Category: Leadership

Tiger Woods theme launches ‘Heroes” blog

Talk about a fresh voice from the academy. Two professors, social psychologists George R. Goethals and Scott Allison, introduced Hereos: Who They Are, Why We Need Them, a blog tied to their forthcoming book of the same title.  In the book and in the blog they reportedly will explore “the psychology of herorism, shedding light on wht heroism and villainy mean to most people and why heroes are so vital to our lives.”

They had timing on their side and published opening commentary on Tiger Woods. Check it out:

Tiger Woods' news conference today revealed that he is a long way from completing his journey toward healing himself and his personal life.  There was a searing honesty in Tiger's words that suggest a genuine desire to repair his personal life, even at the cost of his golf career achievements.  Tiger would not say when he would return to the golf course, and at age 34, the clock is ticking on his quest to eclipse Jack Nicklaus's records.

When will Tiger Woods play golf again?  From his words at the new conference today, the question is almost irrelevant.  He devoted 99% of his words to what he's doing to improve himself as a person, as a husband, and as a father.  Clearly, his career comes second.  Tiger spoke more about returning to his Buddhist roots than returning to Pebble Beach.  His contrition was powerful and his priorities are now clear and in the right place.

As human beings every bit as flawed as Tiger, we applaud the great humility he showed at today's news conference, and we wish him well on his emotional and spiritual journey.  As golf fans, we can be patient for his return.  First things first.

We suspect that Tiger is in the midst of completing a 12-step program, and if so, we give him great credit for embracing a highly proven way of undertaking personal growth.  What are the clues that give away his program?  He admitted he had a problem (Step 1).  He cited the tenets of Buddhism as a path toward healing (Steps 2 & 3).  He admitted his wrongdoings and what he is doing to correct them (Steps 4-7).  He acknowledged who has has hurt and how he will make things right (Steps 8 & 9).  He then alluded to what he needs to do to remain a good person and to help others as well (Steps 10-12).

If there is one thing we learned today, it is that Tiger Woods is just as hungry to achieve the same success off the golf course as he has achieved on the golf course.   How many world-class athletes put their careers on hold until they get their personal houses in order?  Very few if any.  If Tiger fulfills his personal goals with the same relentless drive that he's shown with his professional goals, we'll be witness to a remarkable transformation. We wish him well.

Questions about Obama’s meeting today with the Dalai Lama

Today's meeting of Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama will be framed by most commentators as a political event.  Indeed, the symbolic impact upon U.S.-China relations of the American president's outreach to the Tibetan spiritual leader is well documented.  Also fascinating and vital, however, is the moral dimension of this encounter of these two leaders.  After all, this is the meeting of two Nobel Peace Prize laureates. 

A tension remains between the views of peace-and-conflict espoused by the Dalai Lama (the 1989 recipient) and the complex perspective offered by Barack Obama in his December 2009 Nobel address.  Obama's view on the particular obligations of a political leader€”who may need to declare war to defend a just cause€”led Obama to distance himself, in the presidential role, from the strategies of a movement leader like Martin Luther King, Jr.  The Dalai Lama is neither a political leader nor a social movement leader, though he is in some ways both of these.  Will he make any public comments on Obama's leadership?  What will Obama say about the Dalai Lama's vision and values?  These are the key moral and even perhaps spiritual questions at stake in the meeting.

Leadership scholar Ciulla on Sarah Palin, competence and charisma

In the Washington Post’s blog “On Leadership,” Jepson School of Leadership Studies Professor Joanne B. Ciulla writes about Sarah Palin and “The genius and pitfalls of charisma.” The posting is cited here:

“In response to the On Leadership question: As Sarah Palin goes about laying the foundation for a possible presidential candidacy, what could she do to burnish her leadership credentials beyond her conservative base?

A leaders’ credibility depends on how well he or she fills follower’s expectations in a variety of contexts. Presidents lead in settings ranging from town hall meetings to cabinet meetings. Each context requires them to possess the appropriate personal affect and relevant information.

At the Republican Convention and the recent Tea Party gathering, Sarah Palin exemplified the qualities that people want their leaders to have in such contexts. She demonstrated a keen sense of the emotional state of the room and effectively united the crowd – mostly by attacking a common enemy. Palin makes her audience feel good about themselves and empowered, but most importantly, she makes them want her as their leader. She does all of this with caustic humor moderated by a down-home charm (that her followers call “authenticity”), and a plain speaking style that conveys the idea that “The truth is simple and I have the truth.” Palin likes to call herself a “maverick,” but her leadership style has the hallmarks of a charismatic leader.

In the context of rallying the troops and preaching to the converted, she has plenty of leadership “cred.” The media coverage she gets adds to that credibility in the eyes of followers. Pundits of every stripe speculate about whether Palin will run for president. This gives the impression that they regard her as a credible leader.

