Tag: influence

Leading From Behind

On a cold day in November 1928, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team huddled in a locker room at Yankee Stadium.

The Irish were in the midst of a lackluster season, and the first half of this contest against the undefeated Army Cadets was going no better. Both teams had battled to a 0-0 tie, and morale on the Notre Dame sideline seemed low.

In the silence of the locker room, coach Knute Rockne spoke up. Instead of discussing strategy or tactics, Rockne evoked the memory of a former player — the All-American George Gipp. Gipp had died eight years earlier, and Rockne recalled Gipp’s final words to him:

Sometimes, when the team is up against it – and the breaks are beating the boys – tell them to go out there with all they’ve got and win just one for the Gipper.

The players responded to Rockne’s call with vigor, roaring back to beat Army. Notre Dame would go on to win national titles in the two subsequent years.

Rockne was already a legend before he urged his team to Win one for the Gipper. He had won 85 football games at Notre Dame to that point and helped popularize the forward pass.

But the halftime speech took his legend to new heights. It showed that coaches could do more than plot out X’s and O’s on a blackboard. They could lead from the front.

They could inspire with their words, command with their charisma, and blaze a trail through the boldness of their conviction.

Leading from the front was not a new concept when Rockne evoked it. It had long existed in politics, with its premium on oration and debate. But it was relatively nascent elsewhere.

Now, it no longer is.

Indeed, in the near century since Rockne’s speech, leading from the front has become the norm — in sports, in business, and in life.

Coaches are expected to say the right words to their teams at the right times. Bold keynote presentations are now expected of CEOs. And charisma is demanded of the rest of us.

The implication is clear. By taking charge and demonstrating a plan for success, leaders can inspire others to action. They can spark a movement and leave their mark on the world.

This approach has paid dividends, on and off the field. But it’s not the only way forward.

I grew up with sports.

Watching them. Playing them. And appreciating all the lessons they brought.

Throughout all that time as an aspiring youth athlete, I only remember one speech that made a difference to me. It came from my middle school baseball coach during a practice. And while it impacted my life, it didn’t raise my team’s performance on the field.

No, I didn’t rely on my baseball coaches for inspiration. My motivation came from watching pro baseball players. Not the flashy, hard-nosed ones. The quiet and consistent types.

I recognized from an early age that the best baseball teams had more than big sluggers or lights-out pitchers. They had glue guys — seemingly ordinary players who did all the little things right.

Oftentimes, their attention to detail would cause others to follow suit. And if those with the greatest athletic abilities were also attending to the details of the game — well, that made the team nearly unbeatable.

There’s a name for this quiet leadership. It’s called leading from behind. And I’ve been fascinated with it ever since those boyhood days on the diamond.

For leading from behind is hard. It requires us to show up each day and do our best.

There are no shortcuts to success. And no glamour to be found in the process.

When leading from behind, our best hope is for the steady drip of our actions to inspire others. Our best wish is to serve as a north star, illuminating the road ahead for our team. And our best reward is to garner the respect of those around us.

Embracing this mentality can be a tough adjustment, especially in a society that lionizes towering personalities. But the journey can prove worthwhile.

After all, those who lead from the front tend to have big egos. And egos can be mighty polarizing.

Yes, for all his glory and accolades, Michael Jordan wasn’t exactly beloved by his teammates. Despite his visionary leadership, Steve Jobs might be best remembered as a vindictive jerk. And Stanley Kubrick was as tough to work for as he was brilliant.

These character flaws might seem immaterial. But the dissent they spawned diluted the leadership abilities of these great men and tarnished their legacies.

Those leading from behind don’t face these problems. Their actions speak volumes all their own.

When I was in college, I decided I wanted to work in television news.

But my self-determined role in this industry was a strange one.

Instead of reporting from the field or sitting behind an anchor desk with the bright studio lights upon me, I wanted to produce the nightly newscasts. I yearned to compile stories, write scripts, wrangle footages, and – yes – manage the egos of news personalities. And I pined to do this behind the scenes, far from the discerning eyes of the viewing audience.

I knew that I’d get little acclaim for doing this. I wouldn’t be recognized when I walked down the street. Heck, I might not even be feted in my own newsroom.

