Willing Leader, Reluctant Hero
- Sgt. Dakota Meyer may be a reluctant hero, ut his actions on Sept. 8, 2009 showed his willingness to lead.
It is one thing to do what we know is right, but doing so when those in authority are telling us not to (or ordering us not to) can be extraordinarily challenging. Add the element of repeatedly putting his life on the line, and it is easy to understand why Sgt. Dakota Meyer received the Medal of Honor last week. He is truly an exceptional human being, and his action on September 8, 2009 and his behavior since then have proven he is also an impressive leader.
On September 8, 2009 then Cpl. Meyer showed that leadership is not about title or rank. It is about the ability to get others to choose to follow. Without authority, and against orders, Meyer convinced his superior, Staff Sgt. Rodriguez-Chavez, to join him in his rescue of 13 U.S. Marines and soldiers and 23 Afghan soldiers. Meyer’s leadership enabled him to convince Rodriguez-Chavez to repeatedly put his life in jeopardy. Rodriguez-Chavez was also putting his career in jeopardy. As Meyer’s superior, he would have been held accountable had things turned out differently. Despite these risks, Meyer led and Rodriguez-Chavez followed.
For the past week, the news has been full of stories about Sgt. Meyer’s heroism. I have been struck by the pain and guilt in Meyer’s words. He has commented about his failure to save all of his comrades. The death of the five American servicemen still grieves him. These feelings reveal another aspect of his leadership, his character. This was the leadership attribute that drove him to act. Meyer’s behavior – both in combat and afterward – exposes the values and beliefs that define his character. His comments reveal that a failure to act and even defy orders would have been to deny who he is. His high school football coach was not surprised by his actions. He said, “Dakota was always a lone ranger. Always a guy on his own.” Leading with character often means going your own way.
Meyer’s character has also shown up in how he has responded to those who want to honor him. His decision to not talk about the events of September 8, his willingness to risk offending the president rather than leave work to receive a telephone call from him, and his repeated refusal to accept the label of “hero” all reveal that Sgt. Meyer is a man who knows himself very well. This self-knowledge was at the core of the leadership that saved 36 lives three years ago.
The Power of “I Don’t Know”
Yesterday, our priest, Father Michael Renninger, spoke about his struggle to forgive those responsible for 9/11. He spoke about how he felt he was failing as a Christian because of this inability. He gave voice to what many of us feel about this senseless act and the countless acts of hatred that we witness in the news.
As he spoke, he exposed an important distinction about how we confront the challenges we face as we try to live our lives morally and ethically. He described two typical responses to difficulties. Do we say, “I can’t” do this difficult thing? Or do we say, “I do not know how” to do it? Even for someone who didn’t lose a loved one on 9/11, forgiving those who perpetrate terrorist acts seems impossible. It’s easy to say, “I cannot forgive them.”
I was struck by Father Renninger’s words. The distinction between “I can’t” and “I don’t know how” has implications in all aspects of our lives. When we say “I can’t,” we are really saying we won’t try. When we say, “I don’t know how,” we are giving ourselves the permission to ask for help. Neither statement denies the difficulty of the challenge, but the former is spoken from a position of pessimism or resignation. The latter gives us the hope and encouragement that comes from knowing that someone or something is available to assist us.
From the mundane roadblocks we face daily to the major ethical and moral dilemmas we confront, our approach and attitude often determine our success in overcoming them. Whether we are trying to figure out how to squeeze more into our over-crowded schedules or wrestling with moral challenges like forgiveness, we are either open to the possibility of help, or we can refuse to try. The choice is ours. We cannot change the fact that we will face difficulties, but we can change how we respond to them.
Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? Not always. I came to this realization in October of 2008. That was when I started a new chapter in my career. On October 2, 2008, I left the safety and security of the corporate world for the uncertainty and anxiety of entrepreneurship. For nearly 25 years, I had been a part of an organization, a member of a team. Now I was the organization. I was the team. That was my plan. I had saved for years, and that had given me the flexibility to make this bold move. Unfortunately, my plan was developed in the fall of 2007, and it did not contemplate the economic crisis that hit rock bottom right as I was walking out the door. I had planned for some degree of economic uncertainty, but I never contemplated a crisis of that magnitude. My savings, my safety net, seemed to have developed holes overnight. My plan was on schedule and falling apart at the same time.
