Becoming a Student of Leadership: Making Leadership a Practice

By Jeffrey Page

"Becoming a Student of Leadership - Making Leadership a Practice" is a book about leadership in the broadest sense of the word. It asserts that we all serve as leaders in some way, and we need to become students of leadership to learn how best to lead from our various positions within an organization. As students, we must practice with a drive to continually improve and the humility to know that we'll never be finished learning. The most effective leaders spend less time trying to prove what they know and more time creating opportunities for everyone to learn.

The book is written as a series of stories, meditations, and essays about various aspects of leadership including the influence of ego, the importance of humility, the power of radical candor, and the ability to address adversity with generosity and an assumption of positive intent. Many of the pieces present stories about Jeffrey's work and life experiences — and often about his mistakes and shortcomings — that led him to revelations about how to become a better leader.

Current leaders will find "Becoming a Student of Leadership" useful not because it offers radically new ideas on effective leadership but because it draws readers in with personal anecdotes that remind us of how to be an inspired leader. It reminds us of our human imperfections and encourages us to challenge our views and perspectives. It helps us to check our egos and seek to discover our blind spots and weaknesses that diminish our ability to lead and inspire from a place of humility.

Managers will benefit from the book because they, too, need to understand the difference between effectively delegating and oppressively micromanaging. Many of the stories included in these pages will remind managers how introducing meaning, purpose, and possibility to the work of the team, rather than being an officious taskmaster, will inspire higher levels of engagement, motivation, and productivity across the organization.

Young professionals and aspiring leaders who have known too few inspiring and too many misguided leaders will also find hope and value in reading about how the path to leadership starts right here, right now, and is taken with intentionality, humility, and practice. They will learn that leadership is not about obtaining and wielding power, but about making connections with the team, creating a compelling vision, and generating energy and excitement about the work ahead.

In fact, "Becoming a Student of Leadership" has something for everyone – the opportunity to discover the leader in all of us. We all have a reason to lead effectively at some point in our lives. The essays, meditations, and anecdotes found in these pages are written as a series of reminders about leadership concepts many of us may already know, but they shine a new light on how to lead in ways that make others eager to follow.

The book was not written as a linear narrative or in chronological order, nor was it written as a step-by-step guide to becoming a leader. It's more of a collage of meditations and reflections on relationships, work dynamics, and our own internal narratives that encourages readers to be reflective about these dynamics as they engage in leadership. Although readers may find it useful to read the book straight through from beginning to end, they may also choose to jump around to sections that they find of interest at a given moment (or in response to a particular challenge) in their leadership journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098376857

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Becoming a Student of Leadership

Making Leadership a Practice

©2021 Jeffrey Page

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

print ISBN: 978-1-09837-684-0

ebook ISBN: 978-1-09837-685-7

This book is dedicated to my wife Lisa – my love, my partner, and my best friend – from whom I learned much of the wisdom I share in this book.

Background

Who should read this book and why?

This is a book about leadership in the broadest sense of the word. It asserts that we all serve as leaders in some way, and we need to become students of leadership to learn how best to lead from our various positions within an organization. As students, we must practice with a drive to continually improve and the humility to know that we’ll never be finished learning. The most effective leaders spend less time trying to prove what they know and more time creating opportunities for everyone to learn.

Current leaders will find this book useful not because it offers radically new ideas on effective leadership but because it draws readers in with personal anecdotes that remind us of how to be an inspired leader. It reminds us of our human imperfections and encourages us to challenge our views and perspectives. It helps us to check our egos and seek to discover our blind spots and weaknesses that diminish our ability to lead and inspire from a place of humility.

Managers will benefit from this book because they, too, need to understand the difference between effectively delegating and oppressively micromanaging. Many of the stories included in these pages will remind managers how introducing meaning, purpose, and possibility to the work of the team, rather than being an officious taskmaster, will inspire higher levels of engagement, motivation, and productivity across the organization.

Young professionals and aspiring leaders who have known too few inspiring and too many misguided leaders will also find hope and value in reading about how the path to leadership starts right here, right now, and is taken with intentionality, humility, and practice. They will learn that leadership is not about obtaining and wielding power, but about making connections with the team, creating a compelling vision, and generating energy and excitement about the work ahead.

In fact, this book has something for everyone – the opportunity to discover the leader in all of us. We all have a reason to lead effectively at some point in our lives. The essays, meditations, and anecdotes found in these pages are written as a series of reminders about leadership concepts many of us may already know, but they shine a new light on how to lead in ways that make others eager to follow.

How to Read the Book

This book was not written as a linear narrative or in chronological order, nor was it written as a step-by-step guide to becoming a leader. It’s more of a collage of meditations and reflections on relationships, work dynamics, and our own internal narratives that encourages readers to be reflective about these dynamics as they engage in leadership. Although readers may find it useful to read the book straight through from beginning to end, they may also choose to jump around to sections that they find of interest at a given moment (or in response to a particular challenge) in their leadership journey.

