Crisis of Leadership — America on Fire
By: Perfecto Sanchez
Tags: Veterans, Social Impact, America, War, Iran

Despite having some of the most innovative technology and resources of any developed country, firefighters in America have one of the highest occupational death rates in the Western World.

This is not a dig on America’s Bravest, they are just as their motto suggests: strong, competent and consummate role models of all that is great in American culture. It’s more so meant to ask the question, is bravery the best way to solve a problem?

Fighting fires serves as a metaphor for what is happening to our country; our house is burning and we need to think of better ways to fight it. I believe America has both a bravery epidemic and a leadership deficit. Our “hero culture” prevents us from effectively unifying in order to develop an approach to the problems which are tearing apart our country. More than heroes, we need effective leaders: visionaries who build bridges instead of walls, do-ers who will bring people together to create lasting solutions and better outcomes.

Outcomes Over Outputs

As a former Army Infantry Officer, I learned a simple but important lesson in combat: it is better to be effective than it is to be right. During my two tours in Iraq leading complex, diverse teams within chaotic environments, at no point was I concerned with my ideas being the only ideas, or taking credit for any successes we had. Instead, my service as a leader meant making sure my team had what they needed to be effective — to accomplish our mission and get home safely.

In my social impact tech company, JourneyOne, we have a similar saying: it is better to drive outcomes than it is to compare outputs. Throughout my civilian career I have seen impact as measured by a series of outputs, often with the end result being a dollars metric. Dollars fund programs but may not always address the root cause. Our goal at JourneyOne to evolve the conversation towards outcomes; sustainable, meaningful, measurable solutions that serve communities and the greater good of the world such as children educated, ocean protected, mouths fed and more. We believe in individual actions that can lead to large scale positive impact. If we as a country took this approach promoting outcomes over outputs, we would begin to see greater progress in the way we react to challenges and proactively tackle big issues facing our people, planet, and our future. I believe most Americans want the same thing: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — but we are fumbling on how to get there and getting in our own way. We have egotistical people posing as leaders but operating as false heroes. Now more than ever is the time to move from competing over outputs to taking actions that deliver outcomes.

Keeping the Right Score

An excellent case study in leadership and cooperation comes from Houston and the city’s approach to dealing with a pervasive homelessness crisis, not unlike some we are still seeing today in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 2011, Houston’s homeless population peaked at 8,538 people so the CEO of the Coalition for the Homeless in Houston, alongside the mayor, the department of housing and urban development, nonprofits, and business leaders announced an organized effort to look for long-term solutions, not just putting band-aids on the problem.

A few short-term goals were targeted — then achieved. More than 100 homeless veterans were housed in 100 days. The next step was creating more permanent housing units linked to support services. Since then, the city has developed more than 4,300 such housing units, and housed 17,000 people. It has helped the city individualize how it aids people experiencing homelessness, prioritizing the most vulnerable. Today, Houston’s homeless population is estimated to be down by 54% in the past decade, making them a standard on how to address a city-wide issue. .

This is the type of leadership, approach and collaboration we need on the national level.

As I see our government boast about the 52 Iranian targets, reciprocal to the 52 American hostages almost four decades ago, I can’t help but wonder, what ‘game’ are we playing and how will this type of scorekeeping get us any closer to solving the problem? Our “hero culture” prevents us from effectively unifying in order to develop an approach to the problems which are tearing apart our country. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. I saw first hand how military action in the region brought endless instability, and the tarmac is still warm from a war we’ve been fighting for almost two decades. We have not had leaders on either side recognize that we need to do something different if we want to change the result. When I see hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets in Tehran and Baghdad, as we Americans sit comfortably on our couches to watch the Golden Globes, I worry that we aren’t realizing this is more than just smoke, this is fire.

With Australia’s wildlands ablaze and the climate crisis accelerating everyday, with hate-crimes reaching a 16-year high, with over 2M Americans incarcerated, it is clear that business as usual is no longer sufficient in this country. We need a new collective processes across public and private sectors along with bold leaders to come up with solutions. Truth is, we can’t get people to care about the oceans if they can’t put food on the table. We can’t talk about female empowerment in isolation without talking about broader equality for race and religion. In order to make sustainable change, we need bold leaders to acknowledge the intersectionality of people, ideas and issues in order to come up with effective solutions. Great leaders understand that no progress comes from one individual taking credit for great ideas, and they understand that it’s only in coming together for collective action can we make lasting change.

Bringing people together to take action

Anyone can be a leader. There are different styles of leadership and it’s critical to decide how you as a leader can 1) make a positive impact and 2) encourage action.

Individual Leadership: Take control of your situation, attitude, and opinions. There is so much anger in America right now, I want people to channel that anger towards something productive. It’s not the person across the table that’s preventing progress, but our desire to focus on what makes us different that clouds our ability to realize that we want the same thing. If we can align on our desired end state, we can work together to talk more about solutions than problems. Simply being better, kinder individuals elevates those around us.

Community Leadership: Improve the state of your neighborhood. Be the first to welcome someone to the neighborhood. Introduce yourself to the new kid in class. Take a keep cup to your local coffee shop Small, sustainable actions are infectious.

Instead of taking pride in having the best looking lawn on the block, take pride in offering to cut your neighbor’s grass or lend them your equipment. Not only are you helping others grow through your example, you are giving them an opportunity to return the favor by teaching you a new skill.

Business Leadership: Business and industry can (and should) lead by setting the standard for the world we want to live in. There are countless examples of bad leadership by businesses beyond just the individuals that lead them. A prime example of this is Boeing and the company’s gross negligence to self-regulate a safety standard that endangered the lives of millions of customers. What Boeing could have done is acknowledge their faults, focus on fixing internal shortcomings and turn this into an opportunity to lead the industry in safety standards. Instead, we see CEOs trying to be heroes by placing the blame on others and telling the world that they are the only ones who can save us.

National Leadership: We need statesmen (and women), not politicians. To quote James Freeman Clarke, “A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman of the next generation.” Our national leadership is in dire need of this type of leadership that sees beyond the divisions of our time and party but puts their energy and focus on improving the lives of future generations.

With enormous problems requiring people and planet-first solutions facing our country, it’s time to rise above the stale pattern of putting political party over country. The next generation of leaders needs to create a government that works for the people and inspires them to work towards a common goal, not divide and conquer them.

My leadership commitment

My commitment to the evolution of leadership begins with my company, JourneyOne. We are an Impact Experience Tech Platform that makes ‘doing good’ more accessible. I believe people want to do good but may not always know how and our goal is to make it easy to learn about different causes and more importantly, how to take action. As a person growing up on welfare in Harlem, I used to think “doing good,” whether donating or volunteering, just wasn’t accessible to me. The same way I believe anyone can be a leader, I believe anyone regardless of their background and socio-economic status, can make a positive impact and can take part in creating the lasting solutions we need. Together we can work to achieve our desired outcome: a better world for all.