And yet, I knew the value of the producer role. Without it, the newscast would be a rudderless ship, short on information and full of chaos.

Producing the nightly newscasts would provide me a great opportunity — the opportunity to lead from behind.

I seized that opportunity for nearly three years, making friends and garnering respect along the way. And when I left the news media, I didn’t abandon those principles.

As I’ve built a career in marketing, I’ve led from behind. I’ve put in the work, deflected credit, and sought to elevate my team at every turn.

This strategy certainly has its risks. There was always the chance that I’d be overlooked for a promotion or a similar opportunity.

But the benefits have far outweighed the risks. I’ve earned the respect of colleagues, made new friends, and helped accomplish far more than I would have if I had gone it alone.

But I’m not unique. Many others could reap these same benefits by shifting their conceptions of leadership.

We don’t need to be up front to make a difference. There’s plenty of merit in leading from behind.

It’s high time we explored it.

Market-Based Approaches

My house, my rules.

It’s the ultimate power move.

Many of us were subjected to this edict as we grew up. Our parents ruled the roost. And we had no choice but to comply.

I was no different.

I knew that I would need to finish my homework before I could watch television. And if it snowed, I’d need to shovel the sidewalk before making any snowmen.

It didn’t matter if I thought the rules were fair. They were final.

If I rose in protest, my pleas would be ignored. If I asked why the rules were the way they were, my parents would reply with Because I said so.

I was left with only two choices. I could obey. Or I could rebel and face the consequences.

I was a good kid, so I generally took the first approach. But plenty of my friends and classmates followed the second route, particularly as we all reached adolescence.

The rebelliousness forged conflict between my peers and their parents, just as their days under one roof were dwindling. With the freedom of adulthood nearly at hand, the whole situation seemed so pointless.

And yet, it was entirely predictable.

More than two centuries ago, a crisis played out on the shores of North America. A crisis that was essentially spurred by the words Because I said so.

The “parent” in this situation was the British crown. And the “children” were the residents of the American colonies.

The crisis centered on a plan to tax the colonists for such items as stamps and tea. The colonists reacted with rage, dumping chests of tea into the Boston Harbor.

The British reacted by passing a series of restrictive laws, known in the colonies as The Intolerable Acts. The colonists responded to this affront by declaring independence from Britain and winning the Revolutionary War that ensued.

The erstwhile colonists had done it. They’d freed themselves from the unilateral edicts of the British crown. And while the next steps remained uncertain, one thing was abundantly clear. My house, my rules was never going to fly.

The founding fathers took two steps to wipe out this option, for once and for all. They created a representative government, giving many Americans a say in the legislation they’d encounter. And they embraced an emerging economic model called capitalism to fuel the nation’s fortunes.

Many of the early theories of capitalism stemmed from the work of Scottish economist Adam Smith. In such publications as The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations, Smith wrote of the “invisible hand” of the market defining patterns of prosperity.

As the leading intellectuals of the era parsed Smith’s work, they came up with a novel idea. Perhaps market-based approaches could efficiently govern society. The United States of America was among the first nations to put such a theory into practice.

Over the years, these twin tenets — free markets and a representative democracy — have become the core of the American ethos. They’ve proven that no matter the outcome, we have a chance, and we have a say.

Still, we tend to tire of this winning formula. We seek to cut through the red tape, to sidestep debate, and to avoid bipartisanship. We aim to rule with iron fists.

Even if it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

The mandate came at a moment of exasperation.

Nearly two years into a bruising pandemic, America seemed to be stuck in neutral. Many Americans had received a vaccine to protect them against a deadly virus, but many others had not. Progress in quashing COVID had waned.

Into this quagmire came a hand grenade, courtesy of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (or OSHA). Employees at large businesses would need to get vaccinated or face twice-weekly COVID testing. Businesses that didn’t comply would face steep fines.

It was a bold move with noble intentions. But it was ultimately a futile one.

OSHA’s directive quickly met legal challenges, which wound their way through the courts. Eventually, the United States Supreme Court blocked the action, arguing that OSHA had overstepped its authority. It turns out that Because I said so wasn’t a valid justification for such a broad government directive.

