Leadership is a difficult to define quality. Often it is described in terms of what it is not, or in the sense that “you know it when you see it.” Time Magazine gives a good description of a leader who challenged Morgan Stanley Executives to participate and allow fire drills [click on the Link to 29 May 2008 Time Article "How to Survive a Disaster"]. Rick Rescorla pushed the high-powered bankers on the 73rd floor to run drills down stairs to the 40th floor. He timed them and made them run the stairs two at a time when they weren’t moving fast enough. Those forced practices sessions are credited with saving the lives of 2,687 Morgan Stanley employees and over 250 of their customers. Today, Morgan Stanley employees ask “when is the next drill”. Leaders know when to do even unpopular things because they are the right things to do.
The U.S. Secretary of Defense is taking his leadership challenge seriously. He just asked for the resignation of the Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Ralph Peters posted an opinion published in the New York Post titled “Gates the Great“that highlights some of the concerns that may have ultimately forced the two highest Air Force leaders to quit.
There are dozens more stories of leaders and their talent for taking on the difficult missions, seeing them through, and then letting others reap the benefits of their decisions. The leaders we look up to make us feel better even if we didn’t really want to change our ways. We see that things really are better now.
When we give leaders a chance, they can help bring us all to a better place.
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