Girded by Values

What: Purpose & Values

"Purpose is so fundamentally tied up with leadership that it is almost invariably subsumed or taken for granted by leadership scholars" writes Jackson & Parry (pg 113). Ironically, only a few sentences earlier did the same authors refer to how often Hitler is brought up at leadership conferences. "What parts of Hitler's leadership will become part of your leadership?" they ask (pg 112). Would we emulate his "brutal bullying and extinction of those who disagree?" Would we lie? Exploit others? The list goes on and on...

While Hitler did convince a large number of people to follow him, his historical judgement certainly doesn't rest on his employed leadership theory. No, history sees no redeeming leadership qualities in Hitler because of his purpose. A purpose that, like anyone else's purpose in life, was girded by values. Unfortunately, Hitler's values lacked all virtue. 

So What: Theories & Values

Marion Jones was stripped of
her 5 Olympic medals for using
performance-enhancing drugs. 

There are leadership theories, however, that help us address this thought of values and purpose. Ethical leadership, authentic leadership (jump to a Harvard Business Review article), and spiritual leadership while varying in some degree, all seek to bind the leader and his/her integrity.

Hickman says "values suffuse the common elements of leadership" and he even refers to values as the very "heart of leadership" (pg 177). Just as leadership theories differ, leaders differ on the theories they commonly practice. There are many effective transformational leaders, path-goal leaders and transactional leaders. And while our leaders are critiqued by their chosen theory, their leadership style is not the only way we asses our leaders. Most companies or individuals that have fallen from societies' graces haven't done so necessarily through their leadership style, they've fallen primarily as a result of their values. A few who come to mind are Tiger Woods, Bernie Madoff, Marion Jones and the leaders of Enron. While some may choose values that have no virtue, it is those leaders who have stood on good and virtuous values that stand the tallest.

Now What: Fridges & Values
In the first book of Dr. Tim Elmore's Habitudes series, he asks his readers to "think of some words that could be your core values" (pg 16). Dr. Elmore has put together an incredibly tangible and practical leadership development curriculum through this series and I personally lead many of Virginia Tech's varsity athletic teams through his works. I've found it a profound exercise to ask others to write down their core values. Sure, they've thought of their values before, but few have actually prioritized and penned them out. The Habitudes series is a great, practical guide for anyone looking to identify their values.

For all of you who hope to lead, knowing your values will be crucial to your success. Circumstances may call for different styles of leadership but our values should transcend our style. Have you prioritized your values and written them down? My wife and I posted our values on our fridge - I encourage you to do the same.

More than Honesty

What: Trust Desired 
Tom Rath & Barry Conchie's latest work, Strengths Based Leadership, is an insightful, applicable, and energizing book that leaves readers with new found direction and purpose in their leadership journeys. One of the many topics I found interesting was the topic of followership. More specifically, as identified in the book,  what followers look for in leaders: Trust, Compassion, Stability and Hope. Dealing specifically with trust, the authors went on to say "At any level, whether you are a manager, CEO, or head of state, trust might be the 'do or die' foundation for leading" (pg 83). Following this, we see that those surveyed mentioned honesty, integrity and respect as significant distinctions within the area of trust. Trust, when talked of casually, typically settles on a definition like 'so-and-so is a trustworthy person.'  That is, they are honest and tell the truth. Here however, through the eyes of followers, we see something else. It seems that followers are looking for more than the absence of lies. 


So What: Trust and Integrity 
The word integrity serves us well at getting at the author's point. Many have heard the saying (I'm not sure who coined it...) that "Integrity is what you do when no one's around." One of my favorite authors, Dallas Willard, a Philosophy professor at University of Southern California, looks at integrity this way:


"Integrity would mean, among other things, that you don’t have to run different processes in your life—that you’re transparent and all parts of who you are hang together, are consistent, so you don’t have to keep parts of yourself hidden."


Given Rath and Conchie's findings, it seems followers look at trust in a very holistic way - hence the accompanying features of honesty, integrity, and respect. Followers want an honest leader but they also want a leader who's life is consistent with the truth he/she tells. This idea of being 'transparent' means that not only can followers peer into a leaders life and see everything, it means that what they see is consistent with what the leader said would be there. That all parts of this person, this leader, are working together in a cohesive direction that is for the good of the follower. 


Now What: Trust as a Strength 
Rath and Conchie's work allows leaders to learn about their own strengths through a unique assessment that fits strengths into four domains of leadership. Whether trust is a measurable strength of ours or not, it is a strength that must be worked on if we are to lead. And trust, as perceived by followers means more than simply using our mouths to tell the truth. Followers have cast a deeper lot. In his book Spiritual Leadership, J. Oswald Sanders writes "...leader(s) must be sincere in promise, faithful in discharge of duty, upright in finances, loyal in service, and honest in speech" (pg. 62). It seems followers have given leaders a lot to work on.


