Leadership wisdom is something that accrues with age and experience. And so it is no wonder that Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook is struggling with large issues. He's still in his twenties.

Wisdom for leaders is not simply a matter of chronology. You have to be paying attention. Warren Bennis, author and former university president, once said that most successful leaders he knows had experienced some moment of great adversity from which they learned. For Bennis, as he wrote in the Harvard Business Review in 2002, a significant personal test of his leadership occurred as a young second lieutenant during the Battle of the Bulge in the Second World War. As a replacement officer he learned to delegate to the sergeant.

Learning from adversity is critical to leadership. Being tested, however, is not an indication of learning. We have seen executives bounce from one organization to another, crisis to crisis, acting the same ways as before and with the same results. Failure. Such executives are the types who are ready to blame others for their mistakes rather than assume responsibility for their own actions. It seems they have learned nothing.

Self awareness is essential to wisdom. Knowing what you do well is one thing, but knowing what you cannot do is sometimes more important. Anne Mulcahy, former CEO of Xerox, learned this the hard way. When she became CEO of Xerox, she knew little about finance. This was a problem since the financial community was urging her to break up the company, something Mulcahy was reluctant to do because as a Xerox lifer she believed the company's culture and people if properly led would survive. In order to make her case she had herself tutored in finance but also leveraged her communication skills to rally the company toward a renewed sense of purpose. The company did downsize but it was not sold piecemeal and it eventually it survived, as Mulcahy thought it would.

There is another issue facing Zuckerberg at Facebook. No doubt he is a talented entrepreneur, but the skills need to build a business are the not the same as those needed to run it. Sergei Brin and Larry Page learned this early on and brought on a skilled manager, Eric Schmidt. One entrepreneur I know possesses strong visionary abilities but prefers to surround himself with executives with strong operational skills. It's a combination that has helped his company prosper.

Good leaders know their strengths and play to them, but they also know their weaknesses. They surround themselves with capable executives who have the skills they lack. This allows the leader to focus on what he or she does best and in the process lead more capably.

Youth does not preclude effective leadership. Our military is led from the front by a very capable core of junior officers. These officers are supported by equally youthful noncommissioned officers. Both may lack the wisdom of years but they make up for it with experience as well as a focus on mission. These men and women have learned to lead through their people, not over them, and in doing so they provide a strong leadership example for the rest of us. We also see examples of selfless leadership in youth in the Peace Corps and City Year programs.

"Life," wrote Soren Kierkegaard. "can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward." Same holds for leadership. Lead going forward but pay attention to where you have been.

First posted WashingtonPost.com/On Leadership 6.08.10

When you make a mistake, it's best to own up to it sooner than later.

And that is exactly what umpire Jim Joyce did when he returned to the clubhouse and watched the replay of his disputed call at first base for what would have been, and should have been, the 27th and final out of the game between the Detroit Tigers and the Cleveland Indians. "It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the (stuff) out of it," Joyce said. "I just cost that kid [Tiger pitcher Armando Galarraga] a perfect game."

Later Joyce went to the Tiger clubhouse and asked to speak to Galarraga. He apologized and gave him a hug. Galarraga was accepting, "He feels really bad, probably worse than me. I give a lot of credit to that guy, to say he's sorry," Galarraga said. "Nobody's perfect."

Perfect games are rare in major league baseball; only twenty have been recorded, curiously two in the past month, but they are infrequent. Perfect games, or even no hitters, have been lost in the late innings countless times, even in the final inning, but not that I can recall has a perfect game been lost due to an umpire's missed call.

What Joyce did will live on in the record books as the perfect game that never was. And it's fair to the pitcher, but what Joyce did was not malicious. He made a call he thought was correct. And while he will be jeered in games to come, let's hope he comes to terms with it. Had he done it on purpose, it would have been fraud. Doing it honestly proved he was human. And acknowledging his error so promptly proved that he may be a better man than an umpire.

The man who was robbed of his place in history, Galarraga, took the blown call in stride. He went back to the mound and promptly got the next batter to ground out to an infielder for the "second" final out. Galarraga got the win and a hug from his catcher but his name will not be in the record books as the owner of a "perfecto." His acceptance of the umpire's apology, however, proves that he too might be a better man than a ballplayer.
Those who hold authority over others would do well to remember this story. When you screw up, admit it. Don't try and bull your way through by pretending nothing happened. Owe up to the mistake and find a way to make amends.

