On Thursday night, the US Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, gave his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Committee convention and became the first black American to be the nominee for President from a major political party. You would have to be hiding under a rock to not have heard about this before – some 38 million people watched the speech on Thursday.
I wasn’t able to watch the speech as I was in the hospital with my father who has a tumor in the bile ducks of his liver; he was going through an outpatient procedure that turned in to a night in the hospital when he was in too much pain to go home. My father does not make a lot of money; he works hard, but he is fine. While he is not able to work at this time, he is covered by the short-term and long-term disability insurance provided by his company. At this time, he is still covered under the health insurance provided by his company. He is someone who got a skill set, found a decent job, and works hard to ensure he keeps his job. So when problems arise, he is able to make it through and this time will be not different than any other.
It is now Saturday around lunch time and I am at home watching Barack Obama’s speech on Youtube. I intend to watch all the speeches that were given this week, even though I know most of what will be said is rhetoric and designed as a promotional show for the DNC rather than anything of substance on the issues.
I can sum up my opinion of Barack Obama’s speech in one word – disappointing. Forty-five years after Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a Dream” speech and the first viable, black American candidate for the Presidency gave a speech that was more divisive and focused on opposing John McCain rather than a message in the same spirit of that great leader from the civil rights movement who laid the way for Barack Obama to even stand a chance.
My general opinion of Barack Obama is more positive and optimistic than my opinion of the speech he gave, but perhaps that is the reason. I expected more from him.
To be fair and balanced, he is campaigning in a close and difficult race with John McCain, so I understand the necessity to clearly oppose the Republican candidate. In time, if Barack Obama wins the Presidency, we may experience the leadership that we expect from him, but Thursday night that leadership was not evident. All I experienced was the same, divisive tone of politics that we always get – which I found ironic for a candidate who touted “Change you can believe in” rather than “More of the same.”
I’m spending some time this weekend to review the speeches that were given this past week at the DNC convention in Denver. In another post, I will talk about Sen. Barack Obama’s speech, but for this post I want to briefly touch on something Sen. Joe Biden said.
Sen. Joe Biden, the DNC nominee for Vice President, gave his acceptance speech on Wednesday night, August 27, 2008. Sen. Biden is an intriguing choice for VP as he was first elected to the Senate when he was merely 29 years old.
Sen. Biden started with a talk about his father, who died, and his mother who was in the audience on Wednesday. He talked about the values he was raised with and the wisdom of his mother. He also shared his view on failure. It is a quote from Sen. Biden that I want to share with you for it is the same perspective that I have written about so many times on this blog about leadership.
Quote about failure from Sen. Joe Biden:
“Failure, failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.”
To succeed in life, don’t be afraid to fail, all great leaders encounter failure at some point, but all great leaders know the importance and the value of enduring beyond the failure – never give up.
Today’s post is just two light-hearted and slightly comical quotes. The first is from the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase – Dallas Region, Elaine Agather.
Quote about leadership from Elaine Agather:
“The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it.”
The nature or nurture debate is quite common in leadership theory. Basically, is a leader born a leader or is leadership something that a leader learns over a lifetime. I personally tend to lean toward the later, but I do acknowledge that certain personality traits are beneficial for effective leadership. Leadership is definitely an art with only certain facets able to be defined in more scientific approaches.
The second quote is entirely just for laughs from a comedian who is known for his “full” mustache.
Quote about leaders from Julius Henry “Groucho” Marx:
“Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men — the other 999 follow women.”
Barack Obama is the leader with the message of hope. He has given speech after speech with this message and even wrote the book, The Audacity of Hope, which was a New York Times bestseller.
“Hope” is an interesting word for a leader to focus on. From my background, I can tell you a lot of military leaders would put you down for using such a word; especially if you say something like “I did this and hopefully it will work.” The usual response is “Hope is not a strategy.” Hillary Clinton even used this exact phrase against General John Abizaid in a Senate briefing on Iraq; his response, “Senator, I agree with you – and I would also say that despair is not a method.”
Hope does not have to be blind and empty or absent strategy and plans. Hope is rooted in belief. Hope is a feeling. Hope is what can propel someone to action – and action is the requirement for any accomplishment. Without hope, you have despair. Without hope, you give up – quit. Sometime you may fail, but if you maintain hope, you can learn from the failure and work toward accomplishment.
One of the greatest military minds, Napoleon I of France (Napoleon Bonaparte) used the word hope and any leader would be hard-pressed to put him down for it.
Leadership quote from Napoleon Bonaparte:
“A leader is a dealer in hope.”
Barack Obama also focuses on the message of change (“Change you can believe in”), but that’s for another time.
In 1689, John Locke, the social contract theorist, wrote Two Treatises of Government. His most famous quote from this book is “Wherever law ends, Tyranny begins.” However interesting this quote is and however fascinating a discussion on this would be, I am not writing about government and law, but rather leadership. So I want to mention a leadership quote from John Locke.
Quote about being fit to lead from John Locke:
“He that goes farthest out of the way, is thought fittest to lead, and is sure of most followers.”
