Five Qualities of Leaders We Can Trust
Diana Chapman Walsh
President
Wellesley College
[This article appeared on the op-ed page of the May 2, 2004 edition
of The Boston Globe]
As we enter a presidential election race that promises to be protracted
and shrill, many Americans despair of finding a leader we can trust.
We have a crisis of leadership and we see it everywhere. It is far
larger than the upcoming election and, whatever the outcome, will not
so simply be solved. Nor will the challenges that divide us at home,
and that project the United States around the globe as a leader to
be feared, but not to be trusted. We need a national dialogue on leadership
itself and how each of us can play a part in creating and sustaining
practices of leadership in which it will be safe to place our trust.
Every American knows something about the values we want our leaders
to embody and uphold on our behalf. And many of us worry that our country
is making grievous mistakes, both here and abroad: dwelling in fear,
painting the world in black and white, meeting violence with violence,
fueling the fires of hatred, acting in isolation with arrogance and
hubris, hardening ourselves to the suffering and pain our actions are
causing. We sense that there are better ways to lead. I believe that
the leaders we admire live five essential commitments:
First and foremost, they question themselves. Effective leadership
comes from an inner core of integrity and yet it is not fixed, stubborn
or implacable. Leaders we trust are open to our thoughtful influence,
aware that they cannot possess all the answers, eager to hear responsible
critique and to work with it. They resist the temptation to believe
they are larger than life. The ancients knew that the first and most
difficult obligation of a leader is the Socratic injunction to “know
thyself.”
Second, leaders we trust honor their partnerships. Knowing they won’t
be successful alone, they value partnerships as the basic units for
accomplishing work -- whether the partners are individuals or large
entities -- and they invest in preserving partnerships that remain
capable of receiving honest critique.
Third, trustworthy leaders resist the use of force except as a last
resort. Leadership is by definition the exercise of power, and leaders
are constantly called upon to deploy their power on one side or another
of high-stakes disputes. As tempting as it is to wade in with what
looks like decisiveness, effective leaders know that interventions
imposed from on high seldom yield enduring peace, whether in households,
workplaces or far-off countries. Avoiding the use of force reflects
a conception of the leader as the person whose effectiveness depends
on being able to hear multiple sides of a dispute and to create conditions
within which it can be transformed at the most local level where those
directly affected can assume responsibility and discover their own
resourcefulness.
Fourth, knowing that differences of opinion, perspective and world
view are a crucial part of life and learning, leaders who can be trusted
value differences, not only as an ethical imperative and a measure
of respect for others, but also as a unique creative resource. In any
group, organization or system, the voices from the margins hold the
buried wisdom that can keep us honest and alert to our self-deceptions.
There are aspects of our culture to which alienation is a healthy response.
Only when we have leaders who understand healthy conflict in its inevitability
and its productivity, will we begin to develop the skills to mine it
well.
Leaders who can be trusted, fifth, create communities that function
as sustaining circles of trust. Out of such communities leadership
can emerge as a collective project that derives its power and authority
from a cooperative commitment to a larger whole. When Americans come
together to form a supportive community for the purpose of enabling
its members to develop their own potential and seek the common good,
we know we have the courage to communicate across wide chasms of difference.
This is the very essence of our national experiment, the spirit and
the result of the 1787 Constitutional Convention.
In this crucial election year, all Americans need to initiate a deeper
dialogue on national leadership based in our strongest ideals -- equity,
freedom to disagree, fairness, strength, mutual responsibility and
national unity. As we take up this conversation, we ourselves will
be leading from our best and highest aspirations, preserving for succeeding
generations the legacy we inherited.
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Diana Chapman Walsh, Ph.D. is the twelfth president of Wellesley College.
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