The question is, what happens when Palin finds herself in contexts where people expect leaders to be knowledgeable about the issues and propose solutions to the nation’s problems? How does she expand her base?

The obvious answer is to hire consultants, crank up the conservative think tanks, and create the Palin platform. Palin says that she has been studying up on the issues. If she runs, she probably will hire policy wonks, but how much will she study?

As Max Weber observed, charismatic leaders play by their own rules. They do not recognize or value competence, and they see their authority residing outside of the realm of every day concerns. Charismatic leaders get into trouble when they become overconfident in the power of their emotional appeal and personality. If Palin wants leadership “cred” she will have to avoid this trap and remember that being a great cheerleader does not mean that voters will let you play the game.”

Is there a common good?

Living with Relativism: Can We Find a Common Good in a Morally Diverse World” was the topic of the most recent Jepson Leadership Forum talk by philosopher Jesse Prinz.

Throughout the historical and anthropological record, we find striking examples of moral variation. The evidence suggests that human societies do not revolve around a shared stock of values, but rather vary on almost every imaginable dimension. Such variation has led to insights into the origins of morality, and it has helped researchers in psychology and neuroscience recognize that moral values have a basis in emotion rather than pure reason. Variation also poses a practical challenge. Societies are increasingly pluralistic, and international relations often bring together nations with opposing perspectives. We praise mutual respect, but the very psychological factors that underlie moral variation also tend to promote a degree of moral absolutism, and we see our moral adversaries as deplorably confused. We must find ways to cope with this predicament. Ironically, the search for a common good may begin with the recognition that, in some sense, there is no common good.
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It’s time to move beyond talk to action on race and reconciliation in Richmond, alumnus says

The always thoughtful Jonathan Zur, president and CEO of the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, was part of a long piece in Sunday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch about Richmond, race and reconciliation. (University President Ed Ayers was also among the thought leaders discussing Richmond’s slave-trading history.)

The 2003 Jepson School of Leadership Studies alumnus Zur articulated an action-oriented approach to dealing with Richmond’s past. He told the Richmond Times-Dispatch: “We’ve had a lot of dialogues for the dialogue. … Let’s look at our education system. Let’s look at our housing. Let’s look at our city-county structure. Let’s think about who benefits from things being the way they are, who’s invested in things being created the way they are and staying there. And so the work then is critically looking at these structures and institutions that have been governing our way of life for so long, and perhaps making changes where changes need to be made.”

“People have very different lived experiences in metro Richmond,” said Zur, who grew up in New Jersey. “And so the conversation is why and how. And the action is, ‘What do we do to change that so there is an equitable lived experience?” The article

Obama’s Moral Challenge in Haiti

Barack Obama began his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech last month by addressing both U.S. citizens and citizens of the world.  He hence signaled his goal of balancing U.S. self-interest€”a necessary thing for the president to pursue€”with a global humanitarian perspective.  As if he needed another degree of difficulty at his one-year mark of leadership, Obama now must apply his national-and-global vision to the Haitian tragedy. 

If he does not respond generously, America will be seen as overly insular and even inhumane.  And, if he does not respond competently and quickly, he will look as incapable as George W. Bush did as Americans watched New Orleanians languish, unaided, in Katrina's wake.  But if Obama is too generous, he will catch the ire of those focused on America's economic woes at home.  The Tea Partiers will join this group, but so too will the unemployed and many who fear the effects of mounting national debt.  Haiti is terribly unfortunate, they say, but there is suffering in the U.S., too€”so Obama shouldn't spend YOUR money on THEIR problems.
 
So, as Obama did in Oslo last month regarding war and peace, he should now do for disaster recovery:  He must lay out a moral case that transcends but does not overlook national interest.

To do this, Obama must debunk the U.S.-or-Haiti false dichotomy.  He has already taken steps in this direction.  He has highlighted the bridge-figures, Haitian Americans, who complicate drawing any simple border.  He named a complicated and long history between the two nations.  And he has played the geography card, not out of national interest€”as in no beachhead for instability in this hemisphere€”but rather as a moral call to be good neighbors.  

The next part of Obama's challenge is to place the United States as the leader in creating, almost from nothing, a well-coordinated public, private, and nonprofit network to provide aid and rebuild Port-au-Prince.  Without a system that controls things such as traffic flows, water and sanitation flows, and medical care, all of the volunteers in the world will only trip over each other.  Continue reading Obama’s Moral Challenge in Haiti

Reflections on the President’s first year in office

Has Obama lived up to or deviated from his election promises and themes? 