Prologue

In July of 2009, while serving as the chief financial officer (CFO) at the Library of Congress, I began writing a weekly message to my staff. The early messages were inspired by a grassroots leadership training I organized for the roughly 60 staff working in the office of the CFO. The training centered on the premise that we are all leaders. We simply lead from different positions within the organization. The training offered strategies for maintaining the right focus and a constructive, can-do attitude at work.

My staff responded positively to my early messages, and so, I continued writing them. It slowly became my practice. Each Monday morning, I would send a message on such topics as leadership, communication, workplace relations, self-awareness, and radical candor. With each week’s message, I received responses from members of the staff indicating that the message resonated with them and helped them to address various work-life challenges.

I began calling the messages, Weekly Reminders. I wasn’t telling the team anything they didn’t already know. But I offered personal anecdotes and real-life stories that illuminated leadership principles many of us should know but often forget to follow. Most of the messages began as reminders to myself about how to address my own blind spots and personal foibles. I was essentially sharing with the team reminders I was writing to myself.

As I continued sending out the messages, I began receiving emails and calls from strangers who thanked me for my messages. I soon learned that my staff had been forwarding the messages to colleagues across the Library, and to family and friends outside of the agency.

After a few years of writing the Weekly Reminder messages, a colleague and reader of the messages who worked in the Library’s literary division suggested that I compile and publish the messages in a book. I began by posting the messages to a blog. And now, with an archive of nearly nine years of Weekly Reminder blog posts as content, I’ve decided I may have something that will be of interest to a broad audience.

Why Read a Book on Leadership?

There must be hundreds of books published on the topic of leadership. Why would anyone choose to read mine? Part of the answer to this question came to me during a visit to Rochester, New York.

In October 2018, my wife and I attended a parent/alumni event (Meliora Weekend) at the University of Rochester where my stepdaughter was an undergrad. Soledad O’Brien, the well-known broadcast journalist and executive producer, was the keynote speaker for the event.

O’Brien talked about the power of storytelling, explaining how offering context, nuance, and a narrative arc makes communication more compelling and meaningful to the audience. These days many of our news stories deliver dramatic, but superficial sound bites at the expense of context — the real story. Storytelling, O’Brien argues, avoids the easy and trivial cop-out of the sound bite. It requires the hard work of investigating and sharing a layered, nuanced, and meaningful narrative, drawing the audience in and taking them on a journey that entices, informs, and educates.

O’Brien’s reflections on storytelling resonated deeply with me and mirrored my approach to writing about leadership. My messages cover a broad range of leadership topics including the influence of ego and the importance of humility, the power of radical candor, and the ability to address adversity with generosity and an assumption of positive intent, to name a few. Whereas there have been multitudes of how-to books written on leadership, my messages have often begun as stories about my own work and life experiences — and often about my mistakes and shortcomings — that led me to revelations about how to be a better leader. I believe those who became regular readers of my weekly messages were drawn in by the hook of humble, honest storytelling. The messages simply share lessons I’ve learned in my life and career without (I hope) being preachy.

I also believe my unique background and work experience are part of what makes my messages about leadership compelling. I spent over 27 years working for the federal government — not so terribly interesting in itself. But I began my career as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and I ended up spending 10 years in Africa working with the Peace Corps, including a tour as country director of the Peace Corps program in Guinea, West Africa. After 12 years working with the Peace Corps, I took a job as budget director at the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), a federal government agency better known for its flagship program, AmeriCorps. After seven and a half years working for CNCS, I moved to the Library of Congress where I spent close to nine years serving as chief financial officer. I made one last change in my federal career when I returned to CNCS to serve as the agency’s chief operating officer. Finally, after taking early retirement from the federal government (after 27 years of federal service), I took a job in the private sector as vice president of operations for a small IT company that does contract work for the federal government. And now I am writing this book.

Jeff’s Take on Leadership

Early in my career I began referring to myself as a student of leadership. I was fortunate enough to work with some truly inspired leaders. I watched carefully and learned how to lead from them. I also watched and learned from people who had leadership titles but had no business calling themselves leaders. I took note of their missteps in the hope that I might avoid them in my efforts to become an effective leader one day. I continuously observed and reflected on the examples of leadership that surrounded me. As I advanced in my career, I tried to serve as a source of inspiration to those I worked with, creating energy and a sense of possibility in whatever work environment I found myself. Later in my career, I began attending trainings and reading books, articles, and blogs about leadership. Then, in July of 2009, I organized a grassroots leadership training for my staff at the Library of Congress. And I began writing Weekly Reminder messages that I have now edited and organized in this book on leadership.

I hope you will find the following meditations, essays, and anecdotes about leadership of some interest and value. Maybe you, too, will decide to make leadership a practice.

