The Leadership Sprint: Chapter 1

THE LEADERSHIP SPRINT: CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

There perhaps has been no other time in our history when great Leadership and great Leaders have been needed more than they are today. Today’s world presents a complex and complicated mix of issues, problems and challenges; a world that constantly demands bold decisions from bold, decisive leaders. The number of articles, books, and courses on “leadership” is evidence enough that a new breed of “leaders” is in demand. Today, we need more individuals who have the courage of their convictions and are willing to withstand the onslaught of criticism that will surely be aimed at those who are willing to step forward and do the right thing at the right time. These leaders, in short, need to be different and need also to be unafraid of being in the minority, contrary to the conventional wisdom or politically incorrect.

While this observation and uncomplicated prescription seem overly simplistic, they are not, and represent a not so ordinary or easy task. In every area of our society, and at all levels within those areas, we are confronted with a seemingly endless barrage of ever more difficult dilemmas and pressures that require our immediate attention, focus and decision-making. Leaders at international mega corporations, small, family-run businesses, our schools, churches, non-profits and, of course, our governments at the local, state and national level, are continuously seeking new and creative decision making processes to thrive and sometimes just survive these turbulent, and potentially opportunistic, times.

This is not to say that there have not been other times when there was a convergence of social, political, economic and international factors that forced other generations to find the great resolve needed to overcome overwhelming obstacles and achieve tremendous success. What Tom Brokaw has crowned “The Greatest Generation” certainly qualifies as a group of Americans who answered the call for greatness and led this nation through a very difficult time. My parents and their siblings and friends were part of that team that was born and raised during the Great Depression, fought and won the Great War and went on to build a Great Nation. That generation was blessed with great leaders who regularly had to make
monumental decisions that have molded and shaped our world to this day. From the domestic plans for economic recovery, to the momentous military decisions to win the war, to the post-war recovery plans, Korea, communist containment and much more, these leaders exhibited the very characteristics required for extraordinary people to achieve extraordinary success in the most difficult of times.

One could also argue that the First Generation of American citizens did the same. The Founding Fathers and the great patriots of the American Revolution managed to challenge and then defeat the most powerful military force in the world. They shocked the world with their military success, and continued to shock it by creating and succeeding at something bold and different: a Republic based on the principles of equality and liberty. That generation also was blessed with extraordinary and courageous leaders. From the eloquent prose of its greatest commentator Thomas Jefferson, to the common-sense reasoning of Thomas Paine, to the military genius of George Washington, this nation was extremely fortunate to have had some of the best, brightest, and courageous leaders that the world had to offer.

We would do well to learn from these generations of Americans that have laid the foundations of excellence in decision-making for us and have shown by their example the power of bold and decisive leadership to change their world. Many of these leaders were mercilessly criticized in their lifetime, but are respected and revered by future generations.

While the obstacles they overcame were intimidating, if not overwhelming, it can be argued that the challenges and threats that we face today are equally, if not more, daunting. In fact, the world in which we live today presents us and our leaders with an unprecedented slate of disheartening and discouraging spectacles. The constant threat of global terrorism and its frightening prospects of violence and death, the global spread of disease and the equally demoralizing potential of widespread death, the global food crisis and the spread of famine, a wide range of pandemics both natural and manmade, global warming and the fear that our planet may not survive a rapid climate change, the widespread globalization of business that threatens the very existence of international commerce as we know it, and the ever present threat of a global nuclear confrontation all represent global challenges
that are unique to our generation. Nationally, we are again confronted with new and unprecedented threats, problems and opportunities. With a national debt well over ten trillion dollars, a potentially bankrupt Social Security system, some twelve million illegal immigrants, costly and often unavailable health care, a national recession, an unpopular war and the rising economic and environmental costs of energy are just a few of the crises that leaders in the US face today. They are facing a world of leadership decisions that are unique to our time and magnified in the fall of 2008 with a financial meltdown on Wall St., a 700+ billion dollar federal bailout, faltering financial institutions, a collapse of the U.S. auto industry, rising unemployment and much more. Closer to home the situation is much the same: in our classrooms, churches, charities and social service networks we must seek leaders who can provide the vision, inspiration and passion to guide us through a maze of rules, regulations and laws that seem to make success a most difficult goal to achieve.

None of this is to imply that we are entering a new Dark Ages or that doom and gloom rule the planet. Yes, the crises and problems besetting the world are unique and numerous but so too are the opportunities. History has shown that great leaders emerge during a time of crisis and the greatest of those leaders emerge victorious because they have seized the incredible opportunity for greatness that the crisis presented. We have all seen the bumper stickers and motivational posters telling us that “crisis = danger + opportunity” or that “out of danger emerges greatness,” and so on. There is much truth in these slogans and the challenges we face today do, in fact, afford us a once-in-a-lifetime chance to implement new and exciting changes. Great leaders do not get bogged down or throttled by pessimism. Great leaders are optimists and inspire that optimism and hope in others.

