Bob Perkins Consulting

Leading Leaders: Principle #3

Two vice-presidents of an organization were sitting at lunch talking about the need to find someone to fix a particular mess.  The first vice-president said, “I’m going to give you a name, and I want you to give me your impression.”  He gave the name and the second vice-president said, “Difficult…but top notch.”  The first vice-president hired the candidate because he knew that if he wanted a difficult job done, he would need a top- notch leader – even he was difficult.  The new hire not only cleaned up the mess, but his sector outperformed the rest of the division. He was indeed difficult, but the vice- president was a leader of leaders and could deal with difficult, but top notch people.


Principle #3: Leaders are difficult.  If you are going to lead leaders you are going to lead difficult people.


Marc was one of the most difficult, high maintenance high school kids I ever dealt with.  He challenged me constantly.  I had to justify my rationale for everything we did, and we went head to head over almost every decision.  At that point in my career I already had ten successful years of leadership work in two different areas, but this 16-year-old kid was questioning my every thought.  I tolerated him.  He was difficult, but I tolerated him; and I liked him.  I engaged him in the work, while enduring the struggles with him, because I knew he was a great leader.  This difficult kid was ultimately responsible for literally hundreds of other kids being involved and because of him we started an entirely new area and hired a new staff person.  It is no small thing to consider that one sixteen-year-old kid could be responsible for inspiring a $120,000 non-profit budget!
Marc was not only a leader; he was a leader of leaders.  He was difficult, but top notch.

Sometimes the very attributes that make a leader difficult are also the qualities that make him or her top-notch. 

•    Leaders challenge conventional thinking, and that can be annoying. Questioning the status quo can also lead to new ideas and keep an organization from becoming stale. 
•    Leaders have a high level of EQ (Emotional Intelligence), which causes some people to view them as intimidating. Their high EQ also gives them the strength to push through the difficult times and deal with the corporate midgets who can ruin a growth strategy.
•    Leaders have vision and see clear pictures of what the future can be and they will not simply dismiss their vision because it is not the same as someone else’s. Their ability to articulate vision is a key component of their ability to have others follow them.
•    Leaders have passion. Sometimes their passion is a fire that causes them to “burn out,” or even “burn others,” but their passion may also be a flame that keeps others from freezing to death, and is the heat that draws people to them.  I’ve heard it said, “When you’re on fire others will come, even if it’s just to see you burn.”
•    Great leaders can also be great followers - but they are not mindless sycophants.  They need to be treated with respect and must have buy-in with the vision they are being asked to follow.  When a great leader follows a great leader it is the most powerful of all combinations.
•    Difficult leaders know how to lead difficult leaders and they can surround themselves with a team of difficult, top-notch leaders.  A team of difficult leaders can be like herding cats, but it can also win championships; ask the Yankees and Red Sox.

One day I was sitting at my desk and Marc called.  It had been ten years since I had last heard from him and I was surprised to hear his voice coming through the phone. At that point he was running a successful IT consulting business in Colorado and volunteering with the same organization of which we had both been a part. He had some questions about the work and was looking for some advice.  We had chatted for about an hour when I asked, “So, which high school are you working with?” 
He said, “Columbine.”

When you work with leaders – the difficult, top-notch kind – you never know what the impact of your efforts will be.

Next month:
Principle #4:If you want to lead leaders you must first have a EQ (Emotional Intelligence) and be able to inspire other leaders to throw their leadership-lot in with you.

Leading Leaders: Principle #2

Many people want to talk about leadership, and there are countless books and seminars on the subject, but few want to talk about leading leaders – and they are not the same thing.  One of the mistakes leaders make is  thinking that leading leaders is simply an expansion of leading followers.  They want to take what they already know about leading and expand it – run faster, work harder – to leading leaders.  They mistakenly believe that the skills and strategies they have used to lead the people who follow them are transferable to leading other leaders.  But to lead leaders you need a completely different mindset - a different paradigm.  You need to see the world of leading leaders differently and you need to employ different skills and strategies.  The second principle is:

The paradigm of leading leaders is different from the paradigm of leading followers.

(for a list of the five principles see September '07 newsletter)

Dick was in charge of a small team of technicians who out produced the other sectors of the organization.  He had done a great job overseeing his group and was promoted to Vice-President in charge of all the team leaders in the sector.  Within six months his supervisor started getting calls from Dick’s team leaders.  The team leaders were discouraged and frustrated by Dick’s micromanaging, and wanted help.  The clock was running.  In the next six months one of three things would happen: Dick would change his paradigm, key team leaders would leave, or Dick would leave.

