If the answer is yes, you’ll know that Memorial Day was draped in the American flag. It was among the most deeply felt and quintessentially American of our national holidays, evoking strong feelings of patriotism and deep pride in the United States of America.

On this particular Memorial Day, though, we face a question that can no longer be ignored. Nor should it be, not even on a day dedicated to our fallen heroes. The question is this: What is the role of nationalism in an international world? Perhaps it’s a bit blasphemous to pose the question at just this moment, in connection with our commemorations. But it could be the exactly right time to ask out loud whether the 21st century will be kind to those who say, “My country, right or wrong.”

The fact of the matter is that as we gear up to select the next chief executive, the next commander-in-chief, the world in which the US is situated is changing dramatically. On one level we know this, of course. We know that Europe is now vigorous in its own right and entirely self contained; that countries such as China, India, and Brazil are becoming behemoths that need the US little or not at all; that Russia is becoming again what it was, distant and difficult; that the Middle East is the proverbial powder keg over which Americans have nearly no control; and that several countries in Africa remain in desperate need of outside intervention, if only to contain catastrophe.

Moreover we know full well, intellectually if not yet viscerally, that many of our most intractable problems are impossible to solve by the US acting alone. The war in Iraq, the threat of terrorism, the energy crisis and global warming – these are only some of the mountains that can be climbed only in tandem.

The issue is overarching. The issue is that we live in a world in which neither institutions nor individuals yet grasp how outmoded is our leadership, and how outmoded are the governance structures within which leaders necessarily operate. For all we think we know about globalization, about the shrinking planet, we know not a lot about how actually to accommodate it. To take just a single example, when disaster strikes, as it did recently in Mayanmar, national boundaries can preclude us from providing help. In fact, outsiders eager to parachute in with supplies in tow were reduced to being bystanders. Why? Because for weeks on end both national states and international organizations chose to abide by the old rules of nonintervention, even as they violated the much older rules of common decency.

Memorial Day is an occasion to pay homage to those who gave their lives for their country. But we are not precluded from concluding that the nationalism of times past must now be supplemented by – not supplanted by, supplemented by – an internationalism in keeping with the changing times. Nor are we precluded from finding and favoring leaders with vivid imaginations – so they can conjure how the world might work.

See the original post here, by Barbara Kellerman @ Harvard Business Publishing

OK, so let me ask you this: Would the response – both pro and con – have been so strong had I written not about Hillary Clinton but about Nancy Pelosi? In 2002 Nancy Pelosi was elected by her colleagues as Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives, and in 2007 she was elected Speaker. In both cases, she was the first woman in American history to be so honored.

It does not detract one whit from Pelosi’s accomplishments to point out that, like Clinton, she could capitalize on her close relationship to a powerful politician. For Nancy Pelosi is Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi. She is the daughter of Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., who for several decades was one of America’s most prominent Democrats. D’Alesandro was elected to Congress five times. Then, for twelve years (1947-1959), he served as Mayor of Baltimore. Given that Pelosi was born in 1940, it’s clear she grew up in a household suffused in Democratic politics. And it’s equally clear that from an early age she used her connections to pursue her interests – which not incidentally mirrored those of her father.

As a young woman, Nancy D’Alesandro interned for Senator Daniel Brewster and future House Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer. After she married and moved to San Francisco – where her brother, Ronald Pelosi, happened to be a member of the City and County of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors – she took time off to raise her children. By 1977 she had re-entered politics, serving as party Chairwoman for Northern California, and later joining forces with one of the leaders of the California Democratic Party, Philip Burton. Pelosi waited to run for elective office until her youngest child was a high school senior – then she went full tilt. She was elected to Congress in 1987, and again every two years after that.

Would Pelosi be where she is now had she not been her father’s daughter? Maybe. But who would want to argue that the household in which she grew up, and the experiences it provided, and the connections it afforded, were of no relevance whatsoever to her political career?

To their everlasting credit, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi did on their own achieve a great deal. Moreover aspects of their journey are instructive, and should be considered by those who would follow in their wake. But there is another truth as well, which is that both women have had benefits the rest of us cannot readily replicate. These include not only family ties, and family more generally, but also money. During the course of their lives Clinton and Pelosi, along with their husbands, became rich, really rich, with assets of many millions of dollars. They are not, in other words, like you and me. Or, at least, not like me.

Original post here, by Barbara Kellerman @ Harvard Business Publishing

Among the different countries on the African continent, Zimbabwe is, or should have been, among the most advantaged. After it gained independence – formerly it was Rhodesia – there was reason for optimism. The English had left behind a good infrastructure, arable land was plentiful and producing surplus for export, and natural resources were in abundant supply.

