In the midst of this current political campaign I find myself thinking about the word “leadership.” After all, the president (and presumably the vice-president) of the United States is considered by many to be a leader of the free world. But the precise definition of the term leadership can be at times opaque, signifying many things, not all uniform. Jackie Gleason and John F. Kennedy both wanted to send someone to the moon, but their words (and gestures) were very different, even if both inspired a generation!
Companion words muddy the waters even further, creeping alongside and making a compound statement that results in yet another meaning. One example is “visionary leadership”—a phrase that routinely appears in the employment section of The Chronicle of Higher Education, advertising positions for deans, vice-president, and presidents. Why, I wonder, do few if any ads for faculty positions apply the same phrase—as if the qualification is not required for research and/or teaching. I believe this to be an oversight on the part of those writing the ads, but I digress.
I get a little shaky whenever I have been invited to speak on visionary leadership. The word “visionary” conjures up the prophet Ezekiel for me, and though his descriptions of the wheels in wheels and the valley of the dry bones are vivid and striking, I find his meaning somewhat elusive and have difficulty explaining it to others. (Please, please, don’t write in about Ezekiel.)
Thus, one of the lessons of leadership I have learned is that the “visionary” leader’s ideas may be so wrapped up in metaphor, conditional modes, and personal shorthand that those listening to him or her have no concrete sense of what the leader means or wants. Concrete has less glamour and oomph than vision, no doubt, but I prefer to stand on firm ground than to lean on a vision which may be only a mirage, to my listeners if not to me.
For some messianic leaders, the cadence of their initial call to action proved profound enough to strike a chord for many, setting them off on a path to glory and deliverance. But within the context of the present-day world of politics, business, arts, social action, or education, the initial visions heralded by visionary leaders benefit significantly from an accompanying set of implementation tools—an action plan. This may seem comparatively dowdy, but a plan is something that can be articulated plainly, can be reduced to a kit of parts, analyzed, criticized, reshaped, and put into practice—or, perhaps, scrapped altogether. There is, therefore, no substitute for clarity in the marching orders.
A successful leader wakes up in the middle of the night with a vision—dare I say it, with a brainstorm of an idea. After quickly jotting it down, lest the morning dew dampen memory, she goes about fleshing out the idea, perhaps like this: What this university (corporation, organization, etc.) needs to do is (fill in the blank)—because (the aforementioned) will excite, alter, improve, solidify, upend, turn around, or whatever action word is appropriate. The people a leader wishes to inspire must understand not only what she wants them to do, but also why that very thing needs to be done.
Leadership has to overcome inertia, the natural reluctance of others to change the status quo. The person one box down on the organization chart or one office over on the management floor, gets a memo that says, “we’re going to the moon,” and that person says, “right, but not this week; I’m completing last year’s performance evaluations and I am too busy to go to the moon.” Send that person a memo that says, “we’re going to the moon because it is the best place for Swiss cheese and we want to be the finest cheese merchant in the universe” and perhaps the procurement officer will go along for the ride.
Implementation plans should not be confused with micromanaging, which is annoying and tempts employees to do the safe things—perhaps to say “yes” much too frequently. And vision should not be confused with empathy.
I do not mean to suggest that the CEO, university president, or agency boss needs to be aloof or monosyllabic, but he or she needs to trust the people among whom the work has been divided. “If you cannot trust them, you have hired the wrong people—or you are the wrong boss” is a useful motto. A good leader needs to offer encouragement to the staff, and there’s nothing wrong with being friendly either, but you are their employer, not their therapist, best friend, or roommate.
Leaders need to decide what they want to do with their limited time. My favorite occupation, after planning and offering guidance, has been to play the pirate, believing that God gave other people good ideas and insights and also gave me the opportunity to “liberate” them. It may be more elegant to call this part of an intellectual continuum (think of Jefferson learning from Rousseau) or more truthful to say good ideas beg to be borrowed. (An acknowledgement never hurts.)
I’ve heard literary critics bemoan that a given author had “only one good book inside him,” as if one good book somehow isn’t enough; we, the readers, deserved more. A leader with one first-rate idea may bring about exceptional influence or a wealth of difference to his organization or community.
But it is equally possible that ideas beget ideas—and that the leader who becomes inspired by the muddle around him will find that one vision brings on another, and another. As the phrase on the t-shirt says, “being the lead dog means the view always changes.” The leader will then need to review her menu of ideas and present a structured plate of choices.
Leadership is tricky and should not be confused with ordering someone else to do something. And, in a democracy, leadership is fuzzy because of the concept of shared governance. “We the people” is a powerful phrase, and making the “we” a universal and not a royal pronoun is vitally important. Organizations like to stay inside the confines of a bureaucratic box because the rules of the game are usually understood and the outcomes predictable. Thinking “outside the box” usually assumes the rules will change and before people agree to play in a new “sandbox,” they wish to understand the potential gains are worth the possible loses.
(This post was adapted from a speech to the DC Chamber of Commerce on September 12, 2008.)