If today’s challenges are unique, then it is imperative that today’s breed of leaders engage a new brand of leadership that is as different and unique as the challenges confronting them. The following pages examine what I think are the necessary ingredients for great leadership in our world today. These ingredients will be different from most of what you have probably read about leadership to this point and will underscore the need for new and innovative approaches to new and challenging experiences. First, I will discuss exactly what leadership is (and is not) and what proper leadership training is.

The literature on the subject of “leadership” abounds. It seems that every politician (especially Presidential candidates), professional athlete, corporate leader, and management guru has become a leadership “expert.” I have had the honor of teaching leadership classes and seminars at both the graduate and undergraduate level at a number of colleges, and have found this topic and its literature to be a bit overwhelming. Suffice it to say that the sum total of all these books and manuals offer hundreds of the “most important” traits for good leadership. We will not examine all of these traits and characteristics since most of them represent the status quo version of leadership with all the requisite political correctness and jargon that has become the hallmark of contemporary writing. Rather than begin with a long list of necessary traits for great leadership let us begin with a few examples of what makes for a great leader.

GREAT LEADERS ARE SPRINTERS

IT IS NOT A MARATHON…IT IS A SPRINT

I have been told, and undoubtedly you have as well, that “It is not a sprint…it is a marathon.” The thinking behind this statement is quite simple; success takes a long time, and managers and leaders should not rush into things; after all, “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and so on.

This advice is probably appropriate for long term strategic goals or for setting benchmarks for achieving objectives well into the future. However, it is perfectly inappropriate for the kind of leadership that is needed in most instances today and the type of leadership that we will be discussing in this manual. The metaphor of a marathon and a sprint is, in itself, quite telling.

A marathon is a long-distance, time-consuming, endurance-testing race; the best-in class marathon-runners will take more than two hours to complete the more than 26 mile-race. A sprint, on the other hand, is an exhilarating dash that in its most exciting form, the 100 meter dash, is over in fewer than ten seconds. A rough mathematical calculation shows that we can complete some 780 such sprints in the time it takes to complete one marathon. Leaders—great leaders—cannot plod along at a marathoner’s pace in a world that demands the type of bold decisive leadership that we are discussing here.

If the marathon and sprint are analogous to leadership then the marathoner and the sprinter are analogous to leaders. The athletic events themselves are quite different and involve altogether different strategies, preparation and execution. The physical makeup and mental preparation of a sprinter are different than those of a marathon runner. The sprinter is a chiseled-from-stone athlete with a carefully trained and powerfully built body capable of catapulting forward at a breathtaking speed in a lightning-bolt tear down the track. The sprinter tends to be a strapping, strong and powerful athlete whose muscles are honed to perfection for the single purpose of getting to the goal faster than any other human being. The sprinter is singularly focused on the target. Once the start gun goes off, there is no time for re-thinking strategy, no pacing, no water, no time-checks; nothing but a 100% all out dash to the finish line. The sprinter at a world championship level is among the world’s finest athletes; in fact, it is customary to crown the gold medalist in the 100 meter sprint at the Summer Olympics as “The World’s Fastest Human.”

The winner of the marathon at the summer games, on the other hand, is known as the winner of the marathon. The marathon runner tends to be slight of build, long and lean, with long-distance lung capacity. The marathoner needs to pace himself over the long course; running too fast at the start, for example, might overly tax his stamina. The marathoner also needs constantly to monitor the competition; lagging too far behind his rivals might create too great a distance to make up. In short, the marathoner needs to use multiple strategies, and play a version of athletic chess with the competition. All of this takes time. The marathoner also needs the input and advice from others to help with time checks, benchmarks, water and electrolyte replenishing and so on. The marathon takes a long time to finish and the runner needs a lot of help to get to the finish line.

What does all of this mean to the world of leadership where most of us reside? We live in a time that is dominated by what is known as “the law of acceleration.” Anyone involved in the fields of high technology, telecommunications, information technology or any research and development department of a world-class organization knows this law all too well. Simply stated: change is happening at a rapid, if not dizzying, speed and it is sometimes impossible to see it, but it is imperative to keep pace with it. Today’s managers and leaders at all levels cannot afford to call for planning conferences, consensus-building seminars, or long-term consultant-based meetings to come to grips with pressing matters. Put another way, leaders cannot always stop, train, and run a marathon of input sessions, seminars and symposiums. Today’s corporations, nonprofits and governments need a new generation of leaders who are well equipped with the foundations of leadership to explode off the starting blocks and beat any and all competitors in a devil be damned sprint to the wire.