Instead, under the ghastly leadership of Robert Mugabe, the now 84-year-old liberation hero who has been in power for almost three decades, Zimbabwe has dropped slowly but certainly to the bottom of the heap. Since 2000 well over five million people have left the country. There is nearly nothing to eat and no work to be had. Despair and decay are everywhere. Life expectancy is the lowest in the world (mid thirties). Inflation is the highest in the world. And there are more orphans per capita in Zimbabwe than anywhere else on the planet.

Moreover in his old age, Mugabe has gone mad. How else to describe a leader who is so desperate for power that he will do whatever it takes to keep it, up to and including murder and mayhem. As the New York Times summarized the situation, the presidential runoff election scheduled for Friday has been preceded by “a calculated campaign of bloodletting meant to intimidate the opposition and strip it of some of its most valuable foot soldiers.” Things got so bad that Mugabe’s main rival quit the race, saying he could no longer take part in the “violent, illegitimate sham of a process,” nor could he ask of others that they risk their lives on his behalf.

But this grim and grisly story is much less about Mugabe, who is a fiendish freak of nature, than it is about other leaders, who years ago should have weakened and even disabled him. Highest on the list is South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki, who stood by and watched as the situation next door deteriorated. To be sure, Mbeki was in good company – other African leaders did no more. But South Africa is the strongest country by far in the region. So Mbeki’s passivity sent a signal to those who ended up his equally passive counterparts: Being a bystander is being presidential.

Western leaders – presidents, prime ministers, cabinet secretaries – followed suit. To a person they flunked leadership. Oh sure, there’s been lots of tut-tutting. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said recently that it was time for the “leaders of Africa to say to President Mugabe that the people of Zimbabwe deserved a free and fair election.” England’s Prime Minster Gordon Brown went on to caution that the “eyes of the world” were on Zimbabwe. And United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon insisted just a few days ago that the election in Zimbabwe would not be credible unless the government brought to a halt its harassment of the opposition.

Meantime more anti-Mugabe activists have been killed, more injured, and more jailed. No getting around it: While Zimbabweans burned, others fiddled, none more achingly than those at the top.

Leaders and managers in government and business tend to mind their own business. They occupy themselves with those who are, most obviously, their followers, their subordinates, their constituents. But in this day and age, when the planet has shrunk, and when the technology is such that everyone knows everything, that’s just not good enough any more. The time is now for a more expansive view, for a view of leadership that transcends the group or organization for which we are directly responsible. In the mad, sad case of Zimbabwe such inter-group leadership, exercised in a smart and timely manner, could have made all the difference.

Read the original here, by Barbara Kellerman @ Harvard Business Publishing

The question now is what can be learned from this experience. What happened in Zimbabwe is not, of course, idiosyncratic. Human history is chock full of examples of bad leaders, even evil leaders, who do what they want when they want in spite of what others think or say.

Let’s be clear-eyed then. Let’s admit that Mugabe got away with murder. He reminded us, because apparently we still need reminding, that leaders who have power and authority, and who are determined at all costs to keep what they have, can do so. More precisely, they can and they will do so unless and until someone from somewhere, from inside or outside, stops them.

Bad leaders, especially the really bad ones, do not wake up one fine morning, see the light, and on their own volition reform. Not on your life. In fact, history teaches just the opposite. The worse leaders are, and the more deeply embedded they are, the more willing and able they are to defy their enemies and squelch the opposition.

What, then, is to be done? Are we destined, doomed to be bystanders? Are we destined, doomed, even when faced with the worst of the worst, to being ineffectual altogether? Or are there some things that can and should be done, some things that we, as followers, can and should do to stop or, at least, to slow, bad leadership? Recall that though I am talking here about a tyrant, bad leadership in its various guises is ubiquitous.

So the question of what to do is not exactly exogenous. It arises in everyday life, in the workplace and in the market place, as well as in world affairs. Here, then, are some rules to effect, in so far as humanly possible. They can guide all of us who encounter bad leadership, be it in public or private settings, and whether we are participants or simply observers.

• Have the punishment fit the crime. Mugabe, for example, could be tried at some point in The Hague, at the international tribunal which has been increasingly empowered by public opinion to consider cases resembling his. Nor should corporate leaders be exempt from this general rule. They too must be held to account for wrongdoing.

• Institutionalize checks and balances. Again, this applies not only to the public sector, but also to the private one, in which agents such as boards and shareholder activists are, in fact, being emboldened to take on errant chief executives.

• Institutionalize term limits. Whether a large group or a small organization, this is a simple enough device, intended to preclude people in positions of authority from abusing their authority over a long period of time.

