 9th ward. All felt tremendous loss and some even buried neighbors and loved ones. Needless to say, they were devastated. For people like Rodney and Alice, a brother and sister in their 50s, the event left them with no plan for where to go. All their lives, this was the only neighborhood they had ever known. Reverend Malcolm Collins showed us the church that he had preached in for the past 20 years. He showed us the water line on the steeple that indicated water has risen over 25 feet above the ground. The stories were heart wrenching and the outlook seemed so bleak at the time.
Out of the shadows of adversity stepped everyday heroes. Most of these people had never been leaders but they knew something needed to be done. And there was no time to sit around and wait for someone else to do it. Arleta, who had been an office administrator prior to the hurricane, worked with local authorities to set up a medical clinic in her home with donated equipment and funds. People were being turned away from hospitals that were undermanned and overrun. Arleta did not know how to be a leader but she knew she was not going to sit by and watch. Instead, she stepped up to lead. Mardelle was a young principal of a small school that was shut down due to the flooding. She was told she would have to wait for the government to get involved and it could be a year or more before the school would reopen. Mardelle did not know how soon the government would respond but she knew she wasn’t going to wait a year. Even though her house was gutted and she had to live in six different places in six months, she knew it was time to step up and lead. She had plenty of good excuses to give up, but her priority was the kids at her school. She worked for six months with no pay and no health insurance. She acted as the custodian for three months, putting in 14-18 hour days. She worked with local authorities, politicians and anyone who would listen and help. The school reopened in just three months.
Mardelle knew that it was up to her to bring some normalcy back to the kids’ lives; kids whose worlds had been turned upside down. Like Mardelle, there was a woman named Mel who stepped up to lead at a food bank that helped bring meals to people who were homeless and struggling to get back on their feet. She wasn’t a cook or a leader before this but she worked tirelessly for months as a volunteer, working over 70 hours a week. Her new challenge was to lead a team to deliver over 15,000 tons of food in six months to those in need. And lead she did.
Few of the people I met that day had been leaders before. They were ordinary people faced with extraordinary circumstances, stepping up to meet the challenge with which they were presented; just "regular Joes and Josephines” taking on new roles as leaders. They were thrust into these roles without training or warning. Most said it was an inner voice - God’s calling. The voice was loud and clear that said something needed to be done and they were the ones to do it. They are true heroes!
Look around you today at the hurricane-force dynamics that are destroying the economy, our families, small businesses and everyday-people's lives. If you haven’t seen a homeless person recently, you haven’t driven by a street corner. It is time for people to step up. We need heroes. We need dads to be heroes to kids instead of having our kids look to athletes and superstars for direction. When I was a kid growing up, my brother was my hero. He still is, in fact. He was real and reachable and just a bed’s length away. We need real and reachable heroes again...now!
In his book, Tribes, Seth Godin speaks of the need for people to step up and lead from where they are. He says that managers can lead from the middle and anyone can lead from anywhere if they just have courage, passion and purpose driving them.
Leadership must be different today than in years gone by. We need people who will stand up and lead by example with encouragement from the front rather than those who lead with whips from the rear. The days of leaders who still ascribe to the carrot and stick approach - giving small carrots and carrying big sticks - have got to end.
It seems there is still too much of the "bully pulpit" that leads organizations. They are managed through intimidation, and if you speak up you get cracked back down and made an example of. We can’t be afraid to speak up if we see an injustice or a lack of accountability. I look forward to the day that leaders take the responsibility to share their vision and convince people to follow by leading through their actions and not simply through their words of intimidation.
Many old-school leaders become indignant and want to blame those under them for not following. They use anger and fear to get action. They think by virtue of position, people have to follow. That’s dictatorship, not leadership. People will follow in a work setting but remember peer leadership can destroy the bigger plan if those beneath the leader stand still. If they just go through the motions with no investment in the bigger picture, the leader will get output, but hardly what is required to win in today’s economic times. Apathy and cynicism are cancers that eat away the heart and soul of a company as controlling leaders crack the whip. The vocal few who spread the cancer laterally can keep the cogs in the wheel from moving toward the desired goal even as they collect a paycheck.
To lead and move forward, people must communicate clearly and "walk the walk." Fear-based leadership may gain short-term results but it won’t be sustained. Today’s leaders need to persuade people that the path for the future is the right path. They need to let go of control and learn to empower people. Empowered employees will work to earn greater trust from an empowering leader. And it is empowerment that develops stronger leaders throughout the organization. We can't just stand by and watch or relegate ourselves to being "yes men/women." We need to find people to step up to be the new breed of winners, heroes, leaders!
So, where can we look for the new heroes? Where are the new leaders to get us from where we are now to a better place? Don’t look to Hollywood, Washington DC, sports or reality tv. Look in the town where you live, on your block or, better yet, look in the mirror!
"The truth is…,"