My bet (and hope) is that leaders rise to the occasion. Followers, it seems, are hoping for the same thing.

ALR 3

What: An unfathomable tragedy. 

On the evening of April 16th, 2007 my wife and I lay in bed restless. Like everyone else in Blacksburg, our lives changed that day and sleep seemed impossible. That day our campus had been rocked by the deadliest shooting incident by a single gunman in US history. We questioned what we could do in response to so many in pain, but knew we wanted to help.

Dr. Zacharias at Burress
on 10/09/07.

Then, an odd moment of clarity struck us. We were deeply involved with students through campus ministries and knew our friends would have philosophical questions that needed practical answers. We also knew that Dr. Ravi Zacharias is perhaps the most gifted Christian apologist alive. We thought if he would visit Virginia Tech, he could help address our community’s pain with a loving hand. Our minds flooded with a million "What next?" questions, we knew this was our "What next?" That night we emailed Dr. Zacharias and invited him to address a shocked and grieving community.

So What: At the center of community change. 

Cassell Coliseum event on 10/10/07. 

Dr. Zacharias quickly agreed to come speak. We organized a 2-day, 4-event speaking engagement in which both Dr. Zacharias and his colleague addressed students, faculty, community members and had an intimate meeting with a widowed wife who lost her husband in the shootings. We found ourselves organizing the largest collaboration of churches in the NRV to date. We had over 20 pages of logistics and 100+ active volunteers, led by a steering committee that included us and four others. 

Over 8,000 individuals attended the events. We received donations from churches in Tennessee and a bus full of Pennsylvanians came. Both the Collegiate Times and the Roanoke Times ran stories covering the event. 

Now What: How our experience relates to leadership literature. 

Values drove the cohesion of the community and local church efforts. Hickman (2010) clearly communicates this notion when he wrote "...something needs to trigger [the sense of community] so that people mobilize resources. Most often this trigger takes the form of a clear threat to the community..." (p. 135). Our community certainly felt threatened to an extent that no university in our nation had ever experienced. Shared values within our community made our responsive cohesion effective, swift and efficient. 

Shared leadership abounded. Hundreds of individuals volunteered, and many churches supported our efforts. Though a small, strategic committee, we found ourselves blending in to a community effort with countless active members. 

Me, my wife Meredith, Dr. Zacharias,
his son Nathan, and Sandy Young, a
 local church pastor. 

We also experienced two of Gaventa's levels for power and participation - local and national (Hickman, 2010). Certainly the majority of change was felt locally, but given the notoriety of Dr. Zacharias, we received feedback from his organization that others were encouraged by the messages shared during the events. 

Given my brief experience as a community leader, I found community values at the center of our efforts. Those values gave cohesion and purpose, and allowed for a synergy that felt somewhat supernatural. While I hope to never be so close to such a tragic event again, I do hope to always help those in deep pain - and it will be values that drive those efforts. 

Personal Version

What: An unfathomable tragedy. 

On the evening of April 16th, 2007 my wife and I lay in bed restless, unable to sleep. Like everyone else in Blacksburg, our lives had changed that day and sleep seemed impossible. Earlier that day our campus, Virginia Tech, had been rocked by the deadliest shooting incident by a single gunman in US history. What were we to do in response to an event that left so many in pain? We knew we wanted to help but we knew we were limited in what we could offer others.

Dr. Zacharias spoke at
Burress Hall on 10/9/07.

As we lay there, we had an odd moment of clarity in how we thought we could help. We were deeply involved with college students through a few campus ministries. We knew all our friends would have deep, philosophical questions that needed practical answers. We knew, through our own studies, that Dr. Ravi Zacharias is perhaps the most gifted Christian apologist alive today. We thought if we could get him to visit Virginia Tech, he could at least help address the pain left in our community with a loving hand. With a flooded mind, full of a million "What next?" questions, Meredith and I knew this is the one way we could tangibly help. It was our "What next?" And so that night, we emailed Dr. Zacharias and invited him to address a shocked community that would soon be grieving.

So what: At the center of community change.

Me, my wife Meredith, Dr. Zacharias,
his son Nathan, and Sandy Young, a
local church pastor. 

Dr. Zacharias quickly answered our invitation and agreed to come speak at Virginia Tech. We organized a 2-day, 4-event speaking engagement in which both Dr. Zacharias and his colleague, Joe Boot addressed students, faculty, community members and had an intimate meeting with a widowed wife who lost her husband in the shootings. We found ourselves leading the organization of an event that turned out to be the largest collaboration of churches in the NRV community to date. We had at least 20 pages of detailed planning logistics, with over 100 active planning volunteers, all lead by a small steering committee that included the two of us and four others.

Over 8,000 individuals attended the planned events. We received financial donations from churches in Tennessee and had a bus full of people from Pennsylvania come as well. Both the Collegiate Times and the Roanoke Times did brief stories covering the event.