• Obtain independent information. Never take the party line at face value. The party line is just that, no less and decidedly no more. Those of us lucky enough to be free agents owe it to ourselves and to others as well to take the time and trouble to secure information that is relatively objective, as opposed to subjective.

• Find allies and if necessary take collective action. Going out on a limb to take on the powers that be is generally risky, and mostly ineffective. Better to act in concert, than to be a lone ranger.

• Act early. The more deeply entrenched the bad leader, the more difficult he, or she, is to uproot. Timing, then, is all. Waiting to spring into action until things trend from bad to worse is a mistake, nearly without exception.

View original here, by Barbara Kellerman @ Harvard Business Publishing

This is not to say that leaders no longer matter, they do. But I have got to the point where I consider the study of leadership pure and simple simply old-fashioned, grist for the 20th century but not for the 21st. In today’s world leaders everywhere are vulnerable in ways they have not been before. And conversely – as the result of changes both in culture and technology – followers everywhere are empowered in ways they have not been before

Each week I could point to numbers of stories that illustrate my point which, given our love affair with leaders, remains counterintuitive. But here’s my favorite recent example. In an item that hit the front page of the New York Times, but that nevertheless remained under the radar, it was reported that an all-important decision rendered by the Supreme Court a couple of weeks ago was based on a factual flaw.

The Court had ruled that the death penalty for raping a child was unconstitutional. In reaching this decision, the Court relied on an inventory which seemed to reveal that only six states currently permitted capital punishment for child rapists, while the other thirty states that had the death penalty did not permit it to be used in these kinds of criminal cases. The Court further took into account the various jurisdictions of the federal government, finding that none extended the death penalty to child rapists.

According to the Times, this inventory was a “central part of the court’s analysis” and “the foundation for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s conclusion in his majority opinion that capital punishment for child rape was contrary to the ‘evolving standards of decency’ by which the court judges how the death penalty is applied.”

There was just one small problem – the Court was wrong. Justice Kennedy’s assertion about the absence of any federal law applying to cases of child rape was misplaced. In fact, as a military law blog pointed out, Congress had revised the Uniform Code of Military Justice as recently as 2006 to add child rape to the military death penalty. Who was the blogger who publicly humiliated and indeed bested the justices of the Supreme Court? He was Dwight Sullivan, a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, who now works for the Air Force on death penalty cases.

Here’s my point. No doubt that Colonel Sullivan is a man of great distinction. But, whatever his accomplishments, he does not rate right up there alongside the nine men and women who have lifelong appointments to the highest court in the land. Did his lesser status stop him? Did it deny him access or preclude him from taking on arguably the most august leaders in the land? Not on your life. Not in this day and age. Sullivan posted his blog – and in the process gave the Court one of its worst black eyes ever.

See original here, by Barbara Kellerman @ Harvard Business Publishing

Too often I hear the word “leader” misused. It’s a sad fact that many business professionals don’t see themselves as leaders, mainly because “leader” is a term typically linked to people in positions of formal authority. This is a fallacy that undermines performance, in all aspects of life.

Someone said to me recently, “I don’t see myself as a leader. I do not feel comfortable embracing that label. I feel like it isn’t something I have earned.” This is a dangerous point of view – and it’s certainly inconsistent with what our new president called for in his inaugural address! All of us must lead if we are to create sustainable change and make our world better.

If, for whatever reason, you don’t think you’re a leader, then give me a minute or two to offer a couple of observations that might help you see things a bit differently. Do you know of anyone in a management role who doesn’t know how to mobilize people toward valued goals? Do you know people who have no hierarchical authority but are great at leading others? My guess is that the answer is yes to both these questions.

Leadership is not about position. Nor is it about career stage, gender, or culture, although the way leadership plays out is influenced by these and other factors.

“But I don’t have the talent,” some say. How do you become an effective leader, in a way that fits who you are and who you want to become? There is a clear answer to the irksome question, “You can’t teach leadership, can you?” It’s true, teaching leadership is pretty much impossible. But you can – indeed, I would say you must – learn how to lead. Even people who do think of themselves as leaders still need to practice in order to get better.

Leadership is a performing art, and you can never be too good at it. It’s like sports or music. You cannot be too good at playing the saxophone, for example. Think of your favorite athlete or musician. Was he or she as good at 17 as at 32 years old? Probably not; great performers devote themselves to increasing their capacity to perform. It’s the same with leaders. The best ones commit to learning continually, because they want to make a difference.

You have to choose to be a leader. Easier said than done, but it really is that simple. Becoming a better leader is as much a state of mind as anything else. You can develop your leadership capacity, if you want to, no matter how many people (even if none) are reporting to you as their boss. Is there anyone stopping you? The only person who can do so is the one in the mirror.

