‘What makes a great leader?’ seems the foundational question of so many conversations and op eds here and, this being New York, there’s no shortage of deep (and often brilliant) commentary. ‘What makes for great leadership’ is a related, and no less important, question.
People come at these questions from many different world views and lenses. A few days ago, I joined a 600 strong throng at Hunter College in New York for a Memorial Lecture in honor of Hazel Rowley, the extraordinary biographer whose untimely death in New York ended a stunning literary career that began with Rowley’s biography of Australian author, Christina Stead (launched by Joan Kirner in Melbourne) and ended with her biography of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt. In between there were biographies of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre and of Richard Wright.
At the inaugural Hazel Rowley memorial lecture, with her sister, Della Rowley present from Australia and many of us joining Della from near and far flung places, we listened to introductory remarks by Ambassador William J. vanden Heuvel who, with his eloquent remarks on Hazel’s life appeared himself a great leader and orator. Then it was over to Jodi Kantor, author of The Obamas in conversation with Kati Marton, award-winning author and journalist.
Over the course of this vibrant and intense conversation about both Barack and Michelle Obama was a discussion about Barack Obama’s introverted nature and the impact that this had had on his Presidency. This was in notable contrast to the gregarious, extroverted nature of Bill Clinton. The two women commented about the President’s requirement that he have at least two nights a week at home with his wife and family and his preference for dinners with a few close friends rather than with the Washington set. A more extroverted and publicly engaged person seemed a better fit for the role of President. I remember once when I was up against one other person in the final round for a CEO position and I was told that they selected the other person because ‘they were more extroverted and thus would be a more active leader’.
And yet I read the review of a new book that’s just come out called ‘Quiet – the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking’ which advocates to parents the importance in honoring those children with more introverted natures so that they’re not subject to a barrage of activity without the quiet restorative time at home for them to thrive. And, the book says, sometimes people misrepresent or misconceive introversion as shyness. It’s not. I remember a dear friend, Lynette who is a Myers Briggs trainer saying to me that the best thing to do was to shift somewhat more toward the center.
Anyway, as this Memorial Lecture progressed, it seemed to me that more essential than a discussion on extroversion was a discussion on the importance of ethical leadership based on deeply held and exercised values.
In an incisive and in-depth article in the March 2012 (yes, March) issue of The Atlantic, James Fallows says ‘If Obama loses this year, he will be judged as a disappointment – not simply for having lost but for having governed in such a prosaic style after campaigning with such poetry.’ While there have been notable triumphs in his Presidency ( he avoided another recession, secured a new health system for the country and instituted a plan for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan) the disappointments come, in part, from a lack of consistently demonstrated values (hold the financiers who created the economic crisis to account, close down the unconstitutional Guantanamo Bay, keep pushing for the best possible health system the US country deserves and stand by your best people – like Elizabeth Warren). Whether this was pragmatism, and the best the President felt he could achieve, it still feels disappointing though I think if he gets another four years in office they will be his best years.
In this same edition of The Atlantic is Christopher Hitchen’s last essay, on GK Chesterton. In this essay, Hitchens includes a quote by GKC, essentially about conservatism:
If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must always be painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want the old white post you must have a new white post.
I would argue this could also be applied to values. A leader needs to keep reinforcing what s/he stands for, in words and in actions and in re-iteration at every opportunity.
Thomas L Friedman , writing in The New York Times this week (‘Freedom at 4 Below‘) on the democratic uprisings and awakenings occurring in Syria, Russia and Egypt said ‘wherever 120,000 people gather to rally for democracy and you can’t feel your fingers – take it seriously’. Friedman likens them to seismic events such as earthquakes or volcanoes — a natural occurrence arising deep from within people’s souls. And yet he’s also mindful of those forces seeking to use these demonstrations as a chance to overthrow one regime and replace it with another that may be anything but democratic and rights-led. Take Syria, where women are now having to cover their heads as a result of the growing conservative influence of Sunni Muslims.
In other places there are movements riding on the back of the Occupy movement – such as the “Anonymous” collective which has become increasingly associated with collaborative, international hactivism and other actions undertaken by unidentified individuals who wear Guy Fawkes masks in public. This group will sometimes post personal details of the families, including children, of police officers required to clear Occupy encampments. It’s hard to be advocating and agitating for a fairer, more equitable world if the tactics of these groups endanger the lives and wellbeing of others.
Trust is the glue that holds a democracy together.
Friedman speaks to this when he says “You can’t have a democracy without citizens and you can’t have citizens without trust – without trust that everyone will be treated with equality under the law, no matter who is in power, and without trust in a shared vision of what kind of society people are trying to build.’
So, here I am on a weekend thinking about individual and collective leadership. I’m writing a proposal to a major bank to fund our own work in raising up women’s leadership. With our network partners across the globe we’re committing our energies to ensure that women, in particular, can exercise their leadership in institutions as well as with their own enterprises. Girls are seeking to exercise their leadership and financial literacy increasingly through social media and shared learning.
With all the politicking, and intellectual thinking and long hours at work I’ve been feeling disconnected from my own sense of self, my inner compass that intuits my own leadership – of spirit self as much as rational-self. The other day I picked up a copy of Women Who Run With the Wolves and had a hankering to read this book again, one that I remembered as being important to me when I’d read it years ago. So I read it on the train to Washington:
Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one’s mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down.
For me this seemed true. It was time to allow space for my more creative impulses to spring up. So I’ve signed up for a four week Narrative storytelling course and I’m heading out to find the pottery studio for my own stream of consciousness when I play with clay. And maybe this will spin me more into the center between introversion and extroversion so that I’ll again feel the zinging energy that comes from a well balanced — and exuberant! — life.
I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.
Jane Sloane