Over the past several years, our nation has seen much change. Multiple spheres of our society have witnessed and experienced rapid increases in the speed of change. Most recently, the federal government and service organizations nationwide saw shutdowns, funding delays and stoppages, as well as some temporary and some permanent closures.
My friend Tom Beaty loved to tell stories.
One story was set in a small European farming village. Before gas-powered transportation came along, farmers would drive their hogs to the market on foot each fall. This was quite a time-consuming task. The farmer would try to guide the hog(s) by tapping them on their sides with a staff. Sometimes they would use herding dogs to help along the way. This would often take a full day, leaving before daylight and returning after dark.
For one of our Leadership Academy sessions, we were asked to read a 2000 Harvard Business Review article titled Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? The article itself was thought-provoking, but it is the question in the title that has stayed with me. It is one of those deceptively simple questions, like “What are you really afraid of?”, “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?”, or “What kind of person do you want to be?”, that people can spend a lifetime trying to answer.
Most of us grew up hearing some form of the Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Yet often—especially in leadership—most of us, myself included, default to a weaker version: “Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to you.”
The difference between these two approaches is subtle but powerful. The first is proactive; the second is reactive.
We recently watched a television show in which someone was assigned to lead a team. The team was very successful in meeting their objective, yet the person who led them through the exercise was less than enthusiastic. Though the leader contributed greatly to the team’s success, he failed to see his role in it. He failed to see himself as a leader.
Seeing this led me to think about why people lead. In the list I think of, there are some negative and positive reasons:
I didn’t expect our Leadership Academy session last week at UT Martin to feel like a conversation with myself in the mirror—but there I was, listening to Petra Rencher McPherson, senior vice chancellor for finance and administration, talk about “Leading from the Crossroads.” It was like she was telling my story, just with better credentials.
She shared how her path wasn’t a straight line. There were detours, challenges and moments of uncertainty, and somehow, that made her story even more powerful. I couldn’t help but think, “That sounds a lot like my story!”
Leading a public agency is difficult, but in times of deep political division, the responsibility becomes even more complex. The public looks to government institutions—local, state and federal—not only for services, but also for stability, trust and reassurance. When political climates are polarized, agency leaders must be intentional, disciplined and grounded in principles, not partisanship. Effective leadership during these moments is not about avoiding political realities; it is about navigating them with integrity, so the people we serve remain the focus.
Participants from six towns in rural East Tennessee recently participated in the Rural Community Leadership Program (RCLP), a joint venture with the UT Municipal Technical Advisory Service (MTAS) and the UT Naifeh Center for Effective Leadership (NCEL).
This past week, our leadership team spent several days at Harvard looking at creativity and agility. We learned that high-performing, agile organizations require a high degree of alignment, as well as a high level of autonomy.
In our organization, how aligned is everyone toward the goal, and how much autonomy does each person have in the conduct of her/his work? The goal, of course, is to achieve a high level of each and to be an aligned entrepreneurial organization.
MTAS Fire Management Consultant Donald Pannell is a member of the current IPS Leadership Academy class.
Good leadership is often associated with successfully navigating the course through change. And successfully navigating change is often directly related to problem solving in an organization. While the paths to leading change and problem solving often cross, their starting point is generally the same. The first step is always to identify the change needed and clearly define the problem.