By Joel Jones
Leadership Columnist
During the past 13 years of writing this column, I have explored numerous literal and figurative leadership roles: learner, teacher, listener, speaker, community-builder, symphony conductor, jazz group leader, planner, coach, storyteller, historian, futurist, poet, dancer, lover, reader, philosopher, visionary, risk-taker, meaning-maker, follower, and, as always, servant.
The other day a regular reader of this column asked me, "Couldn't you just say that an effective leader should simply be a good person?" Sadly, as we all know, in all generations worldwide there have been "effective" leaders who have not been "good" people, given what most of us would define as "good." I do believe, though, as one reads through the list of annual aphorisms on leadership (based on both my own experience and reading hundreds of books on leadership) which I like to start each year with for the readers of the Four Corners Business Journal, one will find embedded therein the values and qualities of character
The aphorisms that follow are those that have generated the most positive reader response over the years:
¥ Leadership is service; leadership, even more simply, is listening to and learning from those whom one leads.
¥ A leader today must be both a good teacher and a quick learner.
¥ A leader's behavior must be characterized by civility, candor, competence, commitment to community and clarity of conviction.
¥ Those who lead must be reflective, thoughtful, civil in discourse, and committed to open and honest communication as a sacred trust.
¥ The contemporary leader should use, quite unapologetically, terms such as love, service, faith, and spirit, and should place ethical thinking at the center of his or her behavior. To quote Peter Vaill, "All true leadership is indeed spiritual leadership," and, to quote Margaret Wheatley, "Love in organizations ... is the most potent source of power we have available."
¥ Leaders understand the truth in the paradox that we must question that which we would preserve, challenge that which we would protect, and critically examine that which we would champion.
¥ The contemporary leader will engage the interplay between freedom and structure, creativity and restraint, inspiration and self-discipline, improvisation and format, self-expression and collective awareness.
¥ Leaders must be creators of value and meaning for those with whom they work. Leaders must see order in chaos, community in diversity, underlying values in varying voices and visions and moral meaning in mundane matters.
¥ All leaders must have an extraordinarily high tolerance for ambiguity, seeking always the balance between individual rights and the common good, social diversity and societal unity, spontaneity and structure, words and action, deliberation and decision.
¥ Leaders must explore change without fear, engage in risk and encourage, educate and empower others to think and behave similarly.
¥ In this world of exponentially expanding computer technology, leaders must ponder carefully technology's impact upon the nature of human consciousness, conscience and communicative capacities.
¥ The leader must always realize that data is not information, information is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom. Each of these transformational transitions will occur in the crucible of experience, the testing by both success and failure which engenders those so sought-after but fleeting moments of wisdom.
¥ Without being selfish, solipsistic, or self-serving, the leader must recognize paradoxically that to be the servant of collective constituents, he or she must often stand alone.
¥ Leaders must be effective storytellers, and must share stories which will develop informed, integrative, and inclusive communities.
¥ A leader must exercise that creative synergy of historical reflection and futuristic projection leading to insightful decisions and actions in the rapidly changing present.
¥ To lead is to love and to do so with the pleasure and pain, ecstasy and anguish, mystery and meaning consequential to living a loving life.
¥ The leader knows how to motivate as well as monitor colleagues, how to establish a sense of continuity while embracing change, and knows always that the most fundamental resource in any organization is its people.
¥ The leader as planner knows to be flexible enough to allow for spontaneity, serendipity and synchronicity. By fusing intelligence, intuition and instinct in the crucible of experience, the leader will see the plan as a path, not as a destination. Today's leader will realize that the old planning maxims of ready-aim-fire, or ready-fire-aim, will on occasion (in our too often chaotically changing world) be replaced by fire-fire-fire. In rare moments, action must be correlative with, not just consequential to, deliberation and planning.
¥ If we are to lead well, to teach and learn well, to serve well, then we must speak and write well. To do any and all of these, we must, as leaders, read well.
¥ My common sense maxims for leadership: Give credit, don't take it; accept blame, don't assign it; be a learner and listener, not just a teacher and talker; be a server, not a savior; acknowledge ambiguity, taking reflective action in the context thereof; build community, don't belie or belittle it; and always engage your best values, vision and voice, using common sense for the common good.
¥ My principles of leadership entail simply: Love and trust over fear and control; authority by authenticity, not by title; the value of vulnerability over security; the importance of community and collaboration over hierarchy and dictum; and the growth of others as an elemental measure of success.
¥ The leader always recognizes that cynicism and disengagement can only be destructive. Seasoned intelligence and informed intuition, energy and enthusiasm, commitment and compassion will enable us to lead creatively and constructively in these so challenging days.
¥ Finally, and most fundamentally, a leader knows that trust must be both the means and the end, the method and the measure, of effective leadership.
Dr. Joel Jones is president emeritus of Fort Lewis College in Durango. He can be reached at jones_joel@fortlewis.edu.
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