"Best"

I'm teaching two courses this fall - one a graduate seminar that complements students' supervised practice experience and the other a first-year seminar in leadership. The first round of papers and journals were due last week and I'm beginning to grade and return these to students. This exercise has stimulated some dialogue with my students, mainly around their disappointment that they did not receive higher grades. As I responded to a couple of students' e-mails this morning, I realized that the question of grades relates rather directly to something I include (without explanation) in much of my e-mail correspondence.

A couple of months ago, I started signing off "Best" on some/many of these messages. I have no idea if anyone notices this or not. It is not a casual statement; it means two things - 1) that I promise my best effort in helping others learn about leadership and 2) that I expect only the best of you and me as we seek to understand leadership. This blog is labeled "Pursuing Leadership by Denny," which is also a bit different than many blog titles. Pursuing leadership is a life-long passion for me. I seek to learn and I grow deeper in my understanding everyday. I also know that I am likely never to really understand. However, "Best" means a lot to me. I seek to understand and I hope that I have colleagues who will grant me the opportunity to continue to learn by being curious, by proposing ideas, by stumbling, and by learning to be as reflective as I can be. I appreciate all those who understand this quirky aspect of my personality and I hope I offer you always my "Best" effort on the journey.

Best to you today and always!

Lipman-Blumen on illusions of leadership

Another of my favorites posted a provocative statement to the ILA listserv. Jean Lipman-Blumen (http://www.cgu.edu/pages/1832.asp) said on 9-14-06:
Unfortunately, leaders tend to create the illusions that they sense the followers want to hear. Mostly, these are illusions about keeping us safe from harm/death, making us feel important, even heroic, inviting us into the center of action, and giving our lives meaning, etc. The tragedy of the human condition is not that we all die, but rather that we choose to live by illusions. And there are so many toxic leaders eagerly waiting to feed us grand illusions disguised as noble visions. That was part of the message in "The Allure of Toxic Leaders."

Cheers,
Jean Lipman-Blumen

Jean seems always to be able to hit the nail on the head. This is a challenge of both leadership and followership. Those of us who seek to provide leadership must search our souls deeply enough to determine why we seek to influence others - is it to make ourselves appear important and heroic or is it to help others feel powerful in shaping their own lives? When we are engaged in the all-important followership that may be even more important in some ways, are we careful in discerning the motivations and purposes of those we follow?

Barbara Mossberg on cultural perspectives of leadership

The following text is from a listserv post on 9-10-06 by Barabara Mossberg, President Emerita of Goddard College and currently a Senior Scholar at the James McGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland:

I noticed a different take on leadership qualities twenty years ago as a new dean of graduate studies at the University of Oregon. I had TA's from Asia and Europe who wanted to quit their jobs in the first two weeks (and mine), because the students were "not respectful." When, alarmed and dismayed, I asked how this was manifested, they replied, "they raise their hands to talk when I am speaking, they interrupt with questions, they come to my office to question the assignments, their grades. . . " I was relieved--"oh, they are acting as they have been trained since pre-school!" and inspired to create some programs for the whole University, graduate students and faculty, in which we all and each examined the cultural assumptions that go into teaching (for example) and the values we generate and invoke in our students that express cultural ideals that culminate in how we identify and nurture leaders. In the U.S., what are the historical forces that explain why we would encourage students to come up with "different" answers, raise our hands and otherwise "intervene" and "interrupt," establish themselves as unique, creative, even challenging presences in the learning environment, differentiate themselves proactively from other students, ourselves as faculty, and even the "authorities" whom we ask them to consider with critical thinking skills? We ask such questions in the context of learning how another culture might define academic excellence in terms of consensus and agreement fostering and perpetuating the teachings of the faculty and authorities, for example. What is to be gained by the approach in whatever country, and what cultural forces and history shape such educational approaches that nurture specific citizen values that ultimately apply to the kind of leadership we want? Each faculty member was asked to consider what traits make up a "good student" and what assignments and pedagogies reward those traits--and why. How does this reflect and continue to shape the culture? In increasingly diverse and multicultural and global classrooms, how can we understand and promote different kinds of understandings of "academic success?" How can we educate for the global arena in which different values are operant and collide? Thus I see particular opportunity in the graduate programs in which students from many countries participate, to consider these questions for a more internationally-conscious pedagogy.