Here are a few of the differences between leading followers and leading leaders.

1.    Both leaders and followers need a great vision to follow, but leaders need to have input in the vision.  You can’t simply drop a vision on leaders and expect them to get excited about it. I call this “Visionary, Participatory Leadership.”
Leaders must have “buy-in” with the vision or they won’t lead.

2.    All people need to be treated with respect.  Leaders need to be respected for their ability to lead others.  The must be given the freedom to lead in the way in which they lead best. 
Leaders cannot be micromanaged.

3.    Leaders need to have the freedom and encouragement to disagree.  They need to know that when they disagree it won’t be counted against them.  They need to be rewarded for thinking outside the box and for challenging the status quo. 
Leaders must be affirmed and rewarded for independent thinking.

4.    We all need boundaries and we need to know were the lines are so we can have a clear understanding of when we step over them. 
Leaders need to help set the organizations boundaries, and they need to know that they have different boundaries than those under them.

5.    Each of us needs to know that the person we are following has confidence in us.
Leaders need to know they have the confidence of their supervisor to lead.

6.    In order for leaders to succeed they must take risks. The great leaders know when to take risks and when to play it safe, but with every risk there is the chance of failure.   
Leaders need to know that it is ok to fail.

My son gave me The Reagan Diaries for Fathers Day and as I read his personal notes I realized that he placed a lot of trust in his key people.  He set the vision (with lots of buy-in) and knew the necessary details concerning the situations at hand, but underlying all of that, he trusted his people.  When the time came to negotiate with Israel, Reagan sent Al Haig to the Middle East, and when Reagan went to bed he slept well because he trusted Al. He trusted Al’s leadership ability, Al’s “buy-in” to the vision, and therefore Al’s ability to negotiate with Israel in accordance with the vision.

Great leadership of leaders requires a different paradigm and Regan understood that paradigm. He knew he was leading leaders.

What are the areas of your current paradigm that need to change in order for you to attract and energize great leaders in your organization?  More importantly, what are the internal paradigms you need to change about your own perspective that will enable you to lead leaders?

Next month – Principle #3: Leaders are difficult.  If you are going to lead leaders you are going to lead difficult people.

Leading Leaders: Principle #1

“Yes, but he can be difficult.”  I was having dinner with Walt, a friend who owns a small retail outlet that I frequent, and I was telling him how much I liked and appreciated his key employee who manages the shop when he is not there.  Walt wants to expand into another location but can’t find someone to manage his existing store and when I suggested this key employee, and he hesitated for a moment and made the above assessment.   That conversation occurred after I had already written this months newsletter, but it reinforced the basic principles and themes for this series of articles: In order to grow your business or organization you need to recruit and train leaders, and leaders are difficult.

I have identified five principles of leadership that I will deal with over the next several months.  They are:

Principle #1: If you are going to grow something beyond the number of people who will be directly connected to you, then you must learn to lead leaders.

Principle #2: The paradigm of leading leaders is different from the paradigm of leading followers.

Principle #3: Leaders are difficult.  If you are going to lead leaders you are going to lead difficult people.

Principle #4: The most important factor in leading leaders is to have a high “EQ" - Emotional Intelligence.

Principle #5: For leaders the decision is not whether or not they can lead it is always a question of whether or not they will lead.

Principle #1: If you are going to grow something beyond the number of people who will be directly connected to you, then you must learn to lead leaders.

I spent most of my career working with high school kids and one of the indisputable truths I learned is that if I was going to grow a work in a high school beyond my own personal charisma (which wasn’t much), I was going to have to work with the leaders of the school.  I was going to have to lead the leaders. 

In our culture there seems to be a crisis of leadership.  Organizations are desperate for leaders, but it is not a lack of leaders that is the problem, it is a lack of leaders who can and will, lead leaders.

I got a call last week from a friend in his early thirties who has been offered a job as CEO of a small company and is wondering if he should consider the position or not.  The founder of the company is in his late sixties and wants to retire, but has no one to pass the torch to.  He sees my friend as a shining star (and indeed he is) and wants a quick fix to an issue he has ignored for thirty years – grooming his successor.  The corporate midgets surrounding the founder are resisting the appointment of my friend because they like the status quo and are resistant to any change.  They will always resist change, which is why none of them are being considered for the job.  My prediction: the founder will ultimately give in to the group-think around him.  The same lack of EQ that caused him to surround himself with this group in the first place will cause him to concede to their adolescent demands now.  But I digress.