Contents

Chapter 1: Leadership as Practice

Chapter 2: Positive Attitude

Chapter 3: Radical Candor

Chapter 4: Problem-Solving

Chapter 5: Dealing with Adversity

Chapter 6: Conflict Resolution

Chapter 7: Managing Up

Chapter 8: Managing Attitude

Chapter 9: Vulnerability as Strength

Chapter 10: Generosity

Chapter 11: Gratitude & Appreciation

Chapter 12: Diversity and Inclusion

Chapter 13: Customer Service

Chapter 14: Communication

Chapter 15: Organization

Chapter 16: Lifelong Learning

Chapter 1:

Leadership as Practice

You want to know the difference between a master and a beginner? The master has failed more times than the beginner has ever tried. – Yoda

Leadership Takes Practice

Studying Examples of Leadership

The Most Important Reminder

My Autobiography?

The True Leader’s Pull of Inspiration

A Place of Love

Attaining Mightiness

Curiosity Cured the Leader

Practicing What We Preach

Early Perspectives on Leadership

Whose Advice Do We Follow?

A Strategy for Recruiting Mentors

Practice Does NOT Make Perfect

Stepping into the Leadership Space

Talk Is Cheap – If You Have a Better Idea, Write It Down

The Practical Dreamer

Got Moxie?

It All Begins with Tone at the Top

Can Introverts Be Leaders?

I’m a Great Leader

What’s Love Got to Do with It?

What We Say and What We Do

Leadership Takes Practice

I’ve always been intrigued by stories of great athletes and the amazing levels of discipline, grit, and hard work they put into the sport they have pursued — beyond what often begins with some form of raw talent. Anyone who believes that athletes become great through talent alone hasn’t followed the stories of people like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Andre Agassi, and others like them. These athletes achieved the ultimate height of athletic greatness through agonizingly vigorous and disciplined exercise and practice routines.

A documentary about Michael Jordan’s life related the fact that Jordan didn’t even make the varsity basketball team in his sophomore year in high school. But he was determined to prove himself, and he dedicated himself to a highly disciplined regimen of practice. And, well, he ended up doing okay as a basketball player.

I believe this dynamic is true in every area of life and work, and absolutely critical in the area of leadership. Some people may be blessed with natural leadership tendencies, exhibiting heightened self-awareness and a talent for inspiring people to strive for and achieve greater things than they might otherwise have achieved on their own. But the minute someone concludes that they have arrived at the pinnacle of leadership greatness and are finished developing as a leader, they have surely begun a precipitous decline from their leadership perch. That is, if their image of themselves as a great leader wasn’t simply a delusion in the first place. A key characteristic of a great leader is a healthy dose of humility.

Leadership excellence, as with athletic greatness, is achieved by developing a multifaceted skill set. We can’t just practice shots from the free-throw line or focus exclusively on our layup and expect to become a great basketball player. Similarly, simply becoming an exceptionally skilled technician in an area of work we have pursued will not qualify us to effectively lead a group of people working in that field. Nor will an ability to work well with people or having excellent communications skills earn us sufficient credibility to lead a team working in a specific technical area.

Assuming that a person holding a leadership title has at least a baseline of the necessary leadership skills and competencies, they can strive to become a great leader by first (and continually) acknowledging that they have areas that need improvement, and then setting to work at identifying those areas, pursuing strategies and researching best practices for making needed improvements, and implementing a vigorous and disciplined routine of practice, practice, practice.

We will never hear Tiger Woods claim that he is done practicing or that he has achieved the perfect stroke. As long as he plays golf, he will continue to adjust, tweak, and practice both in an effort to maintain his level of performance as a great golfer and with the goal of improving his game. A leader should also be adjusting, learning, tweaking, and practicing in a never-ending pursuit of improvement.

We can find a meaningful metaphor in Zen Buddhists who don’t think of themselves as being Zen Buddhists but rather as practicing Zen Buddhism. As a Zen Buddhist priest Shunryu Suzuki once told his students: You are all perfect and you need a lot of improvement. Similarly, there is no badge or certificate that declares that we have become a great leader. Excellence in leadership is something we pursue with humility and practice continuously without any illusions of one day achieving perfection.

We all have areas in our lives in which we hope to achieve some level of mastery. We hope to be good husbands, wives, mothers, and fathers. We hope to become effective and inspiring leaders, capable artists or technicians, someone who contributes meaningfully to the public good. Whatever these areas may be, we should never rest, never allow ourselves to say we’ve done enough. Although we may be perfect as we are, we should never conclude that we’re done perfecting ourselves. Whether we are in pursuit of leadership excellence, hope to master our technical field of work, or want to pursue a passion in sports or the arts, grasping and internalizing the concept of continuous improvement through rigorous, intentional and disciplined practice will be the key to the path to greatness.

Studying Examples of Leadership

One of the benefits of writing about lessons on leadership that I have picked up either from personal experience or from articles, interviews, and speeches on leadership is that it helps me to internalize the lessons and to incorporate them into my life and work. Knowing that I am always on the hunt for a good message or lesson on leadership and always working to practice the lessons I have learned, my father used to send me articles he had read on the topic. He once sent me a New York Times interview with the chief technology officer at AT&T, John Donovan, who shared his thoughts about leadership, how he came upon his own leadership lessons, and how he had incorporated them into his work at AT&T.

