Leadership Matters—Now More Than Ever

 

By Dave Wakeman

I’m still on lockdown here in Washington, D.C., until at least May 15. That gives me a lot of time to poorly teach 4th grade and to think about life, business and what comes next. It also gives me plenty of time to watch the news—and I have been fighting that desire, because it is frustrating to see far too many displays of poor leadership when strong leadership is so needed. 

But to bring it back to the positive, we can also see with great clarity how important good, not even great, leadership is. Here are a few principles that have been reinforced to me during this time of uncertainty: 

1. Leadership is about vision: Next to my desk I keep a shadowbox with a profile of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in it. I keep it there because of FDR’s famous quote, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” To me, it’s a constant reminder that we must have courage. 

Courage requires vision—vision of a better future and a better outcome for our project teams. As we come out of this crisis, we need to be ready to provide a vision for our teams of how we are going to grow out of this experience, what we are going to do to overcome obstacles and what future growth and opportunity we can expect. 

In too many places right now, we don’t see that. And the lack of a clear vision for the future and how we’ll come out of this pandemic is causing us more damage than necessary. That’s because business, society and life are all built on a foundation of confidence. When you don’t have the confidence that things will be okay or have direction, it becomes easy to grow demoralized. 

2. Leaders don’t micromanage: I’m only as successful as I am because I let folks do their jobs. 

I’d also tell you with complete sincerity that I only seem anywhere near as smart as you might think I am because of all the people who are willing to share their ideas, experiences and perspectives with me. 

That’s a long-winded way of me telling you: You can’t be an expert in everything. As a leader, you have to recognize your role in the project and let the experts do their jobs. That’s what they are there for. 

No one is an expert in everything, and anyone who is claiming they are is trying to fool you. This crisis should lay open the idea that not one of us, as an individual, can successfully execute all areas of a project. In fact, this crisis should highlight the power of experts, period. 

To achieve success, it is essential that we not micromanage, that we give our teams a clear goal and direction—and that we get out of their way so that they can do their jobs. 

3. Leaders accept responsibility: I think of a scene from Batman v Superman when Wonder Woman dashes in front of Batman to deflect the lasers from the metahuman that was attacking Metropolis and Gotham City. 

Bad analogy, but to me Wonder Woman sets a great example for leaders. She jumped in front of Batman to protect him so that he could get back into the Batplane and come up with a new strategy for defeating the beast with his intelligence and his arsenal of gadgets. 

As leaders, we need to think of ourselves as Wonder Woman in that regard. A leader must protect their team to be able to do the work that is required for project success. It’s relatively easy to deflect attention, pass blame or throw someone under the bus. But real leadership entails dealing with the heat from outside sources and people looking to attack or slow down your project. 

In our current crisis, we have seen many examples of leaders trying to push blame onto others, pass responsibility and remove themselves from the role as the head of the project when things aren’t going well. 

That’s not really leadership, though. That’s sun-shining: the act of leading from the front when things are going great and running for cover when the storm clouds come in. 

I hope everyone is safe, and I hope that we can begin to gain control over this pandemic so we can return to our projects, recreation and life. Until then, I’ll continue to consider lessons learned about leadership while watching this crisis unfold. 

What have you learned about leadership in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic?