JOINT MEETING WITH PLANNING COMMISSION 03272017

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It is easy to become confused, and fearful, when huge daunting uncertainties loom in front of us and our organizations. And in such times, a leader who is clear about purpose, direction, and values provides a sense of steadiness that is essential to people. Vaclav Havel, the oft imprisoned dissident and poet, who led Czechoslovakia through a peaceful revolution to independence in 1989, and later served as his country’s president, said that in the course of that “velvet revolution” he realized that people needed him to be present, not because there was anything only he could do, but rather that he had come to represent to them a presence that allowed them to “take action without being confused.” When we lead with a focus on what matters no matter what, people are more able to “take action without being confused.” Provide honest talk about current reality. Martin Luther King, in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” provides us a powerful model of the capacity for tough honest talk about current reality---while still holding a clear vision of the dream, of the “no matter what,” He repeats the cadence of “and today in Birmingham, Alabama.” I have a dream, and today in Birmingham, Alabama…..” And the honest talk about current reality needs to be about all the dimensions of current reality: the facts and the feelings, the finances and the fears, the problems and the possibilities. What people most long for is a sense that the organization is committed to seeking the truth, to being grounded and in touch with reality. Yet finding our way through tough times requires what John Gardner, HHS cabinet secretary in the LBJ administration, and Leadership author called a “resilient optimism.” Perhaps a relentless, resilient optimism. Martin Seligman’s research on optimists and pessimists (who often call themselves realists) is that pessimists often have chapter and verse on current difficulties absolutely right, but that optimists get better results and are more satisfied with their lives. Clearly we need both perspectives, within us, and around us. But it is a resilient optimism, an unquenchable sense of the possibilities that creates the energy and drive to find the yet unseen path through tough times. Shackleton was renowned among his men for the ability see what was true and to take effective action, yet never to lose his essential optimism about what was possible for his people. My friend Peter Vaill, years back coined the phrase “leading in permanent white water”, the wisdom of which is to know that it’s not ever going to “settle down”, go back to “normal.” And Peter says that in the conditions of “permanent white water” there are three essential leadership work habits. And they are number’s 4,5,6 that follow on my list.