None of this is to say that long-range planning is unnecessary or that strategic and operational goals should be sacrificed for strictly tactical initiatives. Nor does it imply that immediate or attainable goals always take precedent over intermediate or long-range goals and objectives. Most importantly, none of this calls for knee-jerk responses, reckless ventures or irresponsible racing without fully analyzing all available options. The sprinter can run at full speed in the leadership world because the leadership sprinter is a responsible, vigilant, and conscientious individual. The sprinter can sprint because of the training and preparation that has preceded the firing of the starting gun. In the following chapters we will describe this training and preparation fully. There are numerous real life examples of great leadership and great leaders where the powerful sprinters succeeded and the slower marathoners lagged behind.

Governments at all levels provide visible examples of this sprinter/marathoner paradox. Governments and government bureaucracies whether federal, state or local are often slow to embrace change and will do so only after a laborious and lengthy public process that involves both political and public policy considerations. Public sector leaders also tend to be more static than dynamic and often embrace the status quo process of funding government programs and services simply because it has always been done that way. Here the resistance to change is formidable and includes interest groups, lobbyists, public sector unions and government employees. Each of these groups has a vested interest in a slower process of seminars, symposiums, consultants, hearings and studies that will delay or curtail efforts to streamline government by reducing or eliminating funding for their program or service.

I have encouraged my students to engage in a newer faster form of budget review and program funding process that involves a careful and critical look at the way government operates. First, the new breed of leader that we are discussing will strive to identify the core mission of the government; those programs and services that define the central and primary reasons for the very existence of the government. Once identified, the leader will then sprint to provide the necessary resources to operate these programs and jettison all else as superfluous. Outstanding leaders will also utilize processes such as zero-based budgeting as a means to put a streamlined government on the fast track to effectiveness and efficiency. Here, nothing is assumed to be eligible for funding until it passes a detailed cost-benefit and program efficiency analysis. Gone are the days of adding incremental budget increases to everything that was funded last year because it is too time consuming and politically risky to do otherwise. The new breed of leader will not only have the courage to challenge the status quo, but will move quickly to introduce new and creative ideas to make governments far more productive.

Colleges and universities are not immune to this marathon malaise. Some colleges hold on to traditional courses and academic programs and are slow to offer new curricula and new teaching technologies because of the enormous time and effort that academia often requires for introducing change. Traditional leaders in higher education may feel that their institutions exist in a comfortable non-profit and non-competitive zone. Leadership sprinters know that this is not the case and that speed and agility are essential keys to success in this highly competitive arena. The new breed of academic leaders will analyze the scholastic environment and quickly study the feasibility of online, continuous enrollment, hybrid, accelerated, off campus and traditional classroom courses. Then the leader will sprint to implement these new offerings where appropriate. As in government, the results will more than likely be a more effective, efficient and productive institution of higher learning.

The underlying premise of this manual is that leaders who sprint are far more effective than leaders who run a marathon. However, it is critical that the leader be fully prepared and trained before placing a foot in the starting blocks. The following chapters will identify those training requirements and discuss the preparation that all great leaders must have before they can even think of being a world class leadership sprinter. The great leadership sprinter must spend a great deal of time in the weight room lifting the barbells of honesty, integrity and truth. He or she must then develop the aerobic skills of being impartial, objective and unbiased. The leadership sprinter then must constantly train on the genuine, authentic and sincere treadmill of fairness. He or she must then constantly practice with discipline, dedication and devotion and a willingness to use common sense to both fight tyranny and defend his or her faith and heritage. Finally, as the final stretching exercises the leadership sprinter must breathe in self esteem and belief in self with full extension to vision, inspiration and passion. Only then can the great leader execute the great sprint.

Picture in your mind three horses in the starting gate in the Kentucky Derby. In the first gate is a magnificent thoroughbred reminiscent of the great Secretariat. He is highly motivated and perfectly trained to set a new track record. In gate 2 is a Clydesdale; in gate 3 is a Belgian Draft Horse. Both of these horses are well trained for their tasks and will do good work at a slow pace. Now the gates open and you must choose. Should the thoroughbred sprint to the finish and lead the charge knowing that the others will follow or plod along at their pace thinking “what the heck this is not a sprint it is a marathon?”

THE FLIGHT TO THE OLYMPICS

You have just boarded your flight to the Summer Olympic Games where you are to compete in the 100 meter sprint. You hold the current world record and are the favorite to bring home the gold medal. You know that you are the world’s fastest human and this is the stage that will earn you that designation. You sit back in your seat and dream of glory.

Let us begin our brief journey to leadership sprinting glory.