The measure of leadership is what you do when trouble hits.

The late Martin Ritt, an accomplished movie director, once said that he cast the lead roles by seeing if an actor could handle the film's climactic scene. Never was this truer than when he was casting his best-known picture, Norma Rae.

Actress Sally Field then was known more for her light entertainment roles; some doubted she had the grit and gumption to play a union organizer, based on real life character Crystal Lee Sutton.

Ritt had Field do the scene where the character stands up on the shop floor and holds up the sign that says, "union." Field aced the test, earned the role, and won an Academy Award for her performance.

While neither Obama nor Hayward will win prizes for their current performances, President Obama has done a far better job. We have not seen him complain about having to visit the Gulf repeatedly, or complain as Hayward has that he wants to get the crisis over with promptly so he can "get his life back." Neither has the president stooped to starring in a self-serving television commercial.

Leaders seldom get to choose their issues. Few remember that Tony Hayward, who became CEO in the wake of a scandal that forced its previous CEO Lord John Browne to step down, was regarded as one who could clean up BP's shoddy record of environmental and safety violation. Remember the 2005 Texas City refinery fire that killed 15 workers? That was a BP facility. Obviously Hayward has failed the cultural cleanup test.

The crisis in the Gulf is an ecological disaster; it is also a crisis that has ruined the livelihoods of many thousands who earn their living from the sea's bounty or the seashore's tourist appeal. Therefore, President Obama has a unique opportunity to deliver on a simple premise held by Abraham Lincoln who believed that the role of government is to do what the people themselves cannot do. Leveraging that concept, Obama needs to do two things:

One, demonstrate that government can be the operative force for good in the Gulf. It must do more than hold BP accountable -- That's the easy part. It must continue to activate all available resources to stop the leak. But even more importantly it must mobilize every available private and public resource to prevent more shore contamination and clean up soiled wetlands and beaches post-haste. Stopping the spill may be akin to rocket science, but shore clean up is not. We have the technology and manpower to do it; what's lacking is centralized focus and willpower.

Two, change the equation on how we derive our energy. The president can seize the "bully pulpit" to use the crisis to push forward an environmentally responsible, comprehensive energy plan that ensures the safe utilization of coal, oil and natural gas as well as stimulates the development of alternative sources of energy.

Disasters that change natural resources policy have occurred before. Teddy Roosevelt, as author Timothy Egan writes in Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America, used a destructive fire that ravaged forests in Washington and Idaho as the catalyst for upgrading the U.S. Forestry Service and protecting national park lands.

History will judge President Obama not by his speeches or his photo ops, but by how well his administration can fulfill Lincoln's mandate to do what the people themselves cannot do.


First posted WashingtonPost.com/On Leadership 6.15.10

What are you doing for lunch?

That question resonated with me after I read a delightful piece by Geraldine Fabrikant in The New York Times about five friends who have been having lunch together in New York City for twenty-five years. Through divorce, and death of one of the lunch pals, the quintet has prevailed. No two guys have the same job; each comes from a different field: advertising, media, journalism, film and medicine.

Such get togethers are not unique. My wife belongs to a once a month dinner group of business women; and my good friend Chris Merlo meets once a week for dinner with friends. The unifying theme is community; each of the guys profiled and my wife, a health care executive, and Chris, a business communication writer, enjoy being around people who share similar interests. In years past, I had some regular associations with colleagues, but none currently, and frankly I miss them.

First and foremost such mealtime gatherings are not about networking per se. While work topics may of course arise, the point of getting together is to advance your career. It is to socialize but not simply as friends but as people who value good discussion mixed with their camaraderie. Friends who come together regularly can be straight with each other, which is sometimes not so easy in work or even family situations.

From a leadership point of view, it is an opportunity to recharge yourself without going anywhere. You share ideas with friends and gain new perspectives. And such gatherings can serve such a purpose. So it got me thinking about what's the secret of such groups? Five characteristics come to mind.

Affinity. My late father, a physician, formed a monthly dinner group with fellow doctors. Their dinner topics, planned in advance, were not about medicine but about music and books. Each like my dad was a man of culture and so they got together, in the style of a French salon, to eat and discuss.