Read the whole story here, by Stew Friedman @ Harvard Business Publishing

The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the position of the US Military Academy, the Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense.

One assumption at the core of this blog is that military service—particularly service in the crucible of combat—is exceptionally effective at developing leaders. Why? It’s nurture, not nature.

First, in all services, military leadership qualities are formed in a progressive and sequential series of carefully planned training, educational, and experiential events—far more time-consuming and expensive than similar training in industry or government. Secondly, military leaders tend to hold high levels of responsibility and authority at low levels of our organizations. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, military leadership is based on a concept of duty, service, and self-sacrifice; we take an oath to that effect. We view our obligations to followers as a moral responsibility, defining leadership as placing follower needs before those of the leader, and we teach this value priority to junior leaders. Our leadership extends to caring for the families of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, or marines, especially when service members are deployed. When serving in crisis conditions where leadership influences the physical well being or survival of both the leader and the led—in extremis contexts—transactional sources of motivation (e.g. pay, rewards, or threat of punishment) become insufficient. Why should a person be motivated by rewards when he might not live to enjoy them? Why would a person fear administrative punishment when compliance might lead to injury or death? Soldiers in such circumstances must be led in ways that inspire, rather than require, trust and confidence. When followers have trust and confidence in a charismatic leader, they are transformed into willing, rather than merely compliant, agents. In the lingo of leadership theorists, such influence is termed transformational leadership, and it is the dominant style of military leaders.

Contrast the military leader value set reflecting service to the one that currently exists in some US businesses. Are we likely to see business leaders placing the well-being of their shareholders and employees above their own? Yesterday, February 4, 2009, in a swift response to public outrage, the Obama administration imposed a cap of $500,000 in pay for top executives at companies that receive large amounts of bailout money from the US Government. From a military perspective, a half million dollars is a generous sum, more than double the compensation of a four star leader in charge of a theater of war. But the quantity of compensation isn’t as relevant as the message to followers that, when times were tough, the leader put his or her personal well being ahead of theirs. Such perceptions of a military leader in combat would render that leader mistrusted and ineffective in the eyes of soldiers forever. Why should business leaders expect anything else on the part of people desperate about the loss of their equity or employment or lifestyles? The current economic environment, partly caused by a crisis of self-service leadership, has created belt-tightening reminiscent of a world war, with budgets slashed, travel funding restricted, training programs cut, personnel layoffs, and other draconian, cash-saving measures in place. CEOs have to start leading like generals—even if that means living a lifestyle in common with their troops.

The best leadership—whether in peacetime or war—is borne as a conscientious obligation to serve. In many business environs it is difficult to inculcate a value set that makes leaders servants to their followers. In contrast, leaders who have operated in the crucibles common to military and other dangerous public service occupations tend to hold such values. Tie selflessness with the adaptive capacity, innovation, and flexibility demanded by dangerous contexts, and one can see the value of military leadership as a model for leaders in the private sector.

In your own development as a leader, have you found value in putting other people first? Did it seem out of place in competitive, results-oriented businesses? Did it powerfully influence people, or did it merely suggest weakness? And have you had role models in business who you see as effective because of their servant leader orientation?

Selected Comments:

“The question is, how do we shift the values and norms of business culture generally to reflect more the selfless, integrity-based values of military leadership, while at the same time finding ways to reward innovation, critical creative thinking, and courage, that will build business and the economy?” — Jeff Kehoe

“I can’t agree more that the military prepares people for management in industry. Most business schools attempt to put students in situations where they’re forced to be leaders. In my own experience, this was easy after serving in Iraq as a team leader…Combat leadership also has the effect of making everything not stressful in comparison with war.” — GJA

“Circumstances make the leaders. The situation in the battlefields and crucibles of conflict forces the military leaders to behave in a way which is best for their survival and performance, but it is doubtful that when circumstances are changed, the same leaders will behave the same way.” — Atul Kumar Gupta

Read the original post here, by Frontline Leadership @ Harvard Business Publishing

Once a year, I chair a future enterprise leader development program at a Fortune 500 firm. It includes elements on strategy, innovation, leadership, decision-making, corporate diplomacy, and executive presence. The most powerful element is a one-week module on enterprise perspective, the core of which is presentations by virtually all of company’s senior executive team. It’s all about leaders teaching leaders.

The program highlights the critical role that senior leaders play, in the best companies, in teaching the next generation. It’s become an acid test for me of company greatness: if your senior leadership isn’t investing a significant amount of their own time in educating high-potentials, that doesn’t bode well for your business.