The high court’s ruling left a vacuum of ambiguity. Should businesses enact their own vaccine mandates to help stamp out the virus? Was the entire matter now moot?

As the debate waged on, I thought back to a move one major corporation had made before OSHA drafted its ill-fated policy.

Delta Airlines had asked its employees to get the COVID vaccine. But if they refused, Delta would charge employees $200 per month. The airline justified the surcharge by stating that it would cover the financial risk unvaccinated employees would levy on the company. To hammer home the point, Delta pointed out that it was paying an average of $50,000 in medical bills for each of its employees who were hospitalized with COVID.

On its face, this directive seems like the ill-fated OSHA one. Yet, it didn’t face legal resistance —or just about any resistance, for that matter. In fact, 90 percent of Delta Airlines employees got vaccinated weeks before the policy even took effect.

Why such different outcomes? Well, Delta Airlines skillfully explained the reasoning for each facet of its directive. They gave employees a choice on how to proceed. And they relied on a market-based approach to get the vaccine-hesitant off the fence.

It all came down to a simple point. Decisions have consequences. And the more directly we feel those consequences, the more likely we are to change our behavior.

In a capitalist society, we’re most likely to feel the sting of consequence financially. So, if eschewing a vaccine helps us to potentially spread a devastating virus, we might face anger and ridicule, but not the medical bills of those we infect. But if the decision makes our wallets $200 lighter each month — while our bills and expenses remain the same — we’re more likely to change course.

I often wonder why we don’t take this approach more often when tackling the big problems our society faces. Instead of trying to herd people like cattle to the desired outcome, why don’t we let market-based approaches guide them there?

We would likely make more progress at staving off climate change with market-based approaches. We could speed up adoption of new technologies. And we could optimize the way we live work.

Sure, such an approach is not universal. Texas’ move to a market-based approach for electricity providers failed spectacularly when the state faced a massive winter storm. And such approaches threaten to exacerbate, rather than eradicate, patterns of pay inequity.

But those are the exceptions, not the rule. Market-based approaches belong in the conversation more broadly. Top-down directives do not.

So, let’s leave My house, my rules behind. Let’s stop acting on our authoritarian impulses. And let’s let the invisible hand take over.

We’ll be setting ourselves up for greater success.

Soft Power

On June 12, 1987, the world changed with six words.

Those words came from Ronald Reagan, who was the United States President at the time. And they took place in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

The image of the American president speaking in the shadow of Germany’s most famous landmark should have been glorious and awe-inspiring. It was anything but.

For the Cold War was in full swing. Tensions were high. And a hideous concrete barrier stood between Reagan and the iconic gate.

That barrier, of course, was the Berlin Wall. A heavily fortified edifice that split the city in half and had come to symbolize the divide between the Soviet Union and the West.

Reagan surely knew why the Berlin Wall was there. But he also recognized that it didn’t need to be there. What was built up could always be removed.

And so, he called on his Soviet counterpart – General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev – to do just that.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall, he exclaimed. The crowd in front of him cheered voraciously.

The Soviet premier didn’t come down to the Brandenburg Gate with a sledgehammer on that day, or any other. But he surely heard Reagan’s words. The whole world did.

And less than 30 months after Reagan’s speech, the Berlin Wall did indeed fall.

The Soviet Union collapsed. The Cold War ended. And Berlin was at last reunified.

It was a turning point in history — an exuberant, peaceful moment. And it might not have happened that way without Reagan’s words.

Reagan’s tactics that June day in Berlin were a classic example of what’s known as Soft Power.

This term – coined by political scientist Joseph Nye — refers to a nation’s ability to persuade others to do what it wants without force or direct coercion.

Instead of relying on military offensives, economic sanctions, or trade embargoes to influence change, Soft Power practitioners use indirect methods to get what they want.

They might spout off a few well-timed words to turn the tide of public perception. They might lean on the titans of industry within their borders to transform economic markets a continent away. They might rely on entertainment conglomerates at home to model cultural behaviors abroad.

Soft Power has existed for centuries. But few have mastered it as the United States has. Our prowess in this area is so pronounced that it’s practically taken for granted.