Donovan’s thoughts on leadership resonated with me. I think we all could benefit from learning and incorporating the salient points he shared into our own lives and work. They are:

Articulating a clear framework: A strong leader is someone who can recognize patterns and articulate a clear framework for the team he leads, picking out and directing a focus on what is most important. Whether or not we are a leader in name or title, we all could benefit from learning how to communicate a clear picture of a future state or intended result, as well as a plan for achieving that state.

Knowing when to be a follower: Given the prominent position Donovan achieved in his career, it was interesting that he emphasized the importance of being able to (and knowing when to) play the role of a follower of others and focusing on helping the team succeed from a support position. He derived great satisfaction simply from being a part of executing a well-laid plan. Being a leader doesn’t necessarily mean always being in control or calling the shots. It often means being an effective facilitator and drawing out the right leader at the right time for a particular effort.

Hard work: Donovan made a compelling case for simple hard work as being one of the more critical keys to success. He learned early in life that intelligence was only a marginal differentiator for success. He attributed his success to focusing on making up any difference (in smarts) between himself and his fellow workers by being the hardest worker.

Breadth of experience: Donovan explained in the interview that he worked for and owned several different companies in a variety of industries. He sought to gain a broad set of experiences and to drill deep wherever he could. The breadth of his experience gave him perspective and an understanding of a variety of strategies and approaches that he was able to bring to bear in whatever worked. When we seek to gain a broad variety of experiences in our career, we expand our tool belt and skill set and make ourselves a valuable and agile asset to our organization, not to mention a very attractive candidate in job applications.

Ability to work well on a team: Donovan spoke about his discomfort with receiving praise and how he often deflected credit for his contributions. He noticed in his work on a variety of teams that people appreciated him because they saw that he played for results and not for [his] role on the team. He described a concept of a karma pool where credits are calculated in a floating nether world. His conclusion was that the karma pool will take care of itself, and we don’t need to worry about those credits in the here and now. In order to become a good leader, we have to begin by developing strong team skills, not focusing on our role, title, or formal authority. If we simply focus on how to contribute most effectively and help the team achieve its desired outcome, the rest will sort itself out.

Three words to describe yourself: Donovan talked about conducting job interviews and how he liked to ask applicants what three words best describe them. He would then ask applicants to choose the one word, of the three, that was most representative of their character. What three words would we use to describe ourselves… and which one word? What does our choice mean? How do we work in such a way that people will see us in those words — that word.

Beyond wanting to capture these particular lessons in leadership from the New York Times interview with Donovan, I believe there’s great value in being a perpetual student of leadership, in taking conscious note of different examples of leadership, in reflecting on new and different perspectives in comparison with others, and in making a practice of trying to incorporate the best of those leadership qualities into our own life and work.

The Most Important Reminder

As someone who seeks to achieve continuous improvement in his life, I am often humbled by a frustrating reality: I often forget the very things (the attitudes, approaches and perspectives) that I have committed to making a part of my professional and life practice. My falling short of these personal commitments is in no way a reflection of my lacking deep and sincere convictions. It’s more simply, and sometimes embarrassingly, a reflection of my having a poor memory.

Today I may tell myself (promise myself!) that I am going to do a better job of being unflappable, of practicing gratitude, of not taking myself too seriously, of being a better listener, etc. And then I get into the heat of a situation that distracts me from these noble lessons I have learned, and I promptly forget to practice them.

Of course, I don’t always forget. But I have come to recognize that finding strategies for remembering the lessons we have learned and hope to incorporate into our life practice is at least as important as learning and appreciating the lessons in the first place. As with the myriad other activities, chores, and responsibilities that we juggle in our daily lives, we are no more likely to remember to practice a better behavior or attitude as we are to take out the trash or pay that bill without the help of the occasional reminder note, tickler email, or gentle nagging from our wife, boss, or colleague.

The practice, commitment, and discipline of writing about leadership has been one of my personal strategies for reminding myself of the lessons I hope to remember to practice in my efforts to improve myself both personally and professionally. The challenging work of writing these meditations on leadership in a coherent and compelling way is an exercise that helps burn the given lesson more deeply into my memory and psyche. It is an added bonus to know that the work I put into writing these messages have ended up providing some useful insights to those who have read them over the years – those who share the fundamental ethic of wanting to improve themselves both personally and professionally.

We all use reminders differently. But the most important message about leadership is to understand the need for reminders and practice. In addition to identifying the lessons that resonate with us most deeply, we should all make a commitment to building those lessons into our life practice.

My Autobiography?

Several years ago, I read a book called Bend, Not Break by Ping Fu, the founder and CEO of a 3D imaging company called Geomagic. The book is Fu’s story of growing up in China — her early childhood years in a well-to-do, intellectual family, her shocking forced removal from the family by China’s Red Guard, her painful years living in a re-education camp during China’s oppressive Cultural Revolution, and finally, her exile to the United States where she figures out how to transform herself from a seemingly helpless, non-English-speaking immigrant to a highly successful American business owner. It’s a compelling read filled with a mix of brutal, wrenching hardship and serendipitous, loving good fortune. I found it particularly interesting how throughout Fu’s autobiography she subtly weaves in descriptions of the life lessons she learned and how she drew upon those lessons as her life, relationships, and career evolved.