So what does my misfortune in career planning have to do with leadership? After all, this blog is supposed to provide “enduring wisdom for 21st-Century leaders,” not career horror stories. The operative word is “leader.” It started when a friend asked me about a recent speaking engagement. He was surprised to hear that I had spoken to a group focused on career planning and transitions. He said, “They need to find jobs, not hone their leadership skills.” I was as surprised by his comment as he was about my speech. I responded, “Career transitions can be one of the most demanding leadership challenges anyone will ever face.” I proceeded to tell him my own story and how the “Four Most Important Questions a Leader Must Ask” are the same questions that helped me through the most difficult periods of my transition. These are the four questions:
- Who Am I?
- What Do I Want?
- How Will I Get Others to Choose to Follow Me?
- How Will I Earn and Retain the Privilege to Lead?
My personal career transitions required me to ask and answer these questions. It also meant possessing and demonstrating to some degree all of the If 16 Leadership Attributes. However, there were four attributes in particular – one aligned with each question above – that helped me succeed.
The linkage between the first two questions and successful career transitions is obvious. Job hunting and career transitions bring these questions into stark clarity. At times, this can be in a negative way. With regard to knowing who we are, many of us tie our identity to our job, so losing or changing it can create real anxiety. But once I moved beyond the anxiety, my career change provided me with a unique opportunity for self-discovery. It gave me the chance to inventory and take stock of what mattered most in my life – what I valued, what made me happy, what I did well, and what changes I wanted to make in how I was showing up to others.
Career transitions demand that we know who we are – our character, our authentic selves, and how to remain true to them. But perhaps the most important attribute is our self-efficacy – our belief that we have the capabilities to execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations. Self-efficacy is more than just blind confidence or self-esteem. Highly self-efficacious people know themselves extraordinarily well. They possess a genuine confidence in their own abilities. In order to truly believe in our abilities, we must know what they are. Just as character requires that we continuously inventory and understand our values and beliefs, self-efficacy requires that we do the same thing with our skills, abilities, and preferences. While I have always believed in myself and my ability to overcome the challenges I confronted, my career transition was a real test. By recalling and building upon my past successes, I maintained my self-efficacy.
Knowing what we want is also obvious – we want a job! But not just any job! Once I got past the anxiety and fear that came with my transition, I was able to explore what I truly wanted. I was able to focus my efforts on opportunities that satisfied my ambitions – a career that was aligned well with who I am. The leadership attributes associated with understanding what we want include ambition, vision, boldness, and last but not least, resilience. Resilience, the ability to bounce back from adversity, is essential to any job search. I confronted a variety of obstacles. I lacked the exact combination of skills and experience needed for most opportunities I sought. Other times things just went wrong. Resilience meant anticipating and planning for these obstacles and responding decisively to them when they occurred. Resilience gave me the ability to keep going despite the setbacks and disappointments.
Getting others to choose to follow us doesn’t mean walking into an interview and convincing people that you are the next CEO. Instead, this is leadership in the same way that sales is leadership. When we are interviewing for a position, we are selling ourselves to the hiring manager and the organization we want to join. The key attribute here is inspiration. Before I could inspire my family and friends to believe in me, I had to first be inspired. As I was finding my new path and making my transition, I had many opportunities to connect with people who were experts in the field I was entering. These connections allowed me to ask for help and to demonstrate to potential partners and clients that I was worthy of their investment. Success often comes down to who a client (or perspective employer) believes can help solve their problems. We can inspire potential employers with our creativity, tenacity, work ethic, or any number of characteristics.
Earning and retaining the privilege to lead means keeping those we leadengaged and motivated regardless of the situation. During the early part of my transition, that meant my wife, my family, my friends and myself. Leadership meant keeping the people who I wanted following me from losing confidence or trust, especially when things got tough. And they did get tough. That is why composure is such an important leadership attribute during a career transition. My ability to “keep my head when all about me were losing theirs” was critical to my success. My composure kept me from giving up and taking jobs that were just like the one I had chosen to leave. This was particularly challenging when friends and family were encouraging me to take the safer and proven path. My composure kept me from becoming frustrated by interminable marketing processes that may stood between me and the next business opportunity.
My decision to reinvent myself and to pursue my dream was one of the best decisions I have ever made. It also proved to be one of the greatest leadership challenges I have ever faced. Whether I was leading my family, a potential client, or simply leading myself, I had to exercise every leadership muscle I possessed, while discovering some that I didn’t know I had.
In any given day, how many different people are we? When that nagging issue at work jars us from our sleep and we roll out of bed, many of us jump right into problem solver mode. I often spend the first few minutes of my morning contemplating the problems and opportunities of the day ahead. As I descend the stairs, I move quickly into dad mode – helping to get the kids ready for the day ahead. For a few minutes, I step into husband mode as my wife and I discuss the matters facing the Moran household. That’s three different people, and I haven’t even started work.
