[The following is from a talk I gave at the Annual "Fighting Bobfest," Sauk County Fairgrounds, Baraboo, Wisconsin on September 11, 2010. In it, I suggest that the solitude encountered in leadership can be a growth experience and necessary if one is to sincerely live his or her values.]
LEADING VALUES
It is difficult to separate the personal values we all hold from those which were held by the Founders of this great nation and immortalized in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. These human rights values should not only drive not only our institutions and their leaders, but also our daily lives and behavior.
Of course, values without action are meaningless. And putting values into action is what leadership is all about. What do I mean when I say “leadership?” I think one of the best definitions comes from John Quincy Adams, 2nd President of the United States:
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
In other words, leadership is enabling others to dream, learn, and both do and become more.
Leadership is not an easy task – in fact it often can become a lonely experience.
Looking back at my life, I think about the times I had to stand up and be a leader. It never was easy. It often was lonely.
As a young police officer, I requested to walk a solitary foot beat in an tough inner-city neighborhood. It was the first footbeat in that area. All the other footbeats in town served the business community. Serving this neighborhood seemed like the right thing to do. But if I was to survive, I knew I had to develop trusting relationships with those who lived in this neighborhood; those whom I was sworn to both protect and serve. (Simple words aren’t they? “Protect and Serve.” You see them on the doors of police cars in many cities, but to act on them is not so easy… “Protecting and Serving” is more than three words on a car door or business card.)
In addition, working in a place where everyone didn’t necessarily welcome my presence, and with little support from my colleagues for what I was doing, meant I had to really work on those relationships and build trust with those who lived there.
I learned a lot those during those years in which I split my time between patrolling the streets and back alleys of Minneapolis and attending classes at the university.
So, when I came to Madison as their new police chief, I already knew things had to change in the department. That’s why I was hired. I was expected to bring in reform and change especially in the way the department was handling protest. The old ways of handling conflict were simply no longer working. The basically all-white and all-male police department was fighting protesters downtown and charges of racial and gender insensitivity in other parts of the city. Nevertheless, I quickly came to see that my problem wasn’t with the community -- it was with the cops.
Many of them were not buying into my agenda for change and improvement. Most of them could not believe there could be other ways of handling protest… therefore, it came to be that anything I suggested was resisted.
Before I came to Madison, I had enjoyed the camaraderie of police officers and was part of that culture. While my colleagues may not have always agreed with my views on policing, I always felt I was one of them. When I came to Madison all that changed. To many officers. I was not one of them, I was an outsider and I felt the isolation. I had a choice. Was I going to back off or press on? Was it going to be the depression of loneliness and going along with the way things were -- or if I didn’t, would I find internal strength in the solitude I was about to enter?
It took me between 10-15 years of my life in a bureaucracy of less than 500 employees to finally build a new coalition of police officers who were educated, diverse, and committed the idea of a democratic police. During that time, I learned about the solitude of leadership.
After I retired, a team of independent researchers conducted a three-year study about changing police in Madison. They wrote this in their final report:
“It is possible to change a traditional, control- oriented police organization into one in which employees become members of work teams and participants in decision-making processes. The Madison Police Department has changed the inside, with apparent benefits as reflected by improved attitudes, for employees. This research suggests that associated with these internal changes are external benefits for citizens, including indications of reductions in crime and reduced levels of concern about crime.”
Doing so required leaders, and not just me, to know WHO they were and WHERE they were going. They had to stand up to those both above and below them who did not want to change. They had to understand and accept the solitude of leadership.
A colleague of mine recently sent me a copy of a talk given by William Deresiewicz of Yale University. It is about leadership in a bureaucracy. It was the speech he had given last October to the incoming class at West Point.
Deresiewicz talked the danger to those who attempt to lead with their values – especially those who choose to lead in large bureaucracies like the US military, corporations, churches, or large financial institutions. He was talking to young men and women who would soon be leaders in one of the largest bureaucracies the world has ever seen – the US Army.
I have a very personal interest in what he had to say. I, too, have served in the military, and studied and practiced leadership for most of my life. But even more importantly, my daughter now serves in that bureaucracy. She is an Army officer stationed today in Afghanistan. When I told her about the article by Deresiewicz that I am about to discuss, she told me that she, and her fellow junior grade officers, had already read it. That, by the way, is a very hopeful sign.
Here is part of what Deresiewicz said:
“Many people you will meet as you negotiate the bureaucracy of the Army [or for that matter of whatever institution you end up giving your talents to after the Army, whether it’s Microsoft or the World Bank or whatever—the head of my department] had no genius for organizing or initiative or even order, no particular learning or intelligence, no distinguishing characteristics at all. Just the ability to keep the routine going…”
He went on
… “Why is it so often that the best people are stuck in the middle and the people who are running things—the leaders—are the mediocrities? Because excellence isn’t usually what gets you up the greasy pole. What gets you up is a talent for maneuvering. Kissing up to the people above you, kicking down to the people below you. Pleasing your teachers, pleasing your superiors, picking a powerful mentor and riding his coattails until it’s time to stab him in the back. Jumping through hoops. Getting along by going along. Being whatever other people want you to be, so that it finally comes to seem that… you have nothing inside you at all. Not taking stupid risks like trying to change how things are done or question why they’re done. Just keeping the routine going.”
Now I have spent my life in three large bureaucracies – the military, the police and the church. I have spent a lot of my energy questioning, challenging, trying to improve how things are done, and taking risks.