Autobiography? Lessons learned? Hmm. Why does this make me think of my friend Barry?

Barry was a regular reader of my weekly blog posts on a variety of leadership topics, and he would frequently send tongue-in-cheek responses which usually began with, Dear Jeff, I just read the most recent chapter of your autobiography… He would then proceed to make facetious comments about how my messages had helped him as a leader. The key to Barry’s humor was the fact that he is retired and lives alone, and the only thing he leads is a large team of house plants.

A few days after finishing Fu’s book, I posted a new leadership message, and of course Barry responded with his standard commentary about my autobiography. I’m not sure what it was about this particular response, but it finally occurred to me that Barry was probably right. Many of my writings on leadership have been reflections on my life experiences and how I have drawn lessons from them. As Fu does in her book, I am constantly reflecting on the events of my life, analyzing the nuances of work situations, relationships, and communications, seeking to understand what role I have played in various social and workplace dynamics, and thinking about strategies for improving the way I respond to them. The act of writing down my reflections over the years has helped me to understand and remember the lessons I have drawn from my experiences. And while I have always been hopeful that these lessons would resonate with readers of my writings on leadership, I feel fairly certain that Barry’s plants have benefited from his reading them. Or, as Barry once wrote, I want to thank you and let you know that your action will make things much better not only in your OCFO team [at the time I was serving as chief financial officer at the Library of Congress] but also in OBLB, which, of course, is an acronym for the Office of Barry L. Bem. Barry is a funny guy.

Barry’s teasing notwithstanding, I am often reminded of the Socrates quote, The unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates did not say, Gee, it might be nice to examine your life once in a while. He was quite emphatic that there is no point to a life that is not regularly and thoroughly examined.

Reading Fu’s story reminded me of why I find this life examination process so valuable, why I believe Socrates was so adamant about its importance, and why I continue to write down my reflections. In Fu’s case, contemplating and writing about her life experiences — including painful descriptions of her time living in the Red Guard re-education camp — seems to help her to endure them. Reflecting on what she is learning from the experiences as she goes through them enables her to achieve a certain degree of detachment and allows her to rise above pain. In fact, the writing process becomes her survival strategy, as the lessons she learns help her navigate the many dangers that lurk behind every corner, within every classroom, and in every interaction she has. Then, later in her life, when she is working to navigate the business culture and figuring out how to be an effective leader of an American start-up company, she frequently returns to and draws on the survival lessons she learned as a young girl in China.

The other thing I found striking about Fu’s life examination process is how it required great humility to conduct the examination effectively and how her focus on learning from her life experiences served to reinforce and enhance her sense of humility. On a number of occasions in the book, Fu reflects on a situation that has gone badly for her, and she discovers that her ego has played a significant role in creating the problem in the first place, or that her ego has been presenting a barrier to resolving it. Invariably, her humility is the key to returning to the problem with an open mind and finding a solution that achieves a greater good, and not necessarily a win for her. Fu makes a convincing argument that without a healthy dose of humility and an ego firmly in check, few people will succeed at living an examined life or benefit from the lessons that examination has to offer.

Most people are familiar with Einstein’s quote, The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The examined life offers an antidote to such mental challenges, encouraging us to do, to reflect on what we’ve done, and then to ask ourselves how we might do better in the future. This process requires not only humility but also an ethic of lifelong learning — qualities that lead to self-awareness and offer a path to effective leadership.

Toward the end of Fu’s book, she contemplates the arc of her life, and comes to the following conclusion:

Some popular self-help books and articles depict personal and professional success metaphorically in terms of summiting a mountain peak, implying that we climb only in an upward direction. But the reality isn’t like that. It is more accurate to compare life to a mountain range. Sometimes we reach the top of a peak and then find ourselves unexpectedly tumbling back down into a valley again due to forces beyond our control. At other times, we ascend one peak, only to gain a view of many others all around us that we long to climb. In order to make it to the next mountaintop, we must first descend the one we are on. Either by choice or by circumstance, we find ourselves traveling up and down throughout our lives, traversing numerous peaks and valleys.

In telling her story, Fu demonstrates how the examined life helps us negotiate the path of the ascent, helps us appreciate the feeling of accomplishment in reaching the summit, helps us see and remember the beauty and sense of possibility in looking out across the mountain range, and helps us endure the often-difficult trials of descending into the valleys by offering a sense of perspective and the hope of climbing once again to another peak. The examined life focuses our attention on and forces us to acknowledge the reality of what is, keeps us from the pitfalls of denial, and opens the doors to possibility — the possibility to learn and draw meaning and direction from the events of our lives.

