Safely Behind Bars

I had a dream last night that resulted in seeing an analogy I was becoming aware of. I guess it all started because I had watched a trailer for a Disney film on African Cats – I have always loved and been fascinated by the big cats. I love their power and speed and what looks like the ruthlessness of their rule on the savannah. But that wasn’t really the point of my dream.

You see I do a lot of psychological testing of corporate leaders and executives and I tend to notice certain things about the aggregate scores over time. Leadership is missing a certain vitality. Though certainly on a one-at-a-time level some leaders have a little of one part and others have a little of another, but as a whole, there are some core essentials missing from our leadership. Worse yet, most tests aren’t even set up to measure them. But I am coming to believe that they are essentials.


I am talking about passion, love and faith – words that are not even spoken much in corporate realms. The closest we tend to come to that is looking at committed action (perhaps a version of passion). These are the big cats of human experience! We are attracted to them and will stare endlessly at movies about them in cinematic portrayal, somewhat akin to spending hours ooh-ing and aw-ing at a National Geographic special on the big cats of the savannah.

But we don’t dare get too close to these wild things. They are dangerous and unpredictable. Take passion, for example. Passion has gotten a bad rap of late; perhaps attributable to the many CSI/police dramas on TV that portray passion as the source of murder – crimes of passion, they are called. The motive: passion run amok. But passion is actually defined as a state of heightened emotionality driven by some external force – almost alien to our nature or common behavior. Passion overpowers us and takes control, we think. But can this wild beast be brought inside? Can we truly “live with passion,” as Tony Robbins so often exhorts us to do? How many of those who I test and coach would I claim have some degree of passion running through their leadership? I’ll tell you: very, very few. Passion scares employees – passion scares most of us. Nice to watch, but that cat could rip you apart!

Then there is love. What a magnificent word; the source of so many songs; the foundation of philosophical stands; the mandate of every great teacher or sage. All you need is love. Yet it is curiously missing from our management and nowhere to be seen in testing. “Does this manager exhibit signs of love; does he or she truly love employees?” Can you imagine the reaction to execs coming across that item on an evaluation? No, love, too has gotten a bad name. It is too strong a word to be allowed into the realms of corporate leadership.

Ken Blanchard recently wrote a book with Southwest Airlines’ Colleen Barrett called Lead with LUV (using Southwest’s ticker symbol LUV instead of the word love it stands for). Southwest Airlines is one of the few companies we can all point to that actually talks about love as a leadership principle. And while there are probably many more smaller and far less known companies who actually dare to use that word, the scales are balanced pretty heavily in the other direction. What is so fearful about using love as our foundation of leadership? I’ll tell you: love is vulnerable and brings out the vulnerability in the other. In today’s litigious society, that threat could place someone at risk – why that could be construed as a hostile work environment! Really! Hostile? People fear love! That’s why it is the second of the big cats..

But the stealthy killer of the pack is faith. Faith, unfortunately at a conceptual level, has been stolen and distorted by fear mongers and evangelical ne’er-do-well’s to mean buying into some pre-packaged pseudo-religious dogma that has no basis in truth or spirit. So right out of the starting blocks this killer is marked. But even without that, faith stands in defiance of rationality. Faith is holding onto some truth when there is absolutely no evidence for it. On the positive side, it is the essence of The Secret, but against that is any business or scientific “fact-based” logic. You can’t build a business on faith – no bank would fund that proposal!

Yet people of faith (real faith) can and have moved mountains. They seem to have uncanny luck and “get all the breaks.” They have “the eye of the tiger.” In actuality perhaps they just see what their more logic-bound sisters and brothers can’t see, but their success and their faith scares us. We fear that we have to buy into some Jesus stuff or God language, and then what would people think. Yet despite that, there are many examples of faith-based companies that, strangely or not, are still quite successful.