Commitment. Join a group and you'd better show up. Of course you will not make all the gatherings but if you say you will join in, do so. Be there. Once you join, your participation is like spice in a stew, necessary; and when absent, it will be missed.

Smarts. You want to be around people who are bright, alive, and have strong opinions.. This certainly hold true for my wife's group. These are smart women who know how the world works and eagerly share their insights and views with their colleagues.

Ego. You want to be around people who have a good sense of themselves. The five profiled in the New York Times are such folks . Not egotistical, but those who are comfortable in their own skins. Arrogance is the sign of an over done ego, but confidence is a reflection of someone who has accomplished something and has something to teach others.

Laughter. If you are going to commit to eat with a group on a regular basis it has to be fun. My friend Chris says his group, which is comprised of men chiefly from an arts background, enjoy each others' stories and jokes.

There is another vital component to such gatherings. It's something my friend Chris refers to as "companionship." Guys or gals or both getting together to share one another's stories, good ones and bad, highlights and low lights. It is the simple act of being together. Not quite family--no real obligations--but friends getting together because they want to. Face to face over a meal. No social media. Just social.

Posted FastCompany.com 6.08.10

Leadership wisdom is something that accrues with age and experience. And so it is no wonder that Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook is struggling with large issues. He's still in his twenties.

Wisdom for leaders is not simply a matter of chronology. You have to be paying attention. Warren Bennis, author and former university president, once said that most successful leaders he knows had experienced some moment of great adversity from which they learned. For Bennis, as he wrote in the Harvard Business Review in 2002, a significant personal test of his leadership occurred as a young second lieutenant during the Battle of the Bulge in the Second World War. As a replacement officer he learned to delegate to the sergeant.

Learning from adversity is critical to leadership. Being tested, however, is not an indication of learning. We have seen executives bounce from one organization to another, crisis to crisis, acting the same ways as before and with the same results. Failure. Such executives are the types who are ready to blame others for their mistakes rather than assume responsibility for their own actions. It seems they have learned nothing.

Self awareness is essential to wisdom. Knowing what you do well is one thing, but knowing what you cannot do is sometimes more important. Anne Mulcahy, former CEO of Xerox, learned this the hard way. When she became CEO of Xerox, she knew little about finance. This was a problem since the financial community was urging her to break up the company, something Mulcahy was reluctant to do because as a Xerox lifer she believed the company's culture and people if properly led would survive. In order to make her case she had herself tutored in finance but also leveraged her communication skills to rally the company toward a renewed sense of purpose. The company did downsize but it was not sold piecemeal and it eventually it survived, as Mulcahy thought it would.

There is another issue facing Zuckerberg at Facebook. No doubt he is a talented entrepreneur, but the skills need to build a business are the not the same as those needed to run it. Sergei Brin and Larry Page learned this early on and brought on a skilled manager, Eric Schmidt. One entrepreneur I know possesses strong visionary abilities but prefers to surround himself with executives with strong operational skills. It's a combination that has helped his company prosper.

Good leaders know their strengths and play to them, but they also know their weaknesses. They surround themselves with capable executives who have the skills they lack. This allows the leader to focus on what he or she does best and in the process lead more capably.

Youth does not preclude effective leadership. Our military is led from the front by a very capable core of junior officers. These officers are supported by equally youthful noncommissioned officers. Both may lack the wisdom of years but they make up for it with experience as well as a focus on mission. These men and women have learned to lead through their people, not over them, and in doing so they provide a strong leadership example for the rest of us. We also see examples of selfless leadership in youth in the Peace Corps and City Year programs.

"Life," wrote Soren Kierkegaard. "can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward." Same holds for leadership. Lead going forward but pay attention to where you have been.

First posted WashingtonPost.com/On Leadership 6.08.10

When you make a mistake, it's best to own up to it sooner than later.

And that is exactly what umpire Jim Joyce did when he returned to the clubhouse and watched the replay of his disputed call at first base for what would have been, and should have been, the 27th and final out of the game between the Detroit Tigers and the Cleveland Indians. "It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the (stuff) out of it," Joyce said. "I just cost that kid [Tiger pitcher Armando Galarraga] a perfect game."