Baseball fans like to say that baseball is like life, only more so. What "more so" means was never more evident than in game where one man, an umpire, proved he was subject to human frailty and another man, a wronged pitcher, accepted that frailty as part of the game. Only it was more than a game that night; it was a moment of grace that should be remembered.


Posted FastCompany.com 6.03.10

Leaders may choose their friends, but they do not control those friends. And so when those friends make trouble, a leader's first responsibility is not to a friend, but to the organization he leads.

This point is even more operative in the case of allies, be it a country or a company. "Nations do not mistrust each other because they are armed," said Ronald Reagan. "They are armed because they mistrust each other." Allies come together for mutual interest; they are not friends per se; they do things for one another not because they like or even respect the other but because it is in their best interest. Countries get together for trade or protection; companies come together to share technology or even customer knowledge. Allies trust each other so far as mutual interest makes it viable.

Friends, on the other hand, trust each other because they respect and like one another. A friend, wrote Aristotle, is "a single soul dwelling in two bodies." Friends watch one another's back because they want to, not necessarily because they have to.

But leaders must approach friendship with caution. David McClelland, the pioneering organizational behavior theorist, argued that leaders had three key needs: achievement, power and affiliation. Of the three, the first two (power and achievement) are paramount; the third (affiliation) is less so. And for good reason: friendship can make decision-making difficult.

Leaders represent a collection of individuals, not individuals per se so they must do what the organization needs them to do, not necessary what a friend needs. Case in point is a promotion. A leader may be tempted to put a trusted associate into a position of authority, but if that person is not qualified to hold the position then the leader is not acting responsibly; he is putting self interest ahead of organizational interest.

With that understanding in place it is easy to make the case that leaders can and should disassociate themselves from friends who make ethical transgressions. If the leader does not reprimand that individual, or disassociate from that person, then the leader's own judgment is called into question. We have plenty of such examples of executives looking the other way during the recent financial crisis. Senior leaders who ignore an ethical issue are themselves subject to blame.

Another issue arises, and it comes from the best intentions. Good leaders want their people to succeed and so when a subordinate makes a mistake, a good leader will want to help correct the problem. This is good practice when the mistakes involve business or organizational issues, but not when the mistakes involve ethics. Failure to discipline the subordinate risks making the leader appear complicity and perhaps culpable.

Leadership is a judgment call. Make the right calls most of the time and you are leading effectively. Do it less frequently and you fail to inspire trust. And when that occurs, your leadership is over.

First posted WashingtonPost.com/On Leadership 6.01.10

Leaders do not always get to choose the issues they will face. Sometimes they need to put out the fire before they can move forward.

Case in point is David Brandon, newly appointed athletic director for the University of Michigan. In February prior to his taking office, Michigan’s vaunted football program was hit with an NCAA investigation into major violations about excessive practice time that occurred under the watch of head coach, Rich Rodriguez. Michigan held a press conference to address how it would respond to the investigation and Brandon announced his support for the controversial coach. He reiterated that support in late May when the school announced its self-imposed sanctions.

Brandon himself is no stranger to managing tough issues. He served as CEO of Domino’s Pizza from 1999 until March 2010. His management philosophy combines operational discipline with stakeholder collaboration. Domino’s prospered under Brandon’s tenure and he was well-liked by employees. Brandon's roots at Michigan run deep; he played football for legendary coach, Bo Schembechler, and in recent years served as a regent for the university.

The biggest problem facing the football program is really not the NCAA violations; it is the rift over Rodriguez. Since Rodriguez has won only eight games in two years, losing twice to arch-rival Ohio State and missing the bowl season for the past two years, many fans dislike him. Yet Rodriguez’s players, and many students, support him. How Brandon has dealt with the controversy is a lesson in leadership.

Own the problem. Brandon did not become the athletic director to become proctor for the football team, but he is realistic. As he told the media after announcing self-imposed sanctions, there is nothing good about the words investigation and probation. Regarding Michigan’s brand, Brandon says, “I don’t think it’s a black-eye, it’s a bruise.” He also said blame for the excessive practice time was a departmental responsibility, not simply a coaching issue. By addressing the problem head on – and with total transparency -- Brandon will ensure that whatever went on prior to his watch has been stopped, new measures to ensure compliance have been implemented, and the program will survive.