As a consultant and executive coach, I divide my time among several differing tasks. Marketing and sales consume a big part of my day, as do client meetings and research. I also spend a significant portion of each week writing and speaking. Each of these roles requires a different combination of skills and talents. They each require me to emphasize different aspects of my personality. They may even require me to emphasize and project my values in different ways. For example, when I am writing, I am articulating my opinions and beliefs. I take strong positions. As a coach, my job is to help my clients find the answers to their unique problems and challenges, so I mostly ask questions. As a writer or consultant, I provide answers.
Which one is the real me? The answer is all of them. Each of us is one person who plays a myriad of roles. These roles can cause our behaviors to change from one moment to the next. These changes can be confusing to those around us, and they can give the impression that we are being inauthentic. I believe that recognizing that we are such complex and dynamic creatures is the key to living and leading authentically. Authenticity demands that we move from role to role consciously and that we change our behaviors deliberately. One of the most challenging things we do is remaining aware and deliberate, but this is what keeps us from losing our way and becoming inauthentic.
For the third time in a row, I am writing about the connection between leading and teaching. Maybe it is the time of year, with another school year ending. Whatever the cause, I continue to find great leadership lessons from the teachers in my children’s lives. This time the lesson came during a cross-country horseback riding clinic my daughter, Mary Kate, was participating in. To provide some context, Mary Kate rides a horse named Blackberry. Blackberry is mischievous and a bit nuts. He’s a wonderful horse, but if he were a was a high school boy he would probably spend a fair amount of time in detention. He has developed a reputation for his bad behavior. His owner refers to his antics as “B.B.B.B.ing” (i.e., Blackberry breaking bad big time). Around the barn, they call him Crackberry.
During the clinic last week, he was BBBBing. Mary Kate rode him like a champion. She maintained control and composure regardless of what he tried to do. He reared, refused jumps, and bucked numerous times, but Mary Kate stuck with it and prevailed . . . until the last course. There was one jump that he would not attempt. My daughter’s instructor, Laine, had encouraged her throughout the clinic. She had been providing constant support and guidance. Her confidence in Mary Kate never faltered. However, Laine realized that this jump had gotten into both the horse’s and the rider’s head, so she decided to step in.
Laine stopped Mary Kate and said, “You can’t let him do that. It isn’t safe for either of you.” Laine was direct and assertive, but she made sure Mary Kate knew it was because she cared about her and Blackberry. She was also very precise in what she wanted Mary Kate to do differently. After their conversation, Mary Kate dismounted and Laine took her place. She took Blackberry through the course several times demonstrating for Mary Kate what she needed to do and how to do it. By doing this, she showed Blackberry and Mary Kate that they could overcome this obstacle. Mary Kate remounted Blackberry, and they cleared that jump without incident.
We all face this dilemma as leaders. Knowing when to step in is hard enough, but doing so in a way that helps the subordinate grow and learn can seem impossible. I often feared that my actions would undermine a subordinate’s confidence or identity. Watching Laine with Mary Kate was enlightening. Laine’s approach was perfect. Her directness diffused the emotions. Her unwavering confidence bolstered Mary Kate’s. Her willingness to literally “take the reins” showed both horse and rider what it would take to succeed. She never sugar-coated things or tried to deny that the problem existed. Laine’s actions showed that leaders can intervene in a way that builds competence without eroding confidence.
We all know that as leaders we have a responsibility to help those we lead develop and grow. More often than not, our lessons just happen. We may have no idea that we are teaching something until the new behavior manifests itself. Last week, I had the pleasure of seeing this in action at my son’s guitar recital. His instructor primarily teaches piano, so when she arrived at the venue to find a strategic piano key broken, she was quite upset. Her students range from the very young performing for the first time to high school students ready to study music at the university level. She was uncertain whether they would be able to have the recital.
Just before the recital was to start, the teacher spoke with her students and their parents to see what they wanted to do. Everyone agreed that they should proceed. My wife is a pianist, and she said that this type of problem can be so disruptive as to make some pieces unplayable. For several students with pieces like this, the instructor offered them the option of not playing. Every student played on, and they all took it in stride. Some played through as best they could. Others played parts that were less affected by the malfunction. One particularly resilient young man started playing the piece as he had learned it. When it became unplayable, he shifted down an octave. When it was still unplayable, he shifted down one more octave. Nothing was going to stop this kid from playing the song that he had practiced so hard to learn.
I doubt the instructor ever intended to teach her students to be resilient, but she did. I also doubt she thinks of herself as a leader, but she is. Leadership isn’t about the title we carry or the position we hold. As leaders we are constantly teaching and helping others grow, but we may never realize what those lessons are until we see them in action.