This one incident wouldn’t be noteworthy except that I know of three other situations with exactly the same dynamic.  Too many leaders have not invested in other leaders and therefore do not have anyone to take their place. This error is reflected in the missed opportunities for growth by their organizations.  Their organizations have not grown beyond the founder.  These founders have painted themselves into an unenviable corner where they can’t sell their company and they can’t retire.  They would like to sell their company but there are no buyers.  They haven’t grown their company to a position where anyone will buy it mostly because they have not assembled a quality team that consists of great leaders. It is that same team that lacks a leader to succeed the founder.  With no suitors or successors the founder is stuck with a company he can’t sell and can’t leave.

There is a direct correlation between the unwillingness to invest in great leaders and the lack of growth of an organization.   

Those who don’t want to lead leaders hire compliant people who are faithful followers. When compliance is the attribute most rewarded and affirmed, growth will either be stagnant or non-existent, because compliant people will not challenge the status quo in fear of upsetting the people around them.  They will not reach beyond the existing paradigms and look for new avenues of growth.  Followers are risk averse and will not reach beyond their comfort zones because they live out of their fears and not their confidence.  Every organization needs followers – great followers – but without great leaders, great followers are lost, and so is the organization.

The only way for an organization to grow beyond the leadership abilities of the existing leader is for the leader to resolve to hire, encourage and promote other leaders.

Next month we’ll look at Principle #2: The paradigm of leading leaders is different from the paradigm of leading followers.

A Nappa Starr

I’ve finally been to Napa.  My brother-in-law is a big fan of California wines and for his fiftieth birthday he invited some of the family to join him for a couple of days in the Napa wine country.  We had a fantastic time and I actually enjoyed some of the wines. I've even recommended two of the wines we tasted in the Wine Reviews section for this month.

Napa to say the least – is very different from Bordeaux. It is much more tourist friendly than Bordeaux ever thought about being which is both a positive and a negative. The main road is crowded and moves slowly through the various small towns, restaurants are packed and big wineries have tasting rooms for a fee. There are no grand chateaux, and thanks to prohibition, there are a relatively small number of producers (under 400) compared to some 8,000 wineries in Bordeaux.

 

There is one thing I noticed they both have in common. When you meet great wine makers – the really great wine makers – they have a passion for what they do that transcends good business sense and elevates them to a level of artist. Pam Starr is such a winemaker.

 

Pam is the driving force behind Crocker & Star Wines and she spent a couple of hours with us last week. She was almost giddy as she opened her prized wines and spoke with great passion about her winemaking techniques.

 

Pam spends a lot of time with the soil. Pam told us that she spends time with each plot of her vineyard to determine which grape varietals will be best in that soil. She is passionate about congruency.  Certain soil is best for Chardonnay grapes, and other soil is best for Cabernet. The quality of the soil determines the quality of the wine and without the congruency of putting the right grapes in the soil that is best for them she cannot make a great wine.

 

Pam is also passionate about making a wine that reflects who she is. She sat with us at a long stone table, shaded by an arbor of Wisteria talking about her wines. She was relaxed, and unpretentious and so are her wines. She makes the best Cabernet Franc I’ve ever tasted and it is a great reflection of who she is. The wine is honest and unpretentious, and as she spoke about the soil and the grapes I could also sense that the wine was just like her.

 

There is a great lesson here for us. We will live great lives when we find congruency in who we are (our Core Motivator, our gifts, our personality and our skills), and when we learn to navigate our lives out of that congruency. Great work flows out of a great life.

Know Who You Are And Be It!.

No Regrets

I was having a conversation with a friend a couple of weeks ago and he asked me if looking back, I had any regrets over the 22 years I spent with my former organization.  He wasn’t asking about mistakes – we’ve all made plenty of them, and I’ve certainly made my share – but rather the kind of deep regrets that haunt you for a long time.   It seems to me that the difference between a deep regret and a mistake is that a deep regret comes from something you did which violated your Core and a mistake is something you did based on the best information you had at the time, but which may not have turned out so well. I know for example, that I made hiring mistakes that I don’t regret because I made them on the best information I had at the time.

 

To my friends question I thought for a moment and said “yes, one.” There was a situation about twenty years ago when I destroyed a relationship because of what I thought at the time was truth.

 

Truth is important to me. I like to know and understand the truth and I believe it’s worth fighting for. Is global warming true? If it is, then let’s fight to solve it. If it’s not then lets fight those who are lying to us. Is universal health care the true solution? If it is, then let’s demand it. If it’s not, than let’s make sure we protect ourselves from it. Is Bordeaux the best wine in the world? Yes. But I digress.