Make decision best for the situation. Rodriguez is a polarizing figure: love him or hate him. Brandon as the athletic director has not allowed himself to become embroiled in partisanship. He leads the entire department, not a fan base. How he treats Rodriguez sets the tone for how he will treat other coaches now and in the future. To date he is taking a measured approach, waiting for NCAA investigations into Rodriguez at Michigan as well as his previous coaching job, West Virginia, to be completed. Since neither academic fraud nor paying players to play at Michigan is suspected, Brandon can take the wait and see approach.

Evaluate later. Accountability is essential to leadership. Brandon will hold Rodriguez more responsible than ever before. If Rodriguez’s on field performance does not improve significantly (and Brandon has wisely not assigned the number of games the team must win), he will be gone. Wins and losses at Michigan are not everything as they are at other schools; integrity is paramount. So Rodriguez must demonstrate that not only can he win, he must do so within the rules.

No athletic director wants to deal with problems from the previous administration, but in the case of Brandon failure to address the problem would only have worsened it. In months and years to come, Brandon will have plenty of time to address key priorities such as maintaining academic and fiscal integrity as well as shepherding in a new era of intercollegiate competition, should the Big Ten conference expand into a mega conference with some fourteen or sixteen teams. How Brandon handles the Rodriguez issue may well set the tone for addressing future challenges.

Posted FastCompany.com 6.01.10

My earliest memories of Memorial Day are of the annual parade in my hometown of Perrysburg, Ohio. It was an opportunity for the community to come together to honor the service of its veterans. And I am old enough to remember when the veterans leading the parade were from World War I, marching as erect as their bent frames would allow.

We kids would get to join in the parade at the tail end and ride all the way to the city's main cemetery about a mile from downtown. By the time we arrived, the excitement and noise of the parade had given way to quiet reverence as the gathers listened to a member of the clergy give a benediction and a speaker or two invoked the memory of the fallen. Not being much for speeches at that age, my buddies and I would wander the cemetery looking at the gravestones of veterans from wars past as far back as the Civil War.

This memory was jogged when I heard an interview on NPR's Talk of the Nation with military historian Victor Davis Hanson recalling the times he had visited battlefields or war memorials. He made the point that it was the sacrifice of men (and now women) on such battlefields in wars at home and abroad who made our lives today possible. We know this cognitively but I doubt we know it at the gut level.

Since only a tiny minority of our population has served in the military, for many of us one of the few connections to the military we have, aside from what we see on television, are memorials to those who sacrificed for our cause. Too often these memorials are part of the scenery, not part of our consciousness.

Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of soldiers who serve do come home but few come home unchanged. For so many years we thought that post-traumatic stress syndrome was something only soldiers in Vietnam suffered. Not true. As Dr. Johathan Shay, a staff psychiatrist at a VA hospital in Boston and MacArthur Fellow, has written so eloquently in his books,every soldier in every war since the Trojan War (and before that too) is subject to it. Homer taught us that men cannot experience suffering such as soldiers experience in war and remain unaltered.

One passage about war that I have often quoted comes from Captain Lionel Ferguson, who served in the British Army during the "Great War." Reflecting years after the Armistice, Captain Ferguson wrote: "For the first time in our lives we [veterans] have known the meaning of 'Hunger,' 'Thirst,' 'Dirt,' 'Death' and other privations. We, I think, have all known the meaning of the word 'Fear' as we have never seen it... We who went through it know that those at home never did realize the work that 'The Solider' was asked to do."
Men and women who serve in war do so as a gift to the rest of us.

Most of us will use that gift as a time for a family get-together or an extra day around the house. Nothing wrong in that but let's remember the reason for this day. It is because others -- from the days of Lexington and Concord through Gettysburg, Chateau-Thierry, Guadalcanal, Normandy, the Ia Drang Valley, Baghdad and now Kandahar -- have put their lives on hold, some permanently, for the freedoms we take for granted.

First posted WashingtonPost.com/On Leadership 5.28.10