The Role of Leader
“I have heard celebrated orators who could start thunders of applause without changing any man’s opinion. Mr. Lincoln’s eloquence was of the higher type, which produced conviction in others because of the conviction of the speaker himself.”
--Horis White
“Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It’s precisely that simple, and it’s also that difficult.”
--Warren Bennis
“A frightened captain makes a frightened crew.”
--Lister Sinclair
“At a time of weakness and mounting despair in the democratic world, Roosevelt stood out by his astonishing appetite for life and by his apparently complete freedom from fear of the future; as a man who welcomed the future eagerly as such, and conveyed the feeling that whatever the times might bring, all would be grist to his mill, nothing would be too formidable or crushing to be subdued. He had unheard of energy and gusto … and was a spontaneous, optimistic, pleasure-loving ruler with unparalleled capacity for creating confidence.”
—Isaiah Berlin on FDR
We play multiple roles every day: parent, friend, student, constituent, sibling, novice and expert.
In the role of leader, we must cultivate our selves. There must be congruence between how we behave and our beliefs and values. And this is, as my father said, is both simple and difficult.
Here are a few musings on the role of leader:
When we take on any role, we are our own person, with our own history, temperament, and physiology, in that role. We do not disavow any part of ourselves, but rise to the qualities that our role demands.
We lead for the good of others. Leaders are in service of.
When Elijah Cummings died, I heard a friend of his talking about him on NPR. He said, tossing it in among the accolades, that Mr. Cummings, “knew it was not about him.” That caught me. Yes! It is not about you, me, the speaker, the leader, the communicator! It is about THEM! US!
We need to be exquisitely aware of and versed in the context, or as we say in theater, the “given circumstances.” This will shape our purpose and intention.
As leaders, we embody the vision. Our presence aligns with our vision. We have to be conscious about what we are communicating so that we are having a positive impact.
A leader is optimistic while remaining practical. If a leader must lead us through and out of impossible times, or in a term my father and Burt Nanus coined, “VUCA”, (times of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity), we must have outrageous optimism to carry us. When US Representative Jamie Raskin brought the second impeachment to the US Senate for a vote, he was certain that they would receive all 100 votes. He had to be certain in order to lead his team while enduring the grueling proceedings. And although they did not get all of the votes needed, his words are etched forever in our history books for future generations.
“I told the managers from the beginning that we were going for 100 votes. People kept saying, ‘Where are you going to get 17 Republican votes?’ And I’d say, ‘We’re not going for 67 votes. We are trying to tell a story, the facts of this case, that command the attention of 100 senators.’”
—Jamie Raskin in The Forward
This week, as we prepare to lead in any way—in a social group, to run a meeting, to give a talk, remember we are all leaders. Take courage from those who have come before and use our role to do good, to be of service.