Invade Cuba with Starbucks and Coca-Cola, goes one old joke. The Communist regime will fall within a day.

It was going to take more than Coca-Cola to topple the Soviet Union though. So, Reagan —a man who was dubbed The Great Communicator — used his voice instead. He pounced on Gorbachev’s prior platitudes of openness, calling the premier’s bluff by demanding action.

Reagan knew full well that Gorbachev couldn’t take down the Berlin Wall. What lay behind it was simply too ghastly to display.

But now, thanks to Reagan’s words, everyone was wondering what lay behind the curtain. Was the Soviet Bloc truly as fearsome as its nuclear arsenal? Or was it just a house of cards?

It turned out to be the latter. And because of that, a 30-year military stalemate ended without a single shot fired.

Decades have now passed since the Soviet Union fell. And in that time, the world has soured on Soft Power.

What was once an invaluable diplomatic tool is now a mark of exploitation. A symbol of imperialist meddling. A usurping of a sovereign nation’s destiny.

Such views are not without merit. Soft Power has surely been abused plenty over the years.

But leaving well enough alone isn’t exactly a panacea either.

You see, as humans, we have a propensity to emulate behavior. This tendency is why parents have such an impact on young children. It’s why education so frequently takes place in group settings. And it’s why traditions remain resonant through the generations.

Dismantling Soft Power leaves societies without influencers to emulate. And in that vacuum malfeasance can grow.

It’s no wonder that the most isolated nations tend to be the most corrupt, the most dangerous, and the most volatile. It’s hard to thrive in the shadows. Just look at the Soviet Union.

Yes, Soft Power itself is not a cancer. In fact, it can be a force for good.

But only if we use it responsibly.

I don’t work for the government. I didn’t study political science in school. And I’m hardly versed in international affairs.

Yet, I consider myself a practitioner of Soft Power.

For I work in a sizable organization. One with hundreds of employees, scattered across multiple states.

If I want to influence how we go about our business, brute force isn’t an option. I can’t pull rank, and I don’t have a bullhorn large enough to carry across time zones.

Soft Power is my only option for leaving my mark on my organization’s processes. I must rely on influence, rather than edict.

Some may bristle at this scenario. But I love it.

I like impacting change through influence. I like modeling behavior. I like building a coalition to get everyone pulling in the same direction.

And most of all, I love what Soft Power requires of me.

It requires me to be nuanced and well-rounded. It requires me to truly listen to others and to understand their perspectives. And it requires me to work within those parameters to find an agreeable solution.

This is a much better method of resolution than going into a scenario with guns blazing. I’m far more likely to drive enduring change through Soft Power. And I’m far more likely to remain agreeable through the process.

But I needn’t be the only one to reap these benefits.

Wealth vs. Fame

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

How often have we heard this phrase?

And yet, we seem to have misconceptions about what it truly means.

On its face, this message is an edict that success is double-edged. It states that making it big means selling our soul. It tells us that who we are and who we want to be are forever incompatible.

Because once we attain a position of influence, our vantage point shifts. We conveniently forget what life was like before the climb.

All we see is our position on the summit. And we are determined to hold on to that spot.

We are immensely powerful. And we are thoroughly corrupted.

The prophecy fulfills itself.

And yet, the prophecy is a myth.

Across America, there is an uneasy divide.

This divide is Red States versus Blue States. It’s farmers in overalls versus Wall Street bankers in fancy suits. It’s bright city lights versus one-horse towns.

We have many ways to explain what forms this chasm. Political ideologies. Education systems. Community surroundings.

But I think there’s a better explanation.

I believe the fault lines form between those who aspire for influence and those who repel its grip.

For we are all aware of the perils of power. And we are cognizant of the unsavory ways it can transform us.

We’ve read the slogans. We’ve heard the cautionary tales.

And yet, some of us find ourselves drawn to power’s radiant glow, much like moths to a flame. All while others avoid it like the plague.

This explanation might seem crude. Rudimentary even. But it incorporates the great American X-factor: Mobility. It explains the rush of people heading to the big city to make their fortune. And it defines the counter-rush of city-dwellers heading to the suburbs for simpler living.

Our relationship to power flows both ways.

This leads to another question: What exactly is power?

