In his recent book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone?, Lee Iacocca talks about the performance of leaders across society and asks, “Where the hell is our outrage?” And he asks if he’s the only person in the country who’s fed up with what’s happening. Lee, you are not the only one. I am outraged, as are many others, and our expression of it is long overdue. Unless we demand more of our leaders, they will not deliver more, and unless they deliver more, we are collectively a snowball headed for a hot place.
The traits that a successful leader must have are pretty clear. He or she must be self-defined, forward thinking, courageous, energetic, and curious. She must be focused, organized, and supportive. She must be inspiring, listening deeply to others to find a common purpose and then giving life to her vision by communicating it so that others see themselves in it. Above all, she must be credible – having competency and displaying consistency and wholeness in words and character such that others have a deep confidence in her abilities and character. The functions a leader must perform vary with the specific leadership role. But the one common function is she must move people to produce a positive impact.
But leaders are increasingly not meeting these standards and the problems of our world are becoming acute. In politics, you don’t need to look any further than the White House. Inspiring? Credible? Positive impact? On each count, Bush and his cronies have been dismal failures. Even conservatives are tripping over themselves to get away from him. If you think Bush rates high for courage, think again. That’s just ignorant swagger. Energetic? Bush has set the all-time record for vacation days taken by a President.
Looking further in politics, how about the candidates running for president? At a time when leadership may be more needed than any other in history, most candidates refuse to define themselves out of fear they’ll alienate an important component of the electorate. Even deeper into politics, doesn’t it seem that politicians are more concerned about being re-elected than leading effectively? And, by the way, don’t we have a right to politicians who don’t cheat, lie, and consort with prostitutes?
In the business world, look at the number of corporate leaders who underperform or, worse, plunder their companies and shareholders. Small business leaders fail far more than they succeed, overwhelmed with highly complex, rapidly changing issues in areas like regulation, technology, the Internet, outsourcing and off-shoring, labor, workers compensation, and the “greening” of the workplace. Social leaders can’t find a voice to unite people in the fight against economic inequality and discrimination. Family leaders are losing to divorce, domestic abuse, addictions, and academic underperformance of their children at best and criminal behavior at worst. In academia, leaders face declining funding, overcrowded classrooms, under-disciplined students, overly apathetic parents, and parents on a mission to lay blame. In athletics, they fight with diminishing integrity, performance-enhancing drugs, parental interference at the youth level, and criminal behavior at the adult level.
Why do our leaders seem to be failing us more now than at any other time in history? Technology. Technology massively increases the amount and velocity of data that data must be processed. As a collective practice, leadership has simply fallen behind the pace of everything else in the world that technology has accelerated and complicated. Leaders are trying to drink out of a fire hose. As a result, fear, stress, resistance, lapses in integrity, inability to focus, lack of personal responsibility, absence of creativity, and most importantly, a lack of positive results are the hallmarks of leadership today.
The good news is that there are solutions if leaders will pause long enough and open wide enough to recognize them. They are within each leader. They are energies that enable leaders to embody the traits and perform the functions we know are essential for solid leadership but are increasingly difficult to achieve in this highly complex, high velocity world. This is the new paradigm of leadership – drawing on personal energies deep within to effectively manage what has become an overwhelming external environment. For instance, the most progressive leaders today have identified the energy of presence as a powerful grounding force. They are increasingly turning to meditation in an effort to think more clearly and efficiently, feel more courageous, and act with more integrity. They are accessing energies of openness and creativity because they know open source is the prevailing law of the jungle and organizational survival depends upon innovation. They are also finding the energies of intuition, intention, personal responsibility, and deeply connected communication are powerful enablers of success.
We are in a leadership crisis. The problems we face are worsening by the minute. Our leaders are increasingly impotent. And we should be outraged. They should have seen the challenges developing and led us to solutions. That is the job of a leader. They failed. But now is their chance for redemption. Now is the time for them to dig deep within themselves for energies that will enable them to lead us more effectively than ever and overcome these daunting challenges.
-###-
February 16, 2008 By David M. Traversi, a nationally known executive coach, is the author of The Source of Leadership: Eight Drivers of the High-Impact Leader, released in September 2007, and the founder of http://www.RateALeader.com, the original leadership rating site.