So, yes, perhaps Barry is right that my writings on leadership have an autobiographical element to them. But the take-away lessons I highlight in my occasional autobiographical anecdotes are always the focus of my attention. By examining and recording these lessons, my hope is that I will remember to incorporate them into my life in a continuous effort to learn, commit my learning to practice, and thereby improve myself. And by sharing these reflections in my writings on leadership, my hope is that they will both resonate with and offer value to my readers — and continue to be a source of entertainment and inspiration for Barry and OBLB.

The True Leader’s Pull of Inspiration

We don’t have to dig too deeply into the daily news to find examples of a sadly familiar quote: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It’s sometimes hard not to become cynical when it seems like every day there’s another report of some political or institutional leader being caught in a scandal and exposed for corrupting the power his leadership position entrusted to him.

Those who talk about leadership and power in the same context are already treading on shaky ground. A person who seeks out a leadership role with the goal of gaining power and influence is destined for failure as a leader. A person with such a goal is the most susceptible to power’s corrupting forces. It is even more sad and frustrating when we see someone who has a clear capacity for becoming a great leader, but who directs their energies toward the pursuit of power.

A true leader is one who can’t be bothered with thoughts of whether or not they have power, or of how much power they have. Their unique focus is on trying to add value to the organization. The more actual power a leader has, the harder they must work to earn the trust of those they are leading, and the more actively they should work to build confidence among the team about the direction they are leading them.

My father sent me a biography of a friend of his (Gordon Paul Smith) who led a fascinating and inspiring life, and who seemed to be, among many things, a great leader. In one speech Smith gave, he made a comment that captures the very heart of leadership: They [true leaders] lead by personal example and vitality and those who follow do so because of the pull of inspiration rather than the push of willpower. In other words, leadership is not about gaining and wielding power; it’s about inspiring, motivating, and empowering the team.

The corrupting force of power often hits when a person interprets their increasing authority and status within an institution as warranting a growing list of exemptions from the rules. Subordinate staff sometimes intentionally but usually inadvertently test a leader by trying to facilitate their work by presenting shortcuts and ways around the rules that apply to everyone else. A true leader will put a quick stop to such tests and go to great lengths to set (and model) an organizational tone of ethics and integrity. In fact, they will demonstrate that they are, if anything, more responsible for following the rules than anyone else in the organization.

A true leader does not demand respect. They commit to a never-ending effort to bring meaning and connection to the work of the team, and they strive to model transparency and demonstrate accountability in everything they do. If their efforts are genuine and consistent, they may have a reasonable hope of gaining the same level of respect that they have shown their staff.

A true leader avoids considering themself as a master of the subject matter of the organization and instead nurtures in themself and the team a culture of continuous learning and improvement. When a person concludes that they have mastered their subject area, they project an image of arrogance that invites isolation and causes blind spots. A true leader attempts to engage members of the team, and with every encounter demonstrates an eagerness to learn all the things that they do not yet know and a hunger to hear the ideas and insights of the team members.

With every increase in authority, a true leader understands and dutifully accepts an increased responsibility to prove their credibility, integrity, and reliability. It is the misguided (and mis-designated) leader who perceives their increased power and authority as a sign that they are wiser, more knowledgeable and competent, and more deserving of deference and respect than anyone else in the organization.

Whether we are currently serving in a senior leadership position or hoping to develop skills as a future leader, the most important key to success will be our ability to bring meaning and a sense of connection and purpose to those whom we have the privilege to lead. Our ability to lead with the pull of inspiration has the potential of lifting the team and the organization to great heights and of filling us with the most powerful sense of gratification. With this as our focus, we will have no use for power.

And, thus, we can leave the push of willpower to others.

A Place of Love

While I was working as the chief financial officer at the Library of Congress, I often spoke to or facilitated training sessions with participants in the Library’s Leadership Development Program (LDP). I also served as a mentor to several participants in each program. I was thrilled one year when one of the participants I had been mentoring, Jason Steinhauer, was invited to serve as the keynote speaker at the LDP graduation ceremony. The keynote speaker’s task was to offer reflections about the LDP program, what they learned in going through its rich curriculum of trainings, mentoring and rotating assignments to various Library divisions, and how their views of the future — their future, the future of the institution, and the future of leadership — evolved as a result.

Jason’s speech offered a bold and heartfelt message to a large audience that included many of the Library’s senior management. Introducing the main theme of his speech, Jason shared a comment from one of the LDP instructors who had suggested to the participants that there are only two emotions in this world: love and fear. Jason went on to say, Each day, we choose from which to operate. In the remainder of his speech, Jason explained how all our work is informed by these two fundamental concepts. He also made a powerful argument for how the Library’s leadership needed to do a better job of infusing love into the Library’s work, management, and leadership culture.

As someone who had spent a lot of time writing about leadership and a lot of time mentoring LDP participants over the years, I was humbled by Jason’s poignant and insightful speech. Clearly, I had a lot to learn from him. And his love theme ended up banging around in my head (and heart) for a long time after the graduation ceremony. I was particularly struck by how the theme of love represented the foundation and core message underlying most of my writings on leadership. The difference was, he called it out simply and directly. I never had.

