The Crucible of Leadership

The following is from Jim Fisher, one of my co-Founders at The Naples Institute. Jim knows leadership like no one else, so I found this email, directed at a third party but shared with me, to be particularly telling.

The person Jim writes to is a retired Naval officer who is running for local public office. He asked Jim for advice on his run; here is the result.

Dear ____,

You have brought value added to whatever you have done. You're creative, energetic, and, yes, impatient, but we need that in people who run for public office. [I'm a big believer in the efficacy of impatience!]

You are not only a proven leader in the military sense but more importantly, I do believe, a proven leader in the volunteer sense.

When I was a psychologist with Honeywell, I tried to get some executives who led with position power rather than persuasion, practicing the leadership of browbeating people into submission, to do volunteer work.

Volunteers have no other power than what associates give them. This accrues from the power of their personality, the social skills of connecting, and ideas.

None took me up on the challenge.

I saw very good engineers who became program managers, which is a complex administrative challenge, eventually win promotion to being directors or above.

As soon as they became directors, they became horses asses not unlike the horses asses who had been their bosses.

What is ironic about this is that these same people often came to me for counsel complaining about the cavalier and insensitive style of their bosses, only to replicate them almost to perfection once elevated.

You have had command in the military. A US Army Colonel has great power because he is the same as a US Navy Captain, and a captain of a ship is God incarnate, and no one differs with him. Believe me, I know from the experience of being a member of the Flag Ship of the Six Fleet in the Mediterranean.

You went beyond that status of position power to extensive volunteer work in this community over the last several years, and have proven to me that you've learned to command without protocol or authority. Instead, you have led with your ideas, intellect, persuasive argument, and excellent organization skills.

If you want to truly master the art of leadership, try leading volunteers. For this alone any career person should give her time.