I think any analysis of Obama’s presidency has to be situated within the context of the American political system, which is designed to frustrate change. In particular, the super-majority requirement in the Senate gives disproportionate voice to smaller, rural states, and disproportionate power to individual Senators who can be the swing votes on key bills (such as Joe Lieberman).  In response, Obama’s approach, particularly on health care, has generally been to shoot for what can get sufficient votes to pass, without drawing many clear lines in the sand.

The resulting health care bill (the Senate version especially) is a compromise of a compromise of a compromise. Passing it would be a historical achievement in terms of increasing access and supporting the principle that everyone should be covered, but in my judgment would not do a great deal to contain costs or expand the choices most people have. In effect it is a federal subsidy to the health insurance industry to allow them to cover more people.

The question is whether there might have been some other strategic approach Obama could have taken that would have produced a more satisfying result, in terms of achieving the kinds of things Obama talked about the campaign. That is difficult to say. An alternative approach might have involved Obama taking a much more hands-on role in crafting legislation (on health care, but also on other key bills such as the stimulus package and climate legislation), and making it very clear that these bills needed to meet certain minimum requirements to get his approval. This would have been a riskier route to take. But Obama would be perceived as more of a fighter than a compromiser if he had gone this route. That probably would make him more popular with the liberal base, at the risk of increasing negatives with conservatives further.

Apart from this, the major crisis for Obama’s presidency in my estimation is the slow economic recovery and the unemployment rate. It’s inconceivable to me that any incumbent party could retain office with unemployment remaining at 10% for a prolonged period. If it stays at 10%, the Democrats almost certainly will have big losses in the midterm elections which would constrain Obama’s ability to achieve his legislative goals the rest of the first term. And if Obama himself wants to get re-elected, recovery has to be full-swing and the unemployment rate substantially lower by fall of 2011. (An interesting precedent in this regard is Reagan, who might have been beatable during the recession year of 1982 but by 1984 was a strong favorite for re-election because the economy had notably improved.) 

The current unemployment rate is a national crisis, yet there seems to be no plan from Obama or the Democrats to accelerate job creation. Nor is there political will to pass another stimulus package of real substance. Here I worry Obama may pay the price for not taking a more hands-on approach to the design of the original stimulus package to ensure it maximized direct job creation, and for not being bolder in asking for a bigger stimulus at a time when he had enough political capital to do almost anything.

The war in Afghanistan is obviously another major issue. To the average  person, the strategy that has been laid out does not seem very persuasive, and the case for why a large presence in Afghanistan directly affects our security is unclear. The American public cares more about airport security than what is going on in Afghanistan. At this point, the cost Obama has had to pay for pursuing a fairly unpopular war is not too high, but we know from histories that prolonged military engagements almost always get less popular with democratic publics as years go by. But for a non-military expert like myself, it looks like Obama is staking quite a lot on the hope that we can produce a dramatically better situation in Afghanistan in a short amount of time.

A big question for business leaders in the New Year

You can count on The Washington Post’s blog On Leadership for wide ranging responses from its huge panel of experts who address provocative questions.

First up for the New Year was this one: “This has been a tough year for many organizations, wtih fewer employees required to do more with less. 2010 looks to be more of the same. How can leaders iof such organizations motivate their people as they head into 2010?”

One answer, from Jepson’s Joanne B. Ciulla: Try a little gratitude. She writes, “I am not talking about a simple thank you. Gratitude is not easy nor does it come cheap. It is the acknowledgment of indebtedness to someone. As the philosopher Robert C. Solomon notes, gratitude requires humility because it is an admission of being vulnerable and dependent. Both employers and employees need each other and should, at a minimum, be grateful to have their businesses and jobs. People who feel gratitude tend to be happier because they celebrate what they have rather than lament what they lack.

“So, employers might want to start off the year with heartfelt gratitude. This not only means that they should express their appreciation and debt to employees, but that they promise to make good on that debt when business improves.” More

Nominate deserving people for Better Housing Coalition leadership awards by Jan. 15

The Jepson School of Leadership Studies is partnering with the Better Housing Coalition to honor people whose leadership inspires change in the Greater Richmond community.

With a 20-plus year track record in community development, the Better Housing Coalition has demonstrated that long-term revitalization takes leadership and group efforts. In tribute to the leadership process and as a nod to leaders whose efforts are changing lives and communities, the coalition introduced an awards program in 2009 that showcases collaboration and vision.

"Our awards honor people in Greater Richmond who approach community problem solving in a systemic way," said T.K. Somanath, President/ CEO of the Better Housing Coalition.  "We look for people who have long-term goals and approaches."  Added board chair Lissy Bryan, "This work is a marathon not a sprint,"

Four awards will be presented. To nominate If you have questions, contact Dr. Kerstin Soderlund, associate dean for student and external affairs, at 287-6082 or ksoderlu@richmond.edu.