Now what: How our experience relates to leadership literature.

Certainly values played a major role in the cohesion of the community and the efforts of local churches. Hickman (pg 135) clearly communicates this notion in his text when he wrote "...something needs to trigger [the sense of community] so that people mobilize resources. Most often this trigger takes the form of a clear threat to the community..." It goes without saying that the Virginia Tech community felt threatened to an extent that no university in our nation had ever experienced. The shared values of our community made our responsive cohesion effective, swift and efficient.

Cassell Coliseum event on 10/10/07. 

We also felt that we experienced shared leadership. Hundreds of individuals volunteered and many churches financially supported our efforts. Although we were a part of a small, strategic steering committee, we also found ourselves blending in to a community effort that had many active members.

We experienced at least two of Gaventa's different levels for power and participation - local and national (Hickman 134). Certainly the majority of change was felt at the local level, which was our primary aim. However, given the notoriety of Dr. Zacharias, we received feedback from his organization that others too were encouraged by the messages shared during the event.

Given my brief experience as a community leader, I found community values at the center of our efforts. Those values gave us cohesion and clear purpose - they also allowed for a synergy that felt somewhat supernatural. While I hope to never be so close to such a tragic event again, I do hope to always help those in deep pain - and it is values that will drive those types of efforts.

The Blunderbuss of Leadership

What?
Antony Flew, former Oxford professor and leading atheist turned deist, refers to Paul Davie's Blunderbuss Theory in his book There Is a God. This humorous theory, or pun, is used to refute the idea that we exist in a multiverse.  The multiverse idea stands opposed to an intelligent design view of the universe we live in. He simply calls the multiverse theory a blunderbuss because "It explains everything and yet nothing" all at once. When addressing intelligent design, the multiverse idea gives us no real answers. It simply proposes a grandiose idea that gets us no where.

Connecting this thought to leadership - in my brief study of leadership I seem to have run in to a blunderbuss of my own. When searching for a simple (and agreed upon) definition of leadership, I find everything and nothing all at once!


So What?
A rather intriguing book by Jackson and Perry (2011) tells us the "not-so-good news" about leadership in that it "is a phenomenon that everyone has an opinion on but few of us seem to agree exactly on what it really is." How does a storied idea like leadership remain so youthful in its definition? In their article Asking the Right Questions about Leadership, Hackman and Wageman (2007) seem to add insult to injury when they state "there are no generally accepted definitions of what leadership is, no dominant paradigms for studying it, and little agreement about the best strategies for developing and exercising it."

And then to add to the confusion, there remains specific types of leadership such as: authentic, transformational, ethical, shared and new-genre leadership. At this point the blunderbuss theory rears its ugly head.

Now What?
Hackman and Wageman continue and imply that we've quite possibly been asking the wrong questions about leadership. In doing so, it seems we've muddied muddy water. An appropriate, or right question to ask of the topic is "Not do there exist common dimensions on which all leaders can be arrayed, but are good and poor leadership qualitatively different phenomena?" This question and more importantly its answer, points us in a firm direction toward defining leadership. The authors keenly point out that in their studies "Poor leaders were not individuals with low scores on the same dimensions on which good leaders excelled; instead, they exhibited entirely different patterns of behavior."

To say that poor leadership and good leadership have different dimensions and behaviors is to take a refreshing step forward in defining leadership. I realize the complex nature of leadership and acknowledge that it is a daunting task to narrow the scope of our definition. However, a world in desperate need of leadership doesn't need a blunderbuss answer - it needs a clear definition of what exactly it's looking for in its leaders.

Jean Paul Satre simply stated what seems to be the most complex problem when he said "

The basic philosophical problem is this: the fact that something – rather than nothing – exists." While this post is not intended to answer that question (whew...), it is intended to briefly consider what GK Chersterton thought about this "something" that Satre referenced. 

GK Chesterton is famous for his quotability. The ability to produce memorable one-liners shows great wit - the ability to produce memorable one-liners that read coherently as a memorable book shows greater wit, intelligence and understanding that I don't quite comprehend.

Two of Chersterton's one-liners are below. He seems to take Satre's thought one step further when he said:

“All men matter. You matter. I matter. It’s the hardest thing in theology to believe.”

The Times magazine ran an essay invitation to popular essiasts asking the question "What's Wrong with the World?", to which Chesterton's sharpened wit answered:

"Dear Sirs, I am. Sincerely Yours, GK Chesterton."

Jean Paul Satre pinpoints a simple agreeable truth that "something" exists. GK Chersterton takes that "something" to a metaphysical statement by adding that this "something" actually matters. Then, the rather pious Chesterton responds to The Times question with the simple answer "I am." It seems that not only does "something" exist but that this "something" matters so much that how we live our lives can have either an adverse or advantageous outcome on this world. As these two great thinkers collide, it seems that something matters. The question of "Why?" may be the most important question we can consider.