I am not an expert on history or linguistics, so to understand what John Lock meant I cannot merely piece the pie together by the context in which it was written. Here is the entire paragraph:
John Locke, First Treatise of Government: “The imagination is always restless and suggests a variety of thoughts, and the will, reason being laid aside, is ready for every extravagant project; and in this State, he that goes farthest out of the way, is thought fittest to lead, and is sure of most followers: And when Fashion hath once Established, what Folly or craft began, Custom makes it Sacred, and ’twill be thought impudence or madness, to contradict or question it. He that will impartially survey the Nations of the World, will find so much of the Governments, Religion, and Manners brought in and continued amongst them by these means, that they will have but little Reverence for the Practices which are in use and credit amongst Men.”
If I were to sum up what John Locke meant as being fit to lead, I would say: The person who is most accomplished is thought to be most fit to lead.
Accomplishment is often a barometer for leaders. In order to attain certain positions of leadership, you often have to accomplish certain qualifiers – education, experience, proficiency and competence, etc. I take the position that most facets of leadership are independent of position and merely one facet is dependent on position - organizational authority. Accomplishment is a prerequisite for the authority to lead.
This last week, CNN broadcast a new documentary from their Special Investigations Unit (SIU), Black in America. From CNN’s website, “Forty years after the death of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., CNN took an unprecedented look at the state of black America in ‘CNN Presents: Black in America. The success, struggle, pain and pride.’”
I have watched part of this new documentary, but I have it recorded on DVR to finish the entire four-hour documentary. I believe it is a compelling look at a social issue from our history and the effect on our present. In light of this thought-provoking motion picture and the current political news with Barack Obama as the presumptive DNC nominee for President, I wanted to revisit an article I wrote over a year ago.
A course of a different color– the story of a white man immersed in a black man’s world in 1959:
John Howard Griffin authored a compelling, true story that grips the mind of everyone willing to hope and dream of a better world and a better America. Knowing full well the potential for evil found rooted in the biased discrimination that plagued the civil rights movement during the mid-twentieth century, Griffin embarked on a journey to learn the reality of racial discrimination from the perspective of the black man. Encountering the obvious obstacle of his white skin, Griffin darkened the pigment of his flesh with the medical guidance of a dermatologist and sufficient exposure to a sun lamp. The journey of a white man disguised as a black man is chronicled in the pages of Black Like Me, which is available here.
This book is a must read for anyone willing to confront the wrongs of this world, to believe in the potential good of the human spirit, and to believe in the “unalienable rights” of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as colorblind. I believe this is a book that everyone should read at least once. Leaders may want to read this book once a year.
A leader understands the different perspectives of a situation. Great leaders have the ability to grasp the other person’s point of view. There were (and are) many misconceptions in race relations on all sides. It took great leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr, and John Howard Griffin to break through the misconceptions by understanding the other’s point of view.
Nelson Mandela has been back in the news yesterday and today. He celebrated his birthday in private with friends yesterday and today, publicly, with fellow presidents, village elders, and African royalty. For a man who has been through as much as he has, it is really great to see him healthy and vibrate at 90 years old.
I read a good AP article that mentioned something about Mandela that I didn’t know – he’s not one for oratory. In his own words, Mandela said, “As you know I am not a speaker at all, and I am not going to make any exception on this occasion, except to say thank you for all you have done for me.” This is something to keep in mind with Barack Obama being such a sophisticated public speaker. Great leaders are not necessarily the best speakers – leadership requires a lot more than mere words.
Nelson Mandela, the former President of South Africa, recently celebrated his ninetieth birthday, a few days early, with a concert at Hyde Park in London – his birthday is July 18th. Attendees at the event were the who’s who from the world of entertainment. The event, hosted by Will Smith, was set up to raise funds for Nelson Mandela’s charity.
Nelson Mandela is the oracle of patient leadership. His twenty-seven years in prison was the time required for his belief and effort in a free and democratic South Africa to fruition.
Quote from Nelson Mandela from his book - Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela:
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
Too often, fear of failure or fear of making a mistake hinders success or even breeds failure. Success is not necessarily the absence of failure, but sometimes the perseverance and conquering of failures.
Fear is merely a mechanism to focus the mind. Learn how to conquer fear and you will conquer any obstacle in life.
I have spent some time contemplating the failed bid for the Democrat Presidential nomination of Hillary Clinton. Naturally, I also tied thoughts into the failed bid for the Presidency by Al Gore in the 2000 election. While Al Gore won the popular vote, he lost the election by the Electoral College vote following the Supreme Court decision of the Florida recount.
Since 2000, Al Gore has demonstrated that he is anything but a failure. While he never took the oath of the highest office in the United States, he has succeeded in bringing his top political issue to the forefront of American and Global conscience.
Since his political career began with a congressional seat from Tennessee, Al Gore’s public service has been known by one dominating issue – the environment. He was one of the first politicians to hold public hearings on the issue and to publically call for reduction in emissions from carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
After Al Gore failed in his bid for the Presidency in 2000 and left the office of Vice President in 2001, he dusted off a twenty year-old speech and toured the speaking circuit to discuss the issue of saving the environment. In 2006, he turned this speech into an Academy Award winning documentary – An Inconvenient Truth. In 2007, he won the Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”
Today, Green Initiatives are commonplace in our business and social arenas. In no small part, this is attributed to Al Gore’s leadership after having failed in his bid for the Presidency.
Quote about Leadership from Al Gore:
“No matter how hard the loss, defeat might serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out.”
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Nelson Mandela has been back in the news yesterday and today. He celebrated his birthday in private with friends yesterday and today, publicly, with fellow presidents, village elders, and African royalty. For a man who has been through as much as he has, it is really great to see him healthy and vibrate at 90 years old.