 

The point is, there are things that are true and they are worth fighting for, but in that one instance of deep regret so many years ago, the truth wasn’t nearly as clear as I thought it was and the loss of the relationship was far worse than I thought it would be. In the process of holding on to what I thought was the truth I violated the most important truth – the truth about who I am.

 

I am a Relationships “Core Motivator” and “who” I am is more important than the principles I hold on to. Principles – like truth - are important but they are not as important as the “who.” At my core I am about relationships and truth is secondary.  Order is important.

 

There is a lot of rhetoric today about being “principle-centered,” and it’s mostly good stuff. It’s good to have principles and to stand for something. But to build our lives on principles falls short of building our lives out of our Core. It is a case of the good being the enemy of the best.

 

When I wield the truth saber at the sacrifice of my relationship core then I am committing a suicide of design in the name of principle jihad. In other words, if I become a truth terrorist then I will kill the very core of who I am in order to advance the cause of a principle – in this case, ultimate truth.

 

Organizations and their leaders are always tempted to do this. The apparent crisis of the moment tempts a leader to sacrifice the core of the organization in order to fix a problem based on a good principle. Great leaders understand this and are able to keep core things core.  They realize that good principles, while important, are secondary.

 

My mother died in April and it has been harder than I ever imagined it would be. I was driving one of my closest friends to the airport after the funeral and he said to me, “One thing I don’t hear from you is any regrets.” I thought for a moment and said, “No, I don’t think I have any.”

 

We were there for every Christmas, and almost every summer we took some vacation time to be with my parents and my extended family.  My kids had many opportunities to know and love their grandmother. My parents came to visit us often and we spoke on the phone on a regular basis. Despite living far away we stayed close, but that is not why I have no regrets.

 

I always enjoyed being with my mother and she never let me get away with being anyone but who I am. She knew me too well. With her I was always able to let down and be me, and the times spent with her were always ones of connection and Relationship. In other words, the Christmas’ and vacations were important but they were not the core thing. The freedom to be me and the enjoyment of my relationship with her was the core thing, and that is why I have no regrets.

 

The shortness of life and the need to live it to the fullest has been impressed upon me during the past two months in a way I never imagined. Knowing who I am and being all of who I am has become even more important to me.

 

The goal of the Vision for Your Life process is that you and I would be able to live our lives to the fullest, having no – or at least few – regrets because we know the difference between Core things and secondary things.

 

The principles we build out lives around are good, but they are not as important as our Core. When we live out of our Core Motivator we maximize our lives and minimize our regrets.

 

Know who you are and be it!

 

 

 

High School Musical

Have you heard of “High School Musical?” If you have a teenage daughter, chances are you know all too well the phenomenon (or curse if you have to watch and listen to it multiple times) of this Disney mega hit. This sugar coated made for TV movie (only shown on the Disney channel) is a true blockbuster for Disney - the DVD and cd sales alone have netted the company over 100 million dollars. Knowing a winner when they have one, Disney has developed all the add-ons including the “High School Musical” tour, the board game, a number of books, clothing, and not one, but two sequels in the making. Last week a story about the hit even graced the cover of the Sunday New York Times Arts and Leisure section.

 

One night I arrived home from a business trip and my wife and one of her girl friends were getting ready to watch it, and I thought, “what the heck, I’ve been away; I’ll watch it with them.” Within the first five minutes I was saying, “This is embarrassingly contrived.” And it is, but that doesn’t matter – in fact it may be the whole point. Not only is the story line contrived, but the lead character is not believable.  He is supposed to be the star of the high school basketball team and he looks like he wouldn’t even make the freshman team at most high schools.  In addition to it’s lack of believability and it’s being contrived it’s preachy. The sermon – kids should be able to cross the sectors of their school they are most comfortable in and do things outside of their stereotype – is classic Disney humanism, but somehow this time around it has resonated with such power that it has become the kind of blockbuster Pollyanna could only dream of.

 

The question is “why?” Why has this movie become such a mega hit? The New York Times article suggests that the folks at Disney aren’t even sure of the answer. In addressing the sequel the Times says, “For everyone involved in “High School Musical” the effort to beg lightening to strike twice would probably be easier if they knew for certain why the first movie had become such a phenomenon.” Here’s my take.

