Who is a leader?

About a year ago, I started a two-part post about leadership, and of course I never finished it. Link to first leadership post. So here’s part deux:

When you imagine a great leader, you might think of military leaders like Pharaohs of olden day Egypt, with thousands marching behind him, willing to sacrifice their miniscule lives for his holiness. I kind of imagine the epic battle scenes from Lord of the Rings, Aragorn leading an entire army, the hero, leading by his greatness.

But here is the Tao Te Ching on leadership:

When his task is accomplished and his work done, The people all say, ‘It happened to us naturally.’

This runs counter to conventional beliefs about leadership. Which would claim that it’s about power. That it’s about dominance. That it’s about making your presence felt.

According to the Tao, maybe being a great leader isn’t about having strict control over your underlings. Maybe the mark of a great leader isn’t about the leader at all, but the people the leader serves. That’s why great leaders are hard to come by, because like anything else, it’s deciding other people are more important than you.

Here’s a story about a great leader to emphasize the point.

A couple summers ago I worked in a lab at Harvard studying under a well-known scientist who had hundreds of publications. Of course, when I first started, I didn’t know anything. I had much to learn, but my boss believed in learning by practice, so he threw me into the fire, and I was clueless. I had to take care of some cells, but I didn’t know anything about cell culture. It was almost 5 PM on a Friday, and I couldn’t find anybody in the lab, when out of nowhere Ryan, one of the technicians, asked me if I needed help.

Surely, Ryan was headed out of the lab, and he had something better to be doing than waiting around watching me learn the routine skill of feeding cells. But Ryan stayed, and sat with me for an hour. He talked me through it as if he were having fun, and his positive attitude took the pressure off of me. My first day in the lab ended without me getting fired, so that was a win.

In this situation I have to question, who was the leader?

My boss, who was the designated leader, chosen by society as the leader of the lab?

Or was it Ryan, who was actually around the lab and making sure the newest naïve member of the lab didn’t go home from his first day dreading his second day?

Or did my boss set the tone for Ryan with his own hard-working attitude?

As always, life is confusing.

from ken

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

From the one who has been entrusted with much,

Sidenote to start: I struggled a lot with writing this post. Largely because it has a similar to tone to a previous post I wrote that I felt was too judgmental. However, I have a piece of paper taped to my door that says, “TODAY, BE TRUE TO YOURSELF.” I think this anger is a part of my voice, so I’m just going to trust, and let it come out…

Recently there was a foiled terrorist attack at a downtown Portland Christmas tree lighting. link I was talking with some friends about how he should be thrown in jail and never see the light of day. How could someone say they wanted to kill as many innocent children as possible?

One of the greatest thinkers of our time, Malcolm Gladwell, a columnist for The New Yorker, recently wrote a book called Outliers. In the book, Gladwell debunks the American myth of individual success being attributed to individual effort. Instead, he supports a societal perspective of success in which the privileged receive more opportunity for success, a theory called “The Matthew Effect,” named after a verse in the Gospel of Matthew:

“For unto everyone that has shall be given, and he shall have in abundance. But from him that has not shall be taken away even that which he has.”

I believe “The Matthew Effect” is real. I have a first hand recollection of it. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a suburban world, taught general rules of politely interacting with other human beings, and without being that motivated, I found myself binge drinking Keystone Lights while receiving a degree from a competitive liberal arts college.

At said liberal arts college, I encountered several incredible mentors: Coach Duane Gomez, Campus Minister Jeff Bergeson, and Professor Joan Slonczewski. They were all painstakingly patient with me and waited for me to come into my own, but also supported me when I wanted to push. In all three cases, they just randomly fell along my path.

In addition to outstanding mentors, at an impressionable stage, the people that fell into my life weren’t drug addicts or manipulative pimps, but a girl that opened my eyes to the global atrocities of the have’s and have-not’s, and slowly got me to think outside of my small selfish mind.

My story of individual success is due to this incredible environment. It gave me sufficient time to be coddled so I could develop into my own. Which begs the question? What did I do to deserve all this? And better yet, what did other late-bloomers do not to deserve this? That’s fucked up.