What Deresiewicz had to say is true in my experience. Bureaucracy is primarily about two things: pleasing superiors and never taking a risk; in short, being mediocre! – just “keeping the routine going.”
The danger of mediocrity becoming the norm in our nation’s major institutions is very troubling. In fact, it is down-right disturbing!
But being fore-warned is being fore-armed. While those entering into leadership may hold our nation’s values, they will be confronted with things that are wrong in their organizations and the question will be, “Will they have the courage to do what is right?” Believing and doing do not necessarily flow out from one another.
But more importantly, will they – or you -- even know what the right thing is? Because when you stand and say, “No, I refuse,” to authority; when you challenge a wrong-headed policy or illegal or immoral organizational direction, when you say “this is not right and I will not do it!” you may lose loyalty, support, or the approval of those serving both above and below you -- maybe even your friends. You may lose your job or your best friend!
And that is where solitude comes in. And that is why it is important for you, if you choose to lead, to know WHO you really are and WHAT you truly stand for. And be able to do it when almost everyone will think you are either wrong or a trouble-maker!
“I was only following orders” doesn’t cut it anymore. Leaders must prepare themselves to act on the tough situations before they happen. It’s not what the company or organization believes, it’s not even what the church believes, or what your friends or colleagues believe – It’s what YOU believe!
Now you have heard both the words “loneliness” and “solitude” today. They are closely related. But they are different. If doing the right thing results in loneliness rather than in the spiritual strength that can be found in solitude, then making the right choice, the right decision, will be difficult, if not impossible.
To Deresiewicz, the very essence of leadership is solitude.
“The position of the leader is ultimately an intensely solitary, even intensely lonely one. However many people you may consult, you are the one who has to make the hard decisions. And at such moments, all you really have is yourself.”
And I would add that you must be in the position of both preparing for and knowing that you are enough to do the right thing in the face of all the pressure and sanctions your organization can throw in your face – and your career. That means thinking about what you are going to do before your values are challenged.
Let’s now look at the impact that leadership can have outside the bureaucracy. Can leadership outside the bureaucracy have an impact? Well, in 2006, Greg Mortenson, a former mountain climber turned humanitarian wrote a book about his work in Pakistan called
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time. If you haven’t read the book, you should.
The original title captures what this book is really all about
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations ... It’s about fighting terrorism and building nations without killing people. For nine years now we have been retaliating for what happened on this day nine years ago. We have killed and been killed. We have spent trillions of dollars. And how’s it working for us?
Greg Mortenson has another idea. His title, “Three cups of tea” comes from a local saying in the Baltistan area of Pakistan:
The first time you share tea with me, you are a stranger.
The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest.
The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family.
Working outside of government agencies, outside of bureaucracy, Mortenson was able to “become family;” to build hundreds schools, which educated girls along with boys, in the rural areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. A lesson for America? Didn’t we do this after World War II? Didn’t we help those with whom we were at war rebuild their nations?
“USA Today” recently reported that General Petraeus had read Mortenson’s book and ordered his staff to do likewise. This is encouraging. Perhaps in this giant bureaucracy, someone will question, will try something new, will take a risk… will be a leader!
The question is whether or not there is a better way of helping people other than by threat and force? Does killing people lead to their submission or their resistance? I think we all know the answer to that question. We don’t have to look too far back in history to find it.
Now I am not an absolute pacifist. I believe physical force should always be a last resort. I can support armed intervention when we follow the principles of what we Christians call a “just war.” However, when we use physical force, either individually or as a nation, we must admit it is a failure of both our leadership and diplomacy.
After General Petraeus had read the book, Mortenson reported that he received an email from him with three points he said he had gleaned from the book:
• Build relationships,
• listen more, and
• have more humility and respect.
Well, that IS another way… but will the largest bureaucracy in the world, in the richest nation in the world, be able to implement new ways of thinking and new approaches in order to keep America safe?
Being able to do this could not only save thousands of lives and billions of dollars but could make the world a better and safer place for every one of us. Just to put this into perspective: We can build almost 20 schools for the cost of putting one soldier in Afghanistan for one year.
The sooner the rest of our government and military can begin to practice the leadership implied in those three points:
• building trusting relationships,
• generously listening to others, and
• being humble and respectful while doing it,
the safer we will be at home and abroad. And, more importantly, we will be a better people for having done it.
When we practice these three values not only in our foreign policy, but in our personal relationships at home, at work and in our neighborhoods, we will see our lives become better.
So let’s try it now. Seriously, turn to a person around you whom you do not know. Introduce yourself to that person,
• Ask them why they are here today.
• Listen to what they have to say.
• Then tell them who you are and why you are here.
Well, how was it? I think it is now time for us to strongly define ourselves as to who we are as a people. We are not what others around the world see us to be. As long as those misrepresentations exist, we are all in grave danger. And that is why the last election was about hope, participation, and peace.
Now let’s make sure these values result in ACTION throughout our nation.
When we require those who represent us from town boards to school boards; from city councils to Congress, to recognize and practice our values like building relationships, listening, and being humble and respectful toward others, we will be a country which truly promotes peace – ONE PERSON, ONE RELATIONSHIP AT A TIME!
Thank you for listening and reaching out to one another. May God bless you -- and God bless America and all the nations of the world!
[William Deresiewicz West Point speech can be found at: http://www.theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/#hide]