 

While the lead character may not be believable, and the plot thin and contrived, the chemistry between the lead male and female is powerful. It jumps off the screen. I found myself not caring so much what these two did - or if it was believable – but wanting to watch whatever they did. When they were on the screen it was a great movie and when they weren’t it was a bore. The attraction was in watching them interact and seeing the chemistry between them; all the way to the tune of 100 million dollars.

 

Connection, chemistry, charisma – things that aren’t very tangible, but you know them when you see them – can take an otherwise mediocre product and make it a phenomenon. Likewise, without it a great product will fall on its face. There is an important principle here. The quality of a product is essential but (and this is particularly true in non-commoditized industries) without the added degree of chemistry between the sales person and the buyer the product will languish.

 

There is another reason this movie is so popular. As one mother of young teens told me, “Disney has gone back to being Disney.” For twenty years Disney tried to leverage its brand into a major expansion, often drifting far beyond what had originally made the brand successful. Some of that has been successful (ESPN, Animal Kingdom) and some not (The Disney Store). “High School Musical” is Disney returning to its core values, and it is a grand slam. It is a quintessential example of “Know Who You Are And Be It!”

Berry Gordy's Friend

It is perhaps coincidence that on the same day I saw the new movie Dreamgirls – the powerful adaptation of the Broadway musical - that uber-talented Smokey Robinson was also being honored at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts.

 

Dreamgirls is set in the sixties, and is the story of an overly controlling record company owner who grooms a female starlet into the sound he wants to “crossover” to the pop charts. It is loosely the story of Berry Gordy, Diana Ross, the Supremes and Motown. The movie stars American Idol loser (and now Academy Award Nominee) Jennifer Hudson who lost that competition to the ever annoying and far less talented Fantasia a couple of years ago, which begs the question, “how can so many people get it so wrong?” Of course, I ask that question almost every year with American Idol, and absolutely every time I make the mistake of watching an awards show. I also ask that question when I realize that so many people in our culture value organizations over people.

 

So, it was sweet irony that on the same night I saw the movie, there was Smokey Robinson seated next to Laura Bush being honored at the KennedyCenter. Smokey Robinson was one of the key elements in making Motown the sound we all grew up with. He wrote songs for the Temptations (My Girl), Mary Wells (My Guy) and of course all the great songs he sang with the Miracles (Shop Around, Ooo Baby Baby, Tracks of My Tears, Tears of a Clown, I Second That Emotion, Crusin etc.). He was also Berry Gordys best friend and in many ways they built Motown together.

 

When Berry Gordy sold Motown he faced a lot of pressure from the African-American community not to sell the icon of Black music. There was so much pressure in fact that Gordy rescinded the first offer to sell and held on for a couple more years. After he finally did sell the company, a reporter asked Smokey Robinson what he thought of the decision. Smokey responded, “Berry Gordy is my friend and if it was best for Berry Gordy to sell Motown then I want what’s best for him.”

 

I am in awe of that comment.

 

I’ve been around a lot of organizations – most with loftier purposes than making records – and almost always the people in the organization say, “I want what’s best for the organization.” But Smokey says, “I want what’s best for my friend,” and he’s got it right. The organization is, after all, by definition, just a collection of people, and people are the most important part of any organization. If we focus on the organization – the brand and the product – and not the people, we’ll find ourselves holding an empty promise and a hollow logo. Just ask the shareholders of Enron. The market, product or logo weren’t the problem there, it was the people. Those who believed in that company were left empty handed when it all collapsed.

 

Every organization is only as good as its people. We all know that. We also know that every problem is a people problem, and every solution is a people solution. Why then do we act like the solution to our problems is better marketing, a slicker logo or a tighter policy and procedures manual?

 

Look at the American Auto Industry. With Toyota about to take over the top spot among car manufacturers, does anyone really believe that the problem with the American auto industry is its advertising?

 

Jim Collins told us in his book “Good to Great” to “get the right people on the bus and in the right seats” and that remains the key to the success of any organization. Berry Gordy knew he wasn’t the best songwriter or singer. He got Smokey Robinson on the bus and put him in the right seat and together they wrote the soundtrack of a generation. The job of every leader – business owner, manager, CEO, President – is to invest in the right people and put them in the right seats on their bus.

 

The people are always more important than the organization.

 

Know Who You Are And Be It!

Martin Luther King: Calling and Conviction

Today in the United States is Martin Luther King Day, and this month I want to share with you what I believe were the most important factors in making him such an influential leader.