Those Who Can Teach, Teach
“Those who can, do. Those who can’t do, teach.” I have always hated that expression. It belittles one of the most noble professions anyone could choose. However, I have recently come to see that there is a kernel of truth buried within it. That truth isn’t that teachers are unable to do things. Rather, it is that teaching requires an objectivity and perspective that is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve while we are consumed with doing that thing.
I learned this lesson while in the process of writing my recently released book, If You Will Lead. For almost a quarter of a century, I had been leading and managing people. I was successfully “doing” it. For several years before I started writing If You Will Lead, I had toyed with the idea of writing a book. I could never get traction. I knew generally what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t figure out how to say it.
My problem was that I was so focused on the doing that I was unable to articulate my ideas in a way that would help others learn. I could not teach. And I realized that stood in the way of more just writing my book. My inability to teach undermined my ability to lead. Teaching is integral to leading, because leadership is about helping others learn and grow.
This realization enabled me to see the truth within the lie, “Those who can’t do, teach.” It isn’t that they can’t do. Great teachers have the wisdom to recognize that to truly understand something in a way that they can teach others, they must maintain their perspective. They understand that when we are doing, we often get too close to something to see it in its entirety. By choosing not to do, they become better teachers.
As another school year comes to a close, take a moment to celebrate and appreciate those extraordinary leaders we call teachers. Thank them for what they do and for what they don’t. Learn from them. Consider how to gain the perspective you need to help those you lead to learn and grow. Think about how to become a better leader by doing less and teaching more.
Practicing What I Preach
There is one piece of advice I give to all of my clients – “Ask for help.” People want to help us solve the challenges that we face. Our friends and family do it because they care about us, and they want to see us succeed. Some people want to help us for less noble reasons. It may make them feel good about themselves. They may believe that helping us will make us more willing to help them when they need it. Regardless of the motivation, there are people willing to help if only we ask.
For some reason, I have been hesitant to follow my own advice. That’s not to say I haven’t received extraordinary help throughout the process of writing and publishing If You Will Lead. More often than not, the help has come from family, friends and colleagues offering their help, rather than my asking for it. Several friends have recently taken me to task for reluctance to ask for help. At their urging, I started sticking my toe in the water, and today I am taking the plunge.
I need your help. If You Will Lead is a reality. Local booksellers should have it on their shelves this week or next, and Amazon will be shipping pre-orders shortly. So here is my request for help. If you haven’t done so already, pre-order your copy today, and contact local booksellers to encourage them to stock If You Will Lead. So, there it is. I’m practicing what I preach. Thank you for your support.
After 3 Years & 2 Months, It’s Here!
If You Will Lead, avaialbe soon. Pre-order today!
WOW!!! That’s all I can say. After more than three years in the making, I am sitting in my office staring at my book. It isn’t just mine, because so many people made it a reality, but there it is, If You Will Lead by Doug Moran. There are only a handful of days that I can recall feeling this proud and pleased – the days my children were born, our wedding day, the day Laurie agreed to marry me. That’s about it. So thank you for sharing it with me.
One night back in March of 2008, I chose a new path for my life to take. Despite the challenges and difficulties, I knew that this book was going to be a reality. This book is a testament to most – if not all – of the If 16 Leadership Attributes. Creating something new started with self-discovery. It demanded knowing what I wanted to achieve. It required that I attract others to join me on my journey, and it meant building and retaining the trust of those who helped me make If You Will Lead real. It is only after seeing and feeling this book that I have come to understand how intertwined leadership and creativity truly are.
Leadership, American Idol Style vol. 1
A Principled Idol
Anyone familiar with American Idol understands that performance is everything. One bad night, and a contestant can be eliminated. It is the ultimate meritocracy, so contestants are loathe to do anything that could undermine a performance. Each week, contestants spend the time between shows selecting songs that play to their strengths and rehearsing them until they are near perfect.
Last week, one of this season’s nine finalists, Jacob Lusk, showed extraordinary character by putting his principles ahead of his ambitions. Jacob had chosen to sing Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” and he sang it exceptionally well during rehearsal. The more he thought about it, the more Jacob came to realize that the song was too inconsistent his values, so he decided to chose a different song – one with a message that was more aligned with what he believed.
This decision put him at a distinct disadvantage, yet he chose to live his values despite the personal risk. This young ambitious man made a choice. He put his values and beliefs ahead of his desire for achievement. We all can learn a powerful leadership lesson from Jacob Lusk. He showed the courage and character to do the right thing. Coincidentally, the song he picked instead was “Man in the Mirror” by Michael Jackson. Clearly Jacob can look into the mirror and be proud that he lived his values when it mattered.
So what’s stopping us from doing the same?