Later Joyce went to the Tiger clubhouse and asked to speak to Galarraga. He apologized and gave him a hug. Galarraga was accepting, "He feels really bad, probably worse than me. I give a lot of credit to that guy, to say he's sorry," Galarraga said. "Nobody's perfect."

Perfect games are rare in major league baseball; only twenty have been recorded, curiously two in the past month, but they are infrequent. Perfect games, or even no hitters, have been lost in the late innings countless times, even in the final inning, but not that I can recall has a perfect game been lost due to an umpire's missed call.

What Joyce did will live on in the record books as the perfect game that never was. And it's fair to the pitcher, but what Joyce did was not malicious. He made a call he thought was correct. And while he will be jeered in games to come, let's hope he comes to terms with it. Had he done it on purpose, it would have been fraud. Doing it honestly proved he was human. And acknowledging his error so promptly proved that he may be a better man than an umpire.

The man who was robbed of his place in history, Galarraga, took the blown call in stride. He went back to the mound and promptly got the next batter to ground out to an infielder for the "second" final out. Galarraga got the win and a hug from his catcher but his name will not be in the record books as the owner of a "perfecto." His acceptance of the umpire's apology, however, proves that he too might be a better man than a ballplayer.
Those who hold authority over others would do well to remember this story. When you screw up, admit it. Don't try and bull your way through by pretending nothing happened. Owe up to the mistake and find a way to make amends.

Baseball fans like to say that baseball is like life, only more so. What "more so" means was never more evident than in game where one man, an umpire, proved he was subject to human frailty and another man, a wronged pitcher, accepted that frailty as part of the game. Only it was more than a game that night; it was a moment of grace that should be remembered.


Posted FastCompany.com 6.03.10

Leaders may choose their friends, but they do not control those friends. And so when those friends make trouble, a leader's first responsibility is not to a friend, but to the organization he leads.

This point is even more operative in the case of allies, be it a country or a company. "Nations do not mistrust each other because they are armed," said Ronald Reagan. "They are armed because they mistrust each other." Allies come together for mutual interest; they are not friends per se; they do things for one another not because they like or even respect the other but because it is in their best interest. Countries get together for trade or protection; companies come together to share technology or even customer knowledge. Allies trust each other so far as mutual interest makes it viable.

Friends, on the other hand, trust each other because they respect and like one another. A friend, wrote Aristotle, is "a single soul dwelling in two bodies." Friends watch one another's back because they want to, not necessarily because they have to.

But leaders must approach friendship with caution. David McClelland, the pioneering organizational behavior theorist, argued that leaders had three key needs: achievement, power and affiliation. Of the three, the first two (power and achievement) are paramount; the third (affiliation) is less so. And for good reason: friendship can make decision-making difficult.

Leaders represent a collection of individuals, not individuals per se so they must do what the organization needs them to do, not necessary what a friend needs. Case in point is a promotion. A leader may be tempted to put a trusted associate into a position of authority, but if that person is not qualified to hold the position then the leader is not acting responsibly; he is putting self interest ahead of organizational interest.

With that understanding in place it is easy to make the case that leaders can and should disassociate themselves from friends who make ethical transgressions. If the leader does not reprimand that individual, or disassociate from that person, then the leader's own judgment is called into question. We have plenty of such examples of executives looking the other way during the recent financial crisis. Senior leaders who ignore an ethical issue are themselves subject to blame.

Another issue arises, and it comes from the best intentions. Good leaders want their people to succeed and so when a subordinate makes a mistake, a good leader will want to help correct the problem. This is good practice when the mistakes involve business or organizational issues, but not when the mistakes involve ethics. Failure to discipline the subordinate risks making the leader appear complicity and perhaps culpable.

Leadership is a judgment call. Make the right calls most of the time and you are leading effectively. Do it less frequently and you fail to inspire trust. And when that occurs, your leadership is over.

First posted WashingtonPost.com/On Leadership 6.01.10