Without Purpose, Leadership is a Just a Tool

My personal journey in countless leadership roles has been a tumultuous one.  I have had successes and also some failures.  I’ve learned a lot about myself during a 40-year journey.  Some of the lessons were hard to take.

We’re all born with certain talents.  Some of us – including me – had the good fortune to have a family that provided lots of positive feedback or validation for those talents.  Mine were music and math.

School provides us the opportunity to develop skills so we can apply our talents.  If we have a passion for the pursuit of excellence in those areas, they become our singular purpose.  If my musical talent was the equal of Paul McCartney or Lady Gaga, I may have chosen music as my singular pursuit.  But my talent didn’t rise to that level and I gave it up when I was 14 years old.

Math also fell by the wayside. I was an ‘A’ student through my studies at the US Naval Academy.  However, I never pursued the subject beyond that level.  I simply had no passion for it.

With my diploma and my officer’s commission in hand, off I went to a US Navy ship.  There I discovered that I had a talent for leadership. I am not bragging when I say this.  I am certainly not alone in this talent; there are millions who have it and I never rose to a very high level in any organization of note.

The military provides a great opportunity to learn.  You are handed more responsibility at age 22 than any other organization will allow.  You learn to find your strengths and understand where you need help.  You learn to forge trust with your subordinates and your peers.  You develop the sense to ask good questions before deciding your next step.  You learn to perform under pressure and accomplish goals with scarce resources.  You also learn to solve problems when a plan goes awry. 

The military also gives you a sense of purpose.  When I was a midshipman, we often quoted Woodrow Wilson, who used the phrase “make the world safe for democracy” when he asked Congress for a declaration of war.  It may sound trite and you may object to its message.  But, we were young and idealistic.

When I left the military, my focus was on making a living so I could support a family.  Leadership skills were simply what I had to offer the job market.  And, employers were lined up to take advantage of it.  But, I lost a sense of purpose when I was handed my honorable discharge.

Writing in Forbes, Matt Myatt reminds us “purpose is the one thing all great leaders have in common….  Purpose fuels passion and work ethic….  The best leaders recognize a common purpose, shared values, and aligned vision are the hallmarks of any great organization.”

The hard truth is that leadership, in and of itself, is not purpose; it’s a tool like any other.  It’s a useful tool in many business situations and good leaders are rewarded for their skill if they also achieve business and financial results. 

Financial rewards are great!  But, there are many situations in life and even in business that require something else – empathy, for example -- or serenity.

My current work at Vistage, a CEO membership organization, has provided me with a sense of purpose unlike any in my experience.  I work with a small group of business owners who strive to do better and be better. To get better business performance, you must be prepared to go deep.  You need to be pushed out of your comfort zone.  You need to be challenged at a very personal level.

When I started this work, I was prepared for the intellectual challenge but not the emotional challenge. I had to be pushed out of my comfort zone, too.  I had to be challenged at a very personal level to make it work.

There is some magic at work when our group gathers for its monthly meeting.  We challenge each other, for sure.  We also cajole, share, bare our souls and commit to act.  One of our group often says that he “can’t have these conversations anywhere else”.

In this work, I have found purpose.  To connect…  to help…  to give.

WHO WILL LEAD?

Our Future: Educated People or Just Educated Robots?

Have you seen the movie “Her”?  The 2013 Oscar nominee from Spike Jonze is a masterfully presented glimpse of a possible future in which our natural human thirst for connectedness is best met by having our own operating system (or OS) with whom to share our joys and sorrows.  More than the central dialog, which comes across like two hours of someone else’s therapy, I enjoyed the backdrop:  the cold, gray, lightly populated, urban landscape; the way in which people made their livings; and, the lifestyle of late 21^st Century professionals.

Of late, a lot has been written about the impact of robotics and artificial intelligence on society and the workforce.  Pew Research recently summarized the results of canvassing of over 1800 experts.  Half of their respondents were optimistic about the impact of automation and half were pessimistic.

The optimists suggest that technological advances have always displaced jobs but typically have been net creators of jobs.  How?  Well, we invent new kinds of work.  For example, no one would have predicted that search engine optimization would be a major job category just a few short years ago. 

The pessimists worry that the technology is advancing so rapidly that it will destroy more jobs than it creates in the next decade.  Tom Standage, digital editor of The Economist, points out that previous disruptions provided a longer period of adjustment.  He fears that the rate of change will “displace people into service roles, and the income gap between skilled workers whose jobs cannot be automated and everyone else will widen”.

Hasn’t this been happening for the last 40 years – or 300?

The introduction of Automated Teller Machines (ATM’s) in the 1960’s and 70’s threatened to put bank tellers out of work.  Yet, there are over 800,000 people employed in banking in the U.S. 

I recall using a calculator, a pencil and a thirteen-column spreadsheet to prepare my annual budget when I worked for a bank back then.  I rejoiced at the invention of spreadsheet programs like Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel.  They were supposed to put accountants and bookkeepers out of work.  But they merely positioned accountants to do more value-added analytical work.

More recently, we’ve been adjusting to an automated world at the airport.  We check in at kiosks or with our smartphones.  We carry our own luggage.  We buy tickets from websites. 

Other examples of technology putting people out of work abound -- transcriptionists, letter carriers, factory workers, elevator operators, blacksmiths, the iceman.  Oh, and whatever happened to those guys who used to light the oil burning streetlamps?  Did they find other work after Edison flipped a switch?

In “Her”, the protagonist, Theodore (played by Joaquin Phoenix), is a writer.  In the future digital world in which he lives, there is apparently a consumer demand for someone who is able to write heartfelt letters – love letters, apology letters, condolence letters, etc.  One can imagine this becoming a real job category as we are constantly presented with college graduates whose powers of composition haven’t advanced beyond texting (or sexting). 

However, the pessimists make a strong case of their own in the Pew study.  Slightly more than half (52%) believes that near-term developments will expand job losses from blue collar to white-collar jobs.  While certain, highly qualified individuals will be very successful in this new economic paradigm; others will be “displaced into low paying service jobs at best, or permanent unemployment at worst”.

This isn’t news. We can certainly see signs of this trend already.

Over the three centuries of the industrial revolution, our lifestyles have improved.  We have added more value to the economic progress of society by virtue of the productivity afforded us by every technological advance from the steam engine, airplanes, radio and automatic dishwashers to computers, smartphones and iPads. 

But, the pessimists make one very important observation.  Our education system is not preparing us for the future that technology can afford us.

In Washington, the battle over disparity in incomes has liberal politicians arguing for increasing the minimum wage and transfer payments to the underprivileged.  Meanwhile, conservatives argue for a more Darwinian libertarian system. 

The fight for better education is left to local bureaucrats, the teachers’ unions and proponents of charter schools.  The winners of that skirmish may determine our success as a society in very near future. 

WHO WILL LEAD?