Hey Leader, What's Your Story?

Last year, for a graduate school assignment, I asked friends and family via Facebook: “What do we need in a leader for the coming years?” Within 24 hours I had 29 responses. This is what they told me, in rank order:

• Integrity / Ethics / Morality
• Humility
• Courage
• Vision
• Authenticity
• Compassion
• Passion
• Empathy
• Competence / Intelligence
• Strong Communication Skills
• Future Focus
• Profit Orientation
• A Sense of Humor

Yikes. Can all of these qualities actually be found in one person? Well, yes—but those leaders are the unicorns among us. I have had the good fortune to work for terrific people throughout my career, but I’ve only encountered a few who truly embodied most of these qualities most of the time. Eventually, I came to understand they often made extraordinary sacrifices in their efforts to meet the standards they set for themselves as leaders. Their effort earned mine. They didn't need to be perfect.

If the popular topics on LinkedIn are any indication, many of us aspire to be leaders of that caliber. But I’m troubled by the disconnect between the enormous volume of research, books, papers, TED Talks and platitudes we’re consuming and the evidence all around us of leadership failure: dull employee engagement scores, diseased corporations, and political leaders more intent on winning than governing. For my part, as much as I’ve studied leadership and tried to put what I’ve studied into practice, I am struck by my own failures. So where to look for guidance to make my own meaningful changes?

That’s as far as I’d gotten in my musings for this essay, when, in a fit of writerly procrastination, I took a cruise around LinkedIn and came upon this post by @marcdecourcey, in which he describes the disturbing response he observed in some of his fellow commuters when their train struck and killed a man near Philadelphia. He writes:

“Hours later after we departed the train in Washington; several passengers, no vultures, were clicking away on their cell phones at the blood stained nose of the Acela; presumably hoping as they smirked that their latest post would elicit likes, retweets and shares.”

I shared Mr. Decourcey’s post with this comment:

“We don't necessarily lose our humanity in a fall off a cliff. It slips by degrees. But we end up in a low, dark place just the same.”

Then, returning to this essay, I had a flash of insight: Instead of being preoccupied with being a better leader, maybe I'd better double down on my efforts to be a decent human being. How might I have acted on that train?

When I find myself in need of a humanity check, I think of my sister, Maureen Rose Morley, who lost her battle with cancer a decade ago. In her 39 years of life, her grace, courage, and faith were a tremendous source of inspiration to everyone who knew her. She herself embodied every character trait in my Facebook friends’ wish list for leadership except for Future Focus and Profit Orientation. She lived in the moments given to her and she cared not a whit for a dollar. She might not have been the boss of us, her nine siblings, or of the many people who knew and loved her, but she endures in our memory as a beloved and inspirational leader.

Maureen was rock solid in her deep compassion for all people. Her memorable response to any mention of an individual’s flaws was “they’re just people.” It wasn’t a diminishment (“they’re just people, so what do you expect?"), but a reminder to be gentle with our fellows in humanity. Glass houses, and all of that.

Maureen’s “Just People” principle is the right starting point for me in my efforts to be a better leader.  From it, I can construct my own simple litmus test: Am I doing the right thing by the people who depend on me, while remaining authentic and true to myself? Can I set aside judgment in favor of understanding? When I have opportunities to act like a jerk, am I declining them? And this: Can I forgive myself for not living up to expectations 100 percent of the time, learn from my failures, and resolve to do better?

Before Maureen died, she wrote a farewell address to be read at her funeral. In it, she told of a dream in which she arrived at a vast hillside where people were telling the stories of their lives. She wrote of being drawn in particular to the story of a 60 year-old man who, like herself, was dying of cancer:

“I hear the utter beauty of the story he’s telling. It’s a story rife with joy and pain,    comedy and tragedy. It’s a strange story: there are aspects of it that I understand but many more that are way beyond me. I weep for the sheer immensity of it, in gratitude. Somehow it’s my story too. Somehow it is ours. Somehow it is bigger than all of us put together.”

Every human system is a story, created by the people who belong to it, and bigger than all of them put together. Maybe the best way we, as “just people,” can improve as leaders is by asking ourselves every day: How am I going to make this day count—for myself and for the people who look to me? What is the story we might create together?

And then, if we find ourselves on a train when tragedy strikes, surrounded by people as imperfect as we are, maybe we’ll know how to step up and lead.

What story will you create today?

Barbara Leary is a writer and leadership coach and advises companies on guiding their stakeholders through change. More at BarbaraLeary.com.