The single most impressive aspect of the presentations I listened to was the common core of values and priorities shared by the team. While they run far-flung parts of the business, there was tremendous coherence in what they said about what’s really important. The driving theme was that great performance is a direct consequence of having great people and a great culture. This was certainly the case during the recession, when the company moved nimbly and effectively. Needed restructuring was done, but in the most humane way possible. And while pay cuts were necessary, the top team took the biggest reductions on a percentage basis. This attention to preserving the culture left the company well positioned to accelerate out the other side.

Beyond the impressive commonality of purpose and values, the executives individually articulated aspects of their shared leadership philosophy that deserve to be highlighted. Here are some excerpts:

“There may be many opinions, but only one set of facts.” This reflects the reality that fact-based management (and continuous improvement) is core to how the company does business. If you get mired down in divergent opinions, seek the truth.

“You have two ears and just one mouth for a reason.” Executives in this business are serious about listening and assessing before they act. Even at the most senior levels, executives are very careful not to become deaf to beliefs that run counter to their own, and are genuinely committed to life-long learning.

“I don’t let people delegate upward.” The executive who said this was careful to note that his people could of course come to him for advice, but he never let them offload problems that were within their capabilities to solve.

“I manage between the white lines.” By this, the executive meant that he gave his people the scope to do things their way, so long the results were not likely to drive the business off the road. It reflects an understanding of the need to balance judicious risk management with empowerment and innovation.

“What’s the worst thing that could happen if the worst thing happened?” Finally, this quote reflects the attention that the team gives to anticipating potential “surprises” and developing contingency plans. While real surprises happen, this business is unlikely to get sideswiped by a predictable surprise.

I plan to pick up some of these themes and develop them in more detail in future posts.

Read the original here, by Michael Watkins @ Harvard Business Publishing

This is a fascinating corporate escape story from Fast Company.

Cynthia Warner was the head of global refining for British Petroleum and a 28-year oil industry veteran. She left BP in 2008 to become president of Sapphire Energy, a company working  to produce renewable “green crude” from algae grown in open pools in the New Mexico desert.

Read Cynthia Warner’s career change story.

View original post here: Escape from Corporate

After his slicing, dicing, and grilling by Congress, BP’s CEO Tony Hayward has been relieved of some of his duties, with responsibilities for managing the company’s PR response shifting to chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg. This is just two days after BP’s public relations debacle descended into class farce when Svanberg, a wealthy Swede, stated that, “We care about the small people. I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies, or greedy companies, don’t care. But that is not case in BP. We care about the small people.”

Can Swanberg up BP’s PR game? I’m doubtful. Granted he’s not a native speaker of English, and “small” probably is not what he meant to convey. But consider the power of just two words, “small people,” when spoken by a leader in the wrong context. As I listened to this, all I could think about was William Shatner’s rendition of Pulp’s “Common People,” the story of a rich young woman of questionable judgment who decided she wanted to experience life on the other side of the class divide:

“I want to live like common people,
I want to do whatever common people do,
I want to sleep with common people,
like you.”
(full lyrics)

Making this connection made me realize that we’ve moved beyond anger at the BP to outright contempt at just how out of touch with reality the company’s leadership seems to be.
Think about what a difference it would have had if Svanberg left out the word “small”: “We care about the people.” And we won’t cut him slack because throughout this crisis, BP leaders have been so remarkably clumsy in their use of language, and it has cost the company very dearly. Consider the following statements by Tony Hayward:

“What the hell did we do to deserve this?” This comes across as remarkably narcissistic and self-pitying. Suppose instead Hayward had said. “This is a terrible thing, not just for the many people in the Gulf whose livelihoods are threatened, but also for the many fine people at BP…”

“I’d like my life back.” Suppose instead he had said, “At at time when people in the Gulf are suffering, I’ve giving this my all. Like many other people at BP, I’m paying a price with my family, but it’s what I need to do…”

“I’m not a politician.” A not-so-subtle put-down of the very people who are going to call BP to account. Simultaneously an admission of incompetence, because every CEO, and especially those who lead global companies extracting resources, needs to have tremendous political savvy.

“I’m a Brit so sticks and stones can hurt your bones, but words never break them.” All that’s missing here was “nyah, nyah.” Plumbing new depths of tone-deafness, Hayward again comes across as self-pitying, while at the same time insinuating that anti-British bias is driving American reaction and not the millions of gallons of oil fouling the Gulf, while at the same time evoking upper class British snobbery: a trifecta.

Given just how out of touch the senior leadership of BP is, perhaps it is time for them to live like common people.

Read the original post here, by Michael Watkins @ Harvard Business Publishing