On this note, in further work for American studies, I considered what forces led Americans to vote for what presidents they did, and what informed the national debates (Carter, Reagan, elder Bush, Clinton, etc.). I will share something from my own work on chaos theory and global leadership. I saw that Clinton was charged with being indecisive when in fact he seemed to be modeling complexity and other dynamic whole systems theories from emergent sciences in his decision-making processes. I gave lectures on his "round world" thinking in which issues were understood not in polarities, but in global terms of not either/or but an inclusive model of truths and realities that co-exist even as they conflict, compete, overlap, merge, collide, and contradict--just as earth appears at any moment from space, at once, simultaneously, wet and dry, dark and light, low and high, freezing and humid, etc. This sense of complexity, of "and . . and . . .and" I think was threatening, considered "indecisive" in a context of insecurity over multiplicity of an increasingly global and diverse world, increasingly interdependent, so that "this or that" approaches seemed more "decisive", even if this interpretation does not express the reality of a situation and in fact distorts it. We are reminded that it is only a relatively short time in which we have lived with knowledge of a "round world" and even more recent that we have images of ourselves from space that change the way we can see ourselves. Decisions one way or another are made, but how the public understands the forces shaping the decisions is tremendously important to understanding what "decisive" means. Where and when do we see issues looked at in terms of long-term results, for global stability and prosperity, based on what we learn from history!

This is a wonderfully rich example of why it is important to continue to examine our notions of learning and leadership. We come from different experiences and places and those differences profoundly impact our own choices and our views of the choices of others. Note to self - What unexamined notions are standing in my way of connecting with others in both learning and leadership?

Kudos to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg

With all the flurry of controversy around Facebook over the last several days, I have to comment on my blog in its relation to leadership. I was totally impressed with the apology and explanation Mark Zuckerberg offered in his posting to Facebook account holders. What I was amazed by was that he approached it as a textbook example of what to do when you screw up. Accepting responsibility, apologizing, and correcting our actions is one of the most difficult things to do in leadership. The tendency among some leaders is to justify, rationalize, excuse our behavior by suggesting that it is others' perception that created the offense. Another headline right now is Arnold's debacle with cultural stereotypes in his private meetings. In Arnold's case, he apologized but said in his quasi-apology "I am sorry that others took offense" rather than saying "I screwed up and apologize."

Mark Zuckerberg provided a wonderful example of accepting responsibility by apologizing in his very first paragraph. Then he went on to describe that he and his colleagues were too hasty in launching the new information feature on Facebook. He described how he and others are scrambling to rewrite the code to correct the mistake. Finally, he thanked Facebook account holders for their patience and reinforced the importance of open communication on Facebook and expressed appreciation to those who communicated their displeasure to him. These are precisely the kinds of behaviors that are needed in leadership. It reinforces confidence rather than undermines it. As a rather strange participant on Facebook (older, administrator, etc.), my support of Facebook is greater today than it was yesterday. Yes, Facebook has had some bad moments but those have mostly been the result of our use rather than Facebook's actions. Facebook provides a way to connect and to have some fun - it is our responsibility to use it appropriately.

Kudos to Mark and his team - I hope many Facebook account holders catch the leadership implication that we've just witnessed. Note to self - lessons about leadership can be found in the most interesting places...

Additional note on 9-22-06: I have been disappointed that Mark Zuckerberg and his team have not substantially modified the functionality that raised so much concern in the last two weeks. When I offered the comment above, Mr. Zuckerberg appeared to be demonstrating the best of leadership. At this point, the jury is still out.