 

Last year I read “Let The Trumpet Sound,” Stephen Oates’ excellent biography of the famed Civil Rights leader which I highly recommend to any of you who are interested in learning more about Dr. King. He was of course, a gifted academic and a talented orator. He graduated from high school and entered college after eleventh grade. That same year he won a prize for a speech he gave on “The Negro and the Constitution,” at a competition sponsored by the Elks. He graduated from seminary with honors and won the preaching award.  But there are many gifted people who have never had the kind of impact he had. Gifts are important and necessary for great leadership, but they are insufficient without an inner fuel to drive them. In King we saw that  his “Calling" and “Conviction” played the most important roles in making him a great leader.

 

He grew up in segregation and he hated it. He found the duplicity of a segregated society intolerable and “escaped” the south to attend seminary in the north. In the north he experienced more equality under the law, but still saw economic segregation that was just as offensive to him.  He didn’t want to return to the south, but a strong sense of calling and destiny led him back, and so he returned home to be a pastor in Montgomery, Alabama. Throughout his life he was aware that his days were to be spent for a greater cause than his own wants and desires. He lived with the daily burden that his life was meant for something greater than himself or his family. It was that sense of calling and “destiny” that compelled him to continue in the struggle when it became so difficult, and that same sense of destiny that gave him the security to not fear any man or even death.

 

Martin Luther King was also a man of deep convictions and he had two strong convictions that guided his entire life. The first was “equality for all,” and the second was “non violence.” It was those convictions – formed by his religious faith – that fueled his decision making and his resolve to change the world. It was also those convictions that gave him great enemies.

 

Great leaders always have great enemies and King had enemies everywhere. He had the obvious enemies he confronted on the streets of Southern cities and in the courthouses of Southern legal systems. In addition to those local enemies he had national enemies such as J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI who monitored his every move and plotted to discredit and destroy him. He even had enemies within the Civil Rights struggle. There were those who opposed his conviction for non-violence, and those who wanted to wrest power from him. When King spoke out against the war in Vietnam Lyndon Johnson became an enemy, and some of his former supporters left him. Great leaders always have great enemies. Jesus had enemies – the right enemies – and every great leader has them. It’s good to have the right enemies, and the ability to deal with ones’ enemies rest on the foundation of ones’ calling and conviction.

 

Through it all, what made him a great leader was his ability to stay focused on his call and conviction. When he was told to be quiet about the war in Vietnam because it was hurting his influence in the cause for Civil Rights he responded that it was the same conviction in him that drove both, and to silence one was to silence both. He would not acquiesce to those who wanted to separate the man of influence from the man of conviction.

 

In December of 1955 he helped organize the bus boycott of Montgomery, Alabama, which in many ways became the beginning of the Civil Right movement. From Oates’ book. “On the night of January 30^th, the very date Gandhi was assassinated, King was speaking at a mass meeting when he received the dreadful news that his house had been bombed. He sped home in a strange calm. A crowd of Negroes surged about the parsonage, white police trying to hold them back. The bomb had exploded on the porch, breaking it in two and showering the living room with broken glass.”

 

“Outside the crowd was getting out of control. A Negro man confronted a policeman: “You got your thirty-eight, and I got mind. Let’s shoot it out.” Even Negro boys were armed with broken bottles, and there were jeers at the cops. “Let us see Reverend King,” a woman cried out. King stepped out onto the shattered porch, which still smelled of dynamite fumes, and surveyed his angry brothers and sisters on the lawn and in the street beyond. “He held up his hand,” an observer said, “and they were suddenly silent…absolutely still.”

 

“My wife and baby are all right,” he said. “I want you to go home and put down your weapons. We cannot solve this problem through retaliatory violence… We must love our white brothers, no matter what they do to us. We must make them know that we love them. Jesus still cries out across the centuries, ‘Love your enemies.’ This is what we must live by. We must meet hate with love.”

 

I cannot imagine myself in the same scenario.  Can you?  I cannot imagine my house being bombed with my family inside, and still having the strength of my convictions to preach peace when violence would be so understandable. Yet, great leaders have the ability to live their convictions in every circumstance – particularly the most difficult ones. It is from their calling and conviction that they find the strength to confront their enemies, and lead the world to greater heights.

 

“Calling” and “Conviction” are the two most important elements of any leader. The “calling” draws you forward to that which you can see and dream of, and the “conviction” pushes you onward, compelling you to never turn back. Martin Luther King was a man who knew his dreams were anchored in his convictions and inspired by his calling. He knew who he was, and could be it.

 

 

“We have learned to swim the seas like fish, and fly the skies like birds, but we have not learned to walk the earth like brothers.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.