Yea, those are the wild cats – the big guys we love to look at on NatGeo, but would not necessarily want in our house as pets. So what do we do with them? Well, just like the real African cats, we put them safely behind bars. And that’s what I saw in my dream: passion, love and faith safely locked away for visitors to come and visit on Sunday or holidays. Good Pastors and Rabbis get to use these words and play them out as harmless abstracts for us to consider. Harmless – and behind bars.

Passion: the King of the beasts – a thousand pounds of pure power! Yeah, harmless!
Love: that can overtake you with the speed of the cheetah, and you don’t have a place to hide! Not exactly what I’d call safe and harmless!
And Faith: with all of the stealth of a leopard, just waiting on the branch overhead to spring on you! I don’t think so!

So we cage them and keep them safe and out of harm’s way. And they don’t appear on any test or in any boardroom, and certainly not walking around among us – they are just too dangerous! Indeed!

What Is Hope?

Like nearly all Americans today, I watched and listened and hardly dared to breathe, least I miss a moment or a word. But I started realizing that it wasn't about the man. I started hearing people of reason acknowledging how much work we all had to do. I heard a leader talk in realities. No flowery platitudes, no campaign promises. Just realism and challenges and hard work ahead. So why is it that I feel so hopeful?

I have grown tired of empty suits and political rhetoric. I am wearied from chest-thumping machismo and might-makes-right mentality. I have been worn down by far too many agendas. I need to have my feet planted flatly on the floor.


I don't need to hope for things to come. I don't live my today in the promise of a hereafter. I need to be present - here - right now, and nowhere else. and when I see another who looks like that is what is up for him, I am heartened and lifted up.

I don't know if he can live up to the expectations but I know that those whose expectations are unrealistic will certainly be dashed. I do not know if he will win over his opponents, but I am certain that those who think less of him will find all the evidence they will need in future days. But I am filled with hope today, because one man told his truth. I am encouraged today because the cameras saw all the colors of the faces. I am uplifted because I saw strangers smiling at each other and embracing in the cold air. And I really really want to believe that we can be more together than we are separately, and that something started today that is unique and different in the world. It started today - and I felt it and saw it. And that is what hope is all about.

Moment of Truth

One of my clients told me yesterday that he had lost more than two million dollars over the last week. When I share that with others, I am surprised at the reactions: "That's a rich man's problem, at least he had it to lose!" "Wow - I guess it's a sign of the times." But the one that got me was: "Why did you continue the session instead of letting him get back to work?" That translates to why talk about improving his leadership when what is most needed is action? But really, when is there a better time to talk about leadership?

I have written before about faith - the kind of faith that one finds when there is no reason to believe and nothing in one's mind and soul wants to believe. I think the same is true about leadership. Most situations of leadership are a cake walk. when people willingly line up behind the leader and when the mission is clear, it really doesn't take much to lead - just the title and the willingness to open one's mouth and say, "Let's go!" But when the chips are down, and when everyone is either looking the other way or at least over their shoulder, it takes everything you have and much of what you don't have to lead.

What doesn't work at times like this is cheerleading, pie-in-the-sky optimism, bravado, or sexy powerpoint presentations. What doesn't work is all of the aphorisms learned at leadership school, the lessons of leadership in Jack and Built To Last and The One Minute Manager. What doesn't work is "been there done that," "this too shall pass, and "win this one for the gipper."

This is the moment of truth, the dark night of the soul, the death valley experience. And what works here for you has not yet been invented. What works here is not resident in one person. What works here is simple, gut-wrenching, knee-to-knee, eye-to-eye engagement with others in the process of discovering through open, co-creative dialog what none of us knows nor even knew we had. Leadership at the moment of truth is open and inviting, humbling and being humbled, questioning and being willing to listen to what is said but perhaps as importantly to what has not been said. Most of all, leadership at this point takes the courage to be incredibly present to others - each other we encounter - and to stay present when everything inside wants to duck and cover. After all, leadership isn't about the leader - it is not about you.