Leadershp: A Personal Jownev

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Tom Brown

t’s midday in Florida; I sit bed- I side, about to speak to my wife. My body slams backward writhng as if epileptic. An arachnoidal cyst, fist-size, is spreading between skull and brain. After 27 years, the con- genital cyst threatens to squeeze my brain, my life. It’s removed: noncancerous.

The hospital is a blur, but difficult days of recovery etch deep. Years in academe seem fruitless. Over-rested, I pine for subjects I might have studied, paths I might have taken. A friend brings “different” books; convalescing, I first read about managing and leading.

In the 20 years since then I have been immersed in studying, teach- ing, speaking, and writing about managerial leadership. I’ve talked with thousands of managers, exec- utives, and academics-includmg a

few of those whose books have shaped my opinions and those of many others. But only recently do I think I’ve come to understand leadership. That understanding, based on my own experience, has led me to some surprising conclu- sions, but I suspect others have had s i d a r inklings.

Fall 1980. I lead man- agement development for Honeywell Aero- space in Minneapolis, a well-paid if intimi- dating corporate job. Countless managers lament that someone else commands and

controls their destiny; leadership comes only with rank, I’m told. The attitude must be contagious. A blizzard hits; W C C O broadcasts whether to try driving through deep snow. “For those of you at Honeywell,” the announcer drones, “only essential employees need to report.” I think, “Am I essential? Should I go?” I can’t answer and

stay home. When back a t work, everyone laughs and admits asking the same question.

Summer 1988. I’m ex-Honeywell, now in dozens of corporations, speaking and writing widely about managerial leadership. The search for “Camelot, Inc.”-where quality of work, quality of work life, and quality of management synergize proves elusive. Companies boost profits; people in them, even man- agers, report feeling powerless. Downsizing and reengineering loom; mindless bds seem to lead the corporate world. Who, really, is in charge? Studying leadership seems like a board game: “Takes minutes to learn; a lifetime to master.”

Spring 1993. Inside a $20 billion telecommunications giant to dis- cuss leadershp. Two early-arriving managers sip coffee. Arms flap- ping, one manager points to a headhe: Radio Shack Expanhng! “We were just thinlung,” one vol- unteers, “how easy it would be to get the few thousand dollars re- quired to open up a new fran- chise.”They rejoice at the. prospect of quitting. “Then we’d actually be in business!” Their words disturb me. How can corporations survive when those assigned to lead think only of-escape?

Summer 1994. Many companies later, I can’t forget my Ram0 Shack

Suirlrrier 1098 7

wannabes. I invent a silly game to challenge seminar participants: Suppose your company is like the Space Shuttle, with two full tanks required to launch the corporate future. One tank is ‘‘management fuel,” the other “leadership fuel.” How much, in percentage of ca- pacity, is in each tank right now? In most cases people say their companies are brimming with at

Chaplin, the workplace is inimical to workers. I gasp, “People today feel just like The Tramp! Still!” I mull. “That can’t be right. Workers today, with participative management, must feel better.” Unconvinced, I harbor uneasy feelings that, were Chaplin alive, he’d make much the same film again. Modern Times 1995? The Tramp with voice mail? Profit sharing?

How can corporations survive when their leaders think only of escape?

least 80 percent management fuel (sometimes gushing over 100 per- cent!); there’s seldom more than a third of the necessary leadership fuel. Given their stature, I push back at those in attendance: “Look a t the hel, the energy, in t h s room ! What’s keeping you ti-om leading?” One European shakes h s head and barks,“How can we lead when we are so busy being managed?”