It’s easy to get guilt-tripped about falling ass backwards into success. Gladwell, a New York Times best-selling author who was also surrounded by a great developmental environment, says about his book, “Outliers wasn’t intended as an autobiography. But you could read it as an extended apology for my success.”

I don’t think guilt is the right response. I don’t think such opportunities exist in the world so we can feel bad about our success, apologize, and hide in our shadows. So what is the right response? Well, the Gospel of Luke has additional ideas about those privileged few.

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

The Outliers framework suggests that society is responsible for individual success, but I want to extend the idea and claim that society is also responsible for individual failure.

I believe the failed terrorist attack in Portland was not an individual failure, but a societal one. This failure is not the responsibility of this poor 19 year old. It falls squarely on the shoulders of the society that puts violence, war, and power on a pedestal. It falls on the mentors that weren’t in place to teach him moral values. It falls on his peers that weren’t there to love him, and show him the incredible value of even a single human being. It falls on all of us.

It’s up to each individual to take what they like from the Gospel of Luke quote. But I believe for those privileged few in this messed up world, like it or not, we are the leaders of society. It is a lot to ask to fix the world. It’s super fucked up. But recently I’ve been hearing the stories of a lot of people who got the short-end of the society stick, and I think it’s our responsibility to capitalize on our opportunity and rectify societal failures.

"And Quenton Cassidy moved out into the second lane, the lane of high hopes, and ran out the rest of the life in him."

- John L. Parker, Once A Runner

from ken

Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

Attitude reflects leadership

So I’m going to write a two-part post, the first part being a general rant on leadership, and the second part being what makes a good leader.

I had been thinking about leadership the last couple days, but I was inspired when I saw a quote on a church advertisement:

“It is a struggle to get children to listen to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”

I’ll come back to that quote later.

Leadership seems like a very elusive issue, every environment I’ve ever gone through including groups I was in charge of, like old jobs, sports teams, service organizations, always, always seems to lack good leadership. This is probably because being a good leader is 99% non-glamorous work that nobody will notice.

And of course, a situation with good leaders is different from a situation with big ego’s, which I’ve definitely contributed to. When you just want to see your vision carried out rather than accomplish the actual mission of the group, it’s easy just to mash together some big ego’s.

The times I have been in a situation with good leadership it just felt like the group just had a better sense of direction and actually accomplished something, rather than functioning aimlessly.

I’ve read so much about how good leaders assert themselves by being useful or likeable or needed rather than because they simply want to lead. I always resented that I wanted to be a good leader, since it felt powerhungry and selfish. But I'm starting to realize that's just a part of who I am, and as I learn more about embracing every part of myself, I'm accepting that I will always want to be in a leadership role.

So, before I get back to the quote I wanted to mention a scene from the epic movie “Remember the Titans”. The movie takes place during the civil rights movement, and describes a black school being integrated into a white school, and the challenges involved in bringing together a football team of black and white players. There’s a scene where the white captain is furious at the black captain for not being a team player. The black captain, bringing up a situation in which the white captain didn’t stand up for the black players replies, “Attitude reflects leadership, captain.”

Ever since I heard that quote, it’s really stuck with me. That first quote from the church reflects that same idea. Whatever atmosphere the leaders of any team create, is the same attitude that is followed by the rest of the crowd.

I saw this quote in action during my time with Kenyon Cross Country. In my sophomore and junior years , we had an incredibly serious, success-driven team that had some of the fastest runners I ever had the chance to train with.

Then, my senior year when I was a captain, we had a much more laid back atmosphere focused on bringing people together through running, rather than having a group of people that are focused on running.

Very different feels, and I think the difference had a lot to do with the leadership that was driving those teams. The first two years had incredibly talented and hard-working captains that set school records and ran at nationals, whereas my senior year I was burnt out on running and wanted to focus on cultivating friendships.

Even though I knew these quotes and I was consciously trying to change the atmosphere of the team, I was still pleasantly surprised at what a drastic change the team feel went through. That’s what a good leader can do, I guess.

from ken

Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

photo by dynamosquito