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Leadership in the Crucible:
The Paradox of Character and Power
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Course II.
Gain Wisdom from Mentors: The second character course is one that is most often 'taught' by a mentor or, better yet, by mentors--throughout life. What I say normally to aspiring1eaders is this. First, find someone who has the wisdom and the character that you would like to emulate--not a perfect person, but one that embodies many aspects of your own purpose and core values and is further down the road of life. There are no "methods" to this course; no set of steps or techniques. Do not read a book about mentoring. This is a simple act of a relationship with someone whom you can trust with your thoughts, your life purpose, and your heart--even your flaws. Spending time, parts of life together--walking, having a cup of coffee or a beer, sharing a meal--is the key to this character course. A mentor most often is not someone in the chain of command. For example, someone recently retired from one's organization would be a place to start. That person has both the time and the generative impulse to give back to others. Also I recommend looking for mentors in places outside of work--at church, an older neighbor, or an older family member. The agenda is yours, not theirs. So, use the time to ask questions about similar challenges and conflicts they have had. Delve into life issues as well as work issues as they are hardly separable. Draw out their stories in particular, as this will give you both context and a memorable learning mode.
For More Mature Senior Leaders
For more mature senior leaders, here is something key to note. In countless conversations that I have had with mid-career leaders, there is the constant theme of a hunger for a good mentor. For those of you who are "elders at the gate," this is an opportunity to give back and to employ the things you have learned--often the hard way--by telling your stories; by spending good time with one or two people. And one other thing, not all mentors need to be alive today. Find some of the teachers and mentors from our past that should be listened to again. Read the old books. Often in them you will find that there are similar situations from our past that were addressed by people who think differently than you and I do today. Yet human nature never really changes nor do the best and worst aspects of human behavior and the essential nature of good leadership character. Whatever you choose to do, go back and find what Washington and Jefferson read, what shaped Adams and Frederick Douglas, Lincoln and Lee. In the old books and the old stories, we find the wisdom of character that it seems people today still hunger for from older mentors.
Course III.
Be Engaged in a Community of Practice: The third course is one that is experienced in a community of people where mutual learning, support, and even accountability occur and where mutual purposes are shared. Like the hunger for a good mentor, today's organizational and societal culture has left most people, not just public servants, with a "bowling alone" sense of the worlds they inhabit.
While extensive research over the last 30 years confirms in stark terms the significant loss of community that has characterized the American democracy, my work with mid-career and senior government leaders underscores this finding even more poignantly. Very common themes include not only the pressures of time, but of information overload, financial insistence, commuting, downsizing, and outsourcing. These factors and others all seem to contribute to this sense of "more with less" that today's public service leaders face. They describe a workplace where the urgent is constantly at the fore and the more important has to take a back seat. These factors contribute clearly to time pressures and choices that result in a sense of disconnection from families and others to a striking degree.
Mid-Career Leaders
Despite whatever leadership topic is under discussion, I continue to be struck by how often mid-career leaders want to talk about the pressures they feel on their time that have them living an in-box life--at work and at home. Lack of balance is a subject that is raised time and again as the reason for not being able to stop and reflect, to learn, to build relationships with people.
What I have begun to realize as these conversations occur in leadership development programs is that this also is an opportunity to reexamine some things that we likely took for granted in earlier generations. By being a part of a community of people that choose to regularly spend time together, rising leaders will also find the tacit learning that helps to reinforce the lessons of character in the first two character courses. Here you are able to test ideas, learn from others' experiences, and gain the encouragement of heart to persist at the "long obedience in the same direction" that it takes to accomplish complex organization and public policy changes. It is here that values are passed on, that the culture is embedded, and where the very stuff of intellectual, emotional, social, and character capital is born.
Case Illustrations
Let me cite two examples I often share with people as examples for them that seem to be working well--what many call communities of practice.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Academy Sharing Knowledge (ASK)
The first is at NASA where they have begun something called the ASK. Essentially, this is a time-tested method of passing wisdom from one generation to another--te11ing stories. The idea is simple and would work well almost anywhere in government. NASA, facing the loss of an entire generation of experienced project managers--its key leaders--began to embed their wisdom through the use of public storytelling forums and the publication of ASK Magazine. It is within these forums and the conversations that ensue where younger, perhaps more technically advanced project managers can learn the wisdom and character traits that mature leaders have gained in both successes and failures--both of which are shared openly. They have found that there is something about telling a story that is not only remembered but changes people through tacit learning--it is almost experiential.
Council for Excellence in Government--Evenings on K Street
A second example is in something that has begun at the Council for Excellence in Government where I have been a leadership coach. Each year approximately 150 Fellows are selected by their organizations for participation in a unique leadership development program at the mid-career point--GS-14 and GS-15 typically. Over the past dozen years or so almost 2,000 Senior Fellows ("graduates") are now advancing throughout the federal government. Many of these Senior Fellows continue to sense a need to continue as part of a community of leaders who share their experiences and continue to learn from each other. They are people who share a common purpose and a common set of values around public service leadership and seek to effect change where they are.
This past two years, the Council has sponsored a series of weekly evening discussion forums around a variety of current topics and issues that typically involves a short presentation, extensive time for discussion of the whole group, and then a time of informal networking by smaller groups and one on one conversations. A board of Senior Fellows volunteers its time to work with the Council to chart out how these leadership communities of practice can continue to be nurtured and grow within their home organizations. It is a creative means to reinforce the character qualities and leadership behaviors that often get extinguished once a person leaves any educational program and to continue to learn over a career.
Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
There is a not-so-old saying that "people join organizations and leave supervisors." While this may be a vast oversimplification, it remains primarily true. With recent studies showing that one-third of federal employees are considering leaving public service, and with the conversations about leadership many of us have been involved in over the years, we can find ourselves asking a Bob Dylan-type question--Where have all the leaders gone? My own experience with hundreds of senior executives and mid-career leaders in these past years has convinced me that the potential leaders are there. Many good people have been called to public service and many have the skills that are needed for today's leaders. But, as we tackle the sea change of the departure of a generation of senior leaders, I am convinced that the question of shaping character in future leaders is the central issue. The crucible of power is one that continues to be the place where many have faltered. Lincoln saw it clearly and named it, beginning with himself. That is a good place for us all to start. The question of character when power is assumed is one that needs to be at the fore of all succession and leader development efforts in public service. Helping people to forge a purpose and core values for life that are rooted in timeless, enduring principles; seeking out (and also becoming) mentors who will spend time to share their lives; forging communities of practice where public servants share a common purpose to continue to learn and to grow as leaders and as people of integrity--these are the places to begin working on building something that will last and leave behind a legacy of service. Leaders grow leaders. More precisely, leaders of character grow other leaders of character who, in turn, do the same.
References
I am indebted to Dr. Steven Garber for his framework on the leadership crucible. He co-taught a "Leadership in the Crucible" seminar for Excellence in Government Fellows in 2002. His lifelong work preparing university students and his research on those who succeed at life has influenced this understanding as well as methods I have begun to use with effect in leadership development for mid-career and senior leaders in public service .
Ray Blunt provides administrative and operational guidance for The Washington Institute and also serves as a consultant to the Leadership Institute at the National Center for Leadership. He spent 35 years in public service in the US Air Force and the US Department of Veterans Affairs and is a husband, father of two grown children, and grandfather of five aspiring servant leaders.
This article originally appeared in the Winter 2003-04 issue of The Public Manager. Reproduced by The Washington Institute with the publisher's consent.The Public Manager ©2003-2004.
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