Fall 1994. One Saturday night I rent Charlie Chaplin’s Modem Times, &om 1936.“The Tmp”works in a huge manufacturing business where an aloof, hostile management bru- talizes workers, whose ideas and opinions are neither solicited nor valued-whose presence is dwarfed by the machinery they operate. To

Spring 1995. I’m in the cubbyhole office-at-home in which Califor- nian Scott Adams produces those irreverent “Dilbert” cartoons. His fame is not yet at zenith; million- seller books, ties, and mugs are months away. Adams tells me that “lots of employees want to be cre- ative and have control” but orga- nizations don’t want too many leaders; organizations prefer a few bright people atop “competent fol- lowers.” He adds, “You’ve got the employees feeling like they’re being stuffed into cubicles by managers who don’t respect their ideas. O n the other hand, you have managers who come to work each day say- ing, ‘My God, how do I get people to do what needs to be done, to do things that really add value to the

company rather than spending their whole day surfing the Inter- net?’” Is Dilbert “The Tramp” of the 199Os? Is that Charlie Chaplin, his tie bending outward?

Summer 2996. “Cheerio” first aired on radlo in 1925. I’ve always prized the 1940 compendium of daily quotes, poems, and thoughts from the show; but Cheerio’s Book of Days, long out-of-print, i s just a used-bookstore treasure. Each Cheerio day optimistically extols earnest labor to improve self and society simultaneously. Each page glows with intellectual fire. Where are the leaders who ignite people’s imaginations, who are catalysts to make great things happen? I reread a few lines from Angela Morgan’s long-forgotten poem, “Work”:

Work! Thank God for the swing o f i t , For the clamoring, hammering

Passion o f labor daily hurled On the mtqhty anvils ofthc world. Oh, what is sojiercc as thesflame

And what is so huge as the

ring o f it,

o f it?

aim ofit?

I have a hard time imagining those lines being written today.

Spring 1997. I take aim to define “leadership” for myself: it’s nothing if not about human enterprise, the

8 Leader to Leader

astounlng intersection of human- ity and the physical world. I begin writing o d n e . The Internet, a new frontier, demands an “e-book” ex- perimental in both content and style; biweekly, a new “chaplet”

uniting people toward progress is infinitely more significant than manipulating material assets. Fur- thermore, I now believe that every failure of place (store, factory, com- munity, government, nation) is pre-

Every failure of place is preceded by a failure of ideas.

invites readers to respond. Mac Thornton, friend and cyberartist, creates provocative artwork as counterpoint. Washington, Texas, Indonesia, Greece: reader responses roll in.

Two decades after my first readmg about management and leadership when disabled and disaffected, I modestly offer my own book. “A new century aching for leader- ship?”Trite. It’s the character of the leader that’s always unique; the lead- ershlp journey is first and foremost an intensely personal one. I now believe it is impossible to define leadership without linking to one’s own life; the most important “Lost and Found Department” is inside.

It’s clear to me that leadership is more about the creation of new ideas than about extravagant per- sonal wealth or raw power, that cracking a calcified status quo and

ceded by a fdure of ideas. Societies tomorrow, especially those rooted in democratic capitalism, wiIl crit- ically rely on leaders to:

Explore new ideas rather than exploit old ones.

Rally people to important causes rather than rule them with an iron grip.

Find resources to quicken bold ideas into reahty rather than enumerate why innovation can’t succeed.

Acfueve “impossibilities” with resolve rather than comply with outdated truths.

Make contributions to society rather than extract egregious wealth or power.

Fall 1997. A review praises Phe- nomenon, starring John Travolta. He plays an ordinary guy who, struck by a beam of light, can per-

form extraordinary feats. People are unsure how or why it’s possi- ble; his achievements bestir fear and admiration. The “sleeper” film is really about human potential. But Travolta’s .character wasn’t light-struck; a tumor manipulated his &ail brain awarlng him, tem- porarily, newfound capabilities. At film’s end, he l e s fiom the tumor.

Fortunately, one needn’t be struck by lightning-or suffer a brain tu- mor-to begin to question the limits that people and orgamzations seem to impose on themselves. The phenomenon of leadership occurs when people who are altogether orlnary can, together, achleve the extraordmary. And true leaders ig- nite the capacity to achieve, and to lead, in others. To probe leadershp is to study the anatomy of fire.

Sunliner 1998 Y