The messages and blog posts I had written on leadership over the previous four years offered thoughts and guidance in areas of leadership, attitude, focus, customer service, work relations, and communications. But what do these subjects have to do with love?

Everything.

Ego and love — I have often referred to ego as one of the more common and insidious barriers to effective leadership, work relations, and communications. Ego is the place where our parochial, self-centered interests reside. When we can’t manage to move beyond what matters most to us personally, how issues affect us, and how they bother us, we become severely limited in our ability to interact effectively in the workplace, and in life in general.

However, there also exists a big self, a self that includes ego but goes beyond and represents a connectedness that is always available to us but that we too often fail to see — the connection we have to everyone and everything around us. When we tap into this connected place, our actions and interactions stop being driven by our personal interests and gains and begin to be informed by a focus on achieving a greater good. This is the place where love resides. Although we all have access to this more evolved, connected big self, where we work from a place of love, many of us have difficulty peering, let alone climbing, over the wall that ego and self-interest erect between us and that evolved place.

Conflict and love — In doing our work, delivering services, implementing complex projects, and dealing with people of broad-ranging experiences and backgrounds, we invariably run into conflict. But conflict is often inspired or at least exacerbated by fear and ego. Planted in the small-self world of ego, self-interest, and self-preservation, people are driven by fear of being wrong, outranked, overridden, disregarded, or disrespected. The ego drives us to view issues in terms of dichotomies, as two opposing options or directions that can’t be reconciled. The big self, where love resides, doesn’t concern itself with being right. It concerns itself with getting to the right place. It gets there by embracing and seeking to understand the two poles, finding areas of meaning and value in both, and working toward a place that rises above the polarity, where elegant solutions are waiting to be discovered.

When conflict involves people being mean, inappropriate, and disrespectful, operating from a place of love means rising above, taking the high road, not biting the hook, and sitting with your big self. I recently saw a quote (don’t know the author) that reads, Everyone you know is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Every religion and philosophy on earth offers some form of guidance along the lines of turning the other cheek. The strength to take this path comes from a place of love.

Customer service and love — Customer service is about offering assistance, helping people understand, directing them to the right place, helping them succeed, and guiding them through the complexities of our often-arcane bureaucratic processes. One of the greater triggers of ego-born fear is the vulnerability of not understanding an issue or process and needing to ask for help. Because vulnerability is grounded in ego — the small self that fears being wrong — it often inspires feelings of anger, frustration, and impatience. Delivering customer service from a place of love, from the place where the big self sits, means bringing compassion, understanding, and patience to those whose vulnerability-born fears attempt to erect barriers to our attempts to help them.

Communication and love — One of the principal drivers of failed communications is the small, ego-centered self. When we communicate from the place where ego resides, when we send out guidance and instructions from a perspective limited by self-interest, we are communicating only what we want and what we want others to do for us. When we communicate from a place of love, we begin by thinking about where others are, what they bring to the equation, how well they understand the issues and concepts we are addressing, and where our message and their background and experience meet. Embracing this bigger picture in our communications represents an act of compassion, one of bringing a larger group into the fold and adjusting our direction in consideration of their understanding, their competencies, and their needs. It’s an act of love.

I could think of endless other connections between love and the themes of leadership I had written about over the years. But what struck me profoundly in listening to Jason’s LDP graduation speech was how the connections to love my messages offered existed as only as vague, implied nuances, whereas the connections he presented were explicit and concrete.

At one point in Jason’s speech, he talked about how fear can make us small and then later concluded that love makes us big. The powerful connection Jason’s speech made for me, the thread that weaves its way throughout the concepts of evolved leadership and work environments, is the idea of how the small, ego-focused self is the place where fear resides, and of how the big, compassionate, embracing, inviting, and understanding self is the place where love resides.

Where there is love, there can be no fear.

I was grateful to have had the opportunity to mentor such a wise and thoughtful LDP participant, and to have learned so much from him. I’m happy to say we remain friends, and I continue to learn from him.

Attaining Mightiness

One day a colleague asked me what I considered the most important quality of an effective leader. My immediate response was humility.

My colleague was incredulous. Humility?! Really?! That’s the last word I would use to describe the leaders I know.

I asked, Were they real leaders, or simply leaders by virtue of their professional title?

My colleague paused to think for a moment, then asked another question. Isn’t it more important for a leader to be confident and self-assured, and to have strength of character?

It was my turn to respond with a question: Why are these qualities at odds with humility?

We gain increasing authority on the job because of our technical skills, work experience, and professional connections. But a common misconception is that acquiring advanced technical skills qualifies us to lead others. It doesn’t.

Humility keeps us from assuming there’s a causal relationship between our technical skills and our leadership abilities. In fact, humility, among other skills relating to emotional intelligence (our ability to understand, manage, and express our emotions and to engage in relationships with empathy) enables a highly qualified and experienced technician to navigate the transition from technician to leader of others.

