The Leadership Bridge
By: Jamie Mcintosh
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Business, Personal Development, Leadership, Startup

For decades, so many were in on the game. Management consultants, strategists, and marketers all played off of the numerical symmetry of the future year: 2020.

And why not? 2020’s optical allusion to “perfect vision” made for clever headlines and crisp tag-lines for board presentations, product launches, and strategic plans.

2020 was an easy target. Too easy, it turns out.

Cataclysmic disruption

Virtually no one saw it coming. Wave after wave of cataclysm and chaos. Caused or catalyzed by a lethal virus. Perhaps from a bat. With a name that sounds like a beer.

In wealthier nations, the fallout has been fierce. Shocking volatility has rocked oil futures and rolled speculators. Raging unemployment has catapulted families into economic and mental distress. Household debt has torn through the roof. Workforces and classrooms have Zoomed into our residences, diverting congestion from the highways into our hallways.

In COVID-19’s wake, health systems and supply chains have staggered. Factories have shut down. Cities have shut people in. Nations have shut people out. Millions are infected, with hundreds of thousands dead. All because of a merciless plague with scary names: COVID-19, or CoronaVirus, owing to the red crown-like spikes surrounding the virion.

And this impact is just from the viral contagion in affluent lands. The virus will likely hit the majority world in a series of crushing tsunamis. Experts project decades of hard-fought development gains will be wiped out, pushing millions into extreme poverty.

The World Food Program’s David Beasley warns of widespread famine, which is threatening to drive an additional 130 million people to starvation’s edge this year. Already, the “Poverty Clock” has turned backward for the first time this century, according to The Brookings Institute.

In many urban settings where people live cheek-by-jowl and share communal toilets, social distancing is unthinkable. Buses are crammed with day labourers, while rural artisans and traders must choose between selling wares in the market, or staying home to watch their families slowly starve.

“…widespread famine…is threatening to drive an additional 130 million people to starvation’s edge this year. Already, the “Poverty Clock” has turned backward for the first time this century.”

And yet, hope persists. Heroic health care, humanitarian, and food service workers have stepped bravely into COVID’s breach, to keep the rest of humanity breathing. Out. In. Out. In.

Research and innovation proliferate. Promising disruptors include artificial intelligence, 3D-printing, machine learning, and countless tech solutions emerge by the hour. Start-up’s scale with stunning velocity, accelerated by new digital platforms. Opportunities lurk, even in the midst of devastation.

Dangerous navigation

How can a leader navigate her team through these turbulent waters, rippling with peril and promise? How might he uplift people through — or above — the rapids, escorting crew and cargo safely across to destined shores? Is it even possible to fulfill a company’s critical mission amidst such chaos?

The short answer is ‘yes.’

The path is costly but clear: Leaders must become the bridge, or the ship, to help others navigate current adversity.

“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you.” Legendary business leader Max De Pree anchored the suspension bridge of leadership on each end with the concepts of reality and gratitude.

“In between,” he continues, “the leader is a servant.”

Forged together, these raw materials — reality, gratitude, service — span and sway as the Golden Gate Bridge. They stab through the fog and stretch over the team’s chasms.

Origins & destinations

How might “defining reality” be a leader’s first responsibility. My sense: leading involves a journey from the present to a desired future state. From the status quo to where we ought, or want, to go. And all journeys have a starting point on the map of change.

Punch any destination into Google Maps, say, the Eiffel Tower or the Grand Canyon. Zoom in with satellite precision. StreetView it, or layer the topographic contours. Yet without a starting location, no GPS can provide guidance.

Likewise, without both clarifying where we find ourselves in the competitive landscape as well as precise targeting of our intended destination— or the kind of entity we aspire to become — we simply can’t map our way forward.

Smart, effective leaders survey obstacles ahead, summon resources, and decide the pace and form of transportation best suited for the trip. They ask themselves and their team, “Is it best to,”:

Travel on foot? (Employing traditional, time-tested methods.) Take transit? (Exploring ecological or economical approaches.) Teleport or HyperLoop? (Expediting with disruptive innovation.)

Courageous correction

Defining reality requires courage. If a change of direction is required, vested interests may try sabotage or to resist. Wise leaders don’t shrink back. While urgent to sail on, smart captains would rather anchor to wait out a storm, dry-dock to fix a structural flaw, or put a mutinous member “in the brig” of correction than to risk the loss of crew, cargo, and a sunken ship.

Leaders anchored to reality cut loose from vanity projects and avoid the trap of following sunk costs. They mid-course correct to avoid mission drift from an entity’s true North of purpose, ethics or values. And they awaken the dangerously complacent with smelling salts of data and core convictions.

In their defining of reality, these leaders steadfastly refuse to entertain distracting sirens, be lulled into fantasy islands, or to promote false expectations of smooth sailing.

Inspiring vision

Inspiring leaders define reality by contrasting “the now” with “the next”, offering compelling visions of a better future. Antoine Saint-Exupery caught it magnificently:

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

The invigorating salt-spray of sailing uncharted waters for bright horizons ignites the imagination. It excites people to work towards undiscovered possibilities, to find transformational solutions.

When I served as CEO of Mercy Ships Canada, I had the privilege of getting to know the global founders of Mercy Ships. Don and Deyon Stephens brought Saint-Exupery’s approach to life. For 40 years this inspirational couple has sparked and sustained a stunning movement of global surgery.

The innovative vision? Leverage the mobile platform of ships to make free surgical care accessible for the 5 billion men, women, and children lacking access.

Having zero background in marine or medical industries couldn’t deter the entrepreneurial realization of their vision. The Stephens’ enlisted an all-volunteer workforce — engineers, captains, cooks, surgeons, dentists, mechanics, nurses, along with countless generous donors.

The result? The work of Mercy Ships recently completed its 100,000th life-transforming surgical procedure onboard the fleet. Each one, free of charge. Restoring smiles to children with cleft lips and palates; range of motion to the limbs of burn victims; repair of obstetric fistula. Surgeries that restore patients’ dignity and power.

Through their vision, Don and Deyon Stephens defined reality, defied it, and re-defined the possible. They sparked waves of healing by awakening people from all nations and walks of life with the sea spray of hope.

Genuine appreciation

This brings us to the soul of leadership: gratitude.

Gratitude is a leadership posture which honours the contributions of each to the accomplishment of the whole. Its humility sets the stage for everyone to perform. It honours the diversity required for any enterprise to succeed and scale. This sharing of credit amplifies trust and unlocks discretionary effort.

Just as bridges and ships need constant painting to prevent corrosion, so gratitude should be applied with generous frequency. It stops the creeping arrogance of power in leaders and defends against resentment for employees or volunteers whose hidden contributions deserve to be surfaced. A focus on affirmation, even in the midst of correction, frees people to spend less time covering rears, and more time moving ahead.

Giving thanks should extend to all stakeholders. Thanking a vendor, for working late to help meet a deadline; an investor, for taking a risk; or a strategic partner for their grace over a serious mistake. Gratitude soon pervades and shapes the culture, improving employees’ and customers’ experience — it even enhances the organization’s brand.

“Just as bridges and ships need constant painting to prevent corrosion, so gratitude should be applied with generous frequency.”

Such gratitude is Janus-like, looking backward as well as forward. It honours the legacy of those whose sacrifice made the present possible. It gives reasonable assurance that future endeavours will be recognized and rewarded. It builds credible trust in leadership, and confidence in a shared future. This lends motivation to a workforce to stick through the tough times.

Become the bridge

Ellen Duffield of The Leadership Studio artfully tells the ancient story of King Bran. As the Welsh tale goes, King Bran discovers his enemy has destroyed bridges to the land where his sister Branwen has been held hostage.

This legendary king, “the size of a mountain,” cleverly realizes that the only hope for Branwen’s rescue is to lay himself across the raging river, allowing his men to cross over on his back. This bold yet humble leadership gives rise to the motto that “the one who would be a leader must also be a bridge.”

Movements over monuments

All too often we have concocted the image of a leader as standing apart from the team, heroic and powerful. To be served by all those around. Yet leaders who inspire loyalty do so by their genuine servant-leadership of society.

Like King Bran, they may be larger than life, but use their power and gifts, not to show off — but to show the way. These servant-leaders advance the cause without obsessive self-regard. They care about creating movements not monuments.

We admire this focus on the movement in bold leaders like Rosa Parks or the suffragettes. Those tough enough to endure to mistreatment or mockery in order to advance the rights of a great number of souls.

We admire it in men like Martin Luther King, Jr., who marched with those he led across bridges and down streets rife with nasty attack dogs and nastier racist opposition. Dr. King courageously endured imprisonment, defamation, and violence — ultimately laying his life down — all for the sake of his dream of equality, harmony, justice, and freedom.

Servant leaders

While rarely commanding the spotlight in a similar manner, servant leaders quietly show up every day putting the needs of their team, their families or their clients first:

It’s the small business owner who forgoes drawing money from the business in order to meet payroll; It’s the veteran CEO who coaches herself out of a job in order to prepare the path for the next generation; It’s the whistleblower willing to risk their livelihood to make something right or prevent something unconscionable; It’s the refugee or single mother toiling away to provide for their children’s safety, dignity and future; It’s the University president quietly contributing to student scholarships and allocating budgets to mental health needs of struggling students; It’s the humanitarian worker who puts herself in harm’s way to prevent the spread of the Ebola or Covid19 viruses.

Honouring the past

In this season of tremendous disorientation and fear, perhaps we should pause to acknowledge the brave souls who’ve shown us the path of leadership over our own troubled waters. The humble, fierce servants who first define current reality in order to defy and redefine it. Who have invited us into the fray, gently coaching and correcting, celebrating our progress along the way.

We should especially commend those who’ve modelled what it is to self-givingly become a bridge or a ship for others. To let them know that whatever accomplishments we might find along our paths, we acknowledge it’s because we’ve stood on the shoulders of brilliant women and men.

Gathering hope

As we seek to navigate these difficult times, let’s take courage that others have conquered tremendous challenges, and overcome what appeared as insurmountable obstacles. Let’s clarify and define reality with truth, conviction, and vision. Let’s extend our reach, and lay ourselves down in service of something bigger than ourselves. Let’s lift others up in doing so, and appreciating their contributions all along the way.

As we as leaders define reality, give thanks, and become servants, perhaps we might learn to become bridges or ships for those who have difficult waters to cross. It just might be mission-critical.