My conversation with my colleague about humility and leadership was still on my mind when I watched a TED talk by Rabbi Sharon Brous, who describes how to create a hopeful counter-narrative to the worrisome realities of violence, extremism, and pessimism that surround us. One of the strategies she offers for creating this counter-narrative is to develop a sense of mightiness. I was intrigued and inspired by Brous’ definition of mightiness, and I believe her reference to humility supports my thoughts on the importance of humility among leaders.

Brous explained:

There’s a rabbinic tradition that says we are to hold a slip of paper in each pocket. In one pocket, the slip of paper says, I am but dust and ashes. In other words, it’s not all about me, I can’t control everything, and I cannot do this on my own.

In the other pocket the slip of paper says, For my sake the world was created. In other words, it’s true I can’t do everything, but I sure can do something. I can forgive. I can love. I can show up. I can protest. I can be a part of this conversation.

We prostrate ourselves to remind ourselves that we are but dust, and then we raise our arms in the air to say we are mighty.

We can become more effective leaders if we keep these two pieces of paper in our pockets, or at least these concepts in our minds. Strong technical skills, experience, and connections give us confidence, and we have a piece of paper giving us permission to raise our hands in the air, feel mighty, and act with authority. Meanwhile, the other slip of paper reminds us that we are no greater, no more important, and no more deserving of respect than the lowest-ranking employee in the organization.

Leaders who only pay attention to the slip of paper that says, For my sake the world was created will fail to inspire those they hope to lead. They will assume they have nothing to gain or learn from the team. They will be resistant to input, new ideas, and feedback. And in the end, they will likely inspire more cynics than followers.

On the other hand, developing a sense of humility prevents us from getting defensive about our ideas, decisions, and direction for the organization. It makes us open to new ideas and lively debate. Honoring and recognizing the good ideas and work products of others doesn’t diminish us. It builds us up in the eyes of our colleagues, just as it builds up the entire organization. Humility is also a key to compassion, another critical quality of an effective leader.

Whether one is a rabbi, a leader, or simply a colleague, friend or family member, carrying Brous’ two slips of paper can help us all be mighty — confident and self-assured, yet humble — just dust and ashes, the essential qualities of a compassionate and effective leader.

Curiosity Cured the Leader

Although curiosity is widely known as being responsible for killing the cat, it would be more accurate to brand curiosity as the cure for the ineffective leader.

Some people in leadership positions fail to lead effectively because they are preoccupied with creating an image of being all-knowing and having all the solutions. The truth is, the more people focus on reassuring themselves and others of all they know, the more their blind spots tend to proliferate.

Instead, the curious leader is one who demonstrates an unquenchable eagerness to learn about the nuances and intricacies of the organization, and about the people working in it.

When leaders turn over rocks in the course of their work, they often discover ugly problems that have long festered in the obscurity of inattention. While it’s easier to leave those rocks in place and pretend all is well, seeking to unearth and shed light on operational problems allows the leader and their team to assess and correct them.

When a leader makes an effort to get to know the people on their team, they will undoubtedly gain insights into the messiness that is the human condition. They will sometimes encounter difficult personalities and the occasional unmotivated, low performer. Their inquiries may also reveal simmering conflicts among team members. By remaining aloof, uninterested, and unaware, they may be able to insulate themselves from all that messiness and direct operations with blissful ignorance of their staff’s individual complexities.

But an effective leader finds something of interest and value in each of their team members, even amidst their messy complexities. They explore the diversity of their staff’s backgrounds — their individual narratives, skills, and abilities — as one might survey a puzzle board. They contemplate each uniquely-shaped piece and figure out how to fit it together with the others to form one coherent organizational narrative and one cohesive, smooth-running operation.

Beyond nurturing an attitude of curiosity in their own approach to work, an effective leader works to create a work environment that celebrates curiosity in every area of the organization. An organizational culture that promotes curiosity enhances opportunities for understanding and connection among the staff. It emboldens them to ask why and how as they do their work.

Encouraging staff to ask why when they are being asked to perform a task or participate in a project helps ensure that their work is meaningful. It allows them to question practices that may be outdated, and to take responsibility for updating them. Encouraging staff to ask how their work relates to the surrounding operations enables them to feel connected to the mission and see how their contributions help the larger organization achieve its goals.

There are few greater motivators than ensuring a team feels like it is part of something greater than their individual daily tasks.

Asking questions and allowing questions to be asked takes time, reflection, and patience. Like the human condition, a culture of curiosity can be messy and complex. But if pursued thoughtfully, curiosity can also embrace the messiness and complexity of an operation and its employees and transform them into interesting challenges and gratifying successes.

Curiosity is about seeking to understand the dynamics and dependencies of an organization, and about finding which of the employees’ skills and abilities are best matched up with which projects and teams to achieve the goals of the organization.

Whether we are the leaders or the workers within an organization, letting our curiosity flourish will offer us more meaning, more connection, and ultimately more success in our personal and organizational endeavors.

Practicing What We Preach

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