It seems like a simple query at first. And yet, answers are lacking.

For power is an abstract concept, devoid of visualization.

There is no universal symbol, such as a sunburst for light or a heart for love. There are just the cultural vessels we have defined — in particular, wealth and fame.

Each of these vessels seem to fit the mold at first. Those who accumulate vast sums of money have plenty of options on how to spend it. Those bestowed with fame can bend fawning followers to their will.

And yet, one of them has proven far more corrosive than the other.

Greed is good.

This is the most iconic line from the 1987 movie Wall Street.

The film — and its antihero, Gordon Gecko — serves as a stark portrait of the ills of capitalism, wealth and fortune.

The implication is straightforward. Those who accumulate money will seek to double their returns at all costs, transforming from full-fledged members of society into sociopaths.

Sometimes, this portrait comes to life in horrifying detail. But not always.

There are more than 600 billionaires in the United States. Some of these names you know. But a bunch of others you probably don’t.

Why is that?

Could it be that our brains can only process so much information at once? Maybe.

But I think there’s more to it than that.

You see, some brash billionaires do put their name out there, letting their wallet or their ambitions inflate their ego. But many others resist such temptation. They try and live as anonymously as those with fewer commas on their balance sheets.

Sure, their clothes might be fancier than ours. And they might never know the struggle of living paycheck to paycheck. But they are far from the embodiment of Gordon Gecko.

In their case, greed is not good. In fact, greed is not part of the equation.

Fortune might not change everyone it touches.

But fame? Fame most certainly will.

We can lurk in the shadows, even with loads of cash in the bank. But once everyone knows our name, our lives are destined to profoundly change.

For fame is elusive. It can overtake us in an instant. But it doesn’t last for long.

The easy in, easy out nature of notoriety comes from our fragile attention spans. Humans are stimulated by novelty, and we seek it at every turn. Something that captivated us yesterday thoroughly bores us today.

These forces are wonderful news for those seeking to have their name in lights. They can help accelerate the rise to notoriety.

But once those people reach the pinnacle of fame, they’ll find those same forces working against them. The tide is rolling in. And the next big thing is charging full speed at them, ready to bury them alive.

No one who’s achieved such glamour wants to feel the humility of irrelevance. No one in this spot wants to see their star burn out.

And so, the newly-gilded fame-erati do what they can to hang on to their notoriety. They become belligerent. They pander. They toss aside rules of decorum.

And in the process, they lose every sense of who they were before the bright lights found them. They find themselves corrupted to the core.

One can still find balance when bestowed with great wealth. But fame? There is no redemption for fame.

I don’t aspire for wealth or fame.

Having enough to get by is sufficient for me. The virtues I espouse and the company I keep matter far more than any power or influence I might attain.

Yet, I feel confident that if I were to come into wealth, I would handle it appropriately. I would remain true to myself and to my values. I wouldn’t let my new net worth change my outlook.

Wealth isn’t enough to corrode the life I’ve built. But fame most certainly is.

I don’t feel like I’m all that different from others in this sense. I feel that most of us could take the mantle of fortune without evolving into monsters.

So, it’s time to dismantle the myth tethering power and corruption.

Notoriety might be doomed to the status of poison pill. But prosperity needn’t suffer the same fate.

A Foundation of Facts

There are few things in this world more concrete than facts.

The world is round. The sun rises in the east. The first one to the finish line wins the race. We inherently know these pieces of information, regardless of our interpretation of their meaning. While we might advocate vehemently for our perspective and our interests, we don’t mess with factual evidence.

Factual are indisputable, verifiable, proven. After all, there’s no plausible way to deny that 2 + 2 = 4.

But what if it wasn’t?

If there’s one theme from recent weeks, it’s that facts are negotiable. We can be hypnotized into believing that 2 + 2 = 5, and that anyone who says different has a dishonest agenda. We can suppress those who have taken the and due diligence to determine facts, and replace the void with opinion taken as absolute truth. With a mighty hand and blustery belligerence, we can take all that has been proven as “Just So” and make it “Anything But.”

This is as dangerous to humanity as it is ridiculous.

Facts serve as our foundation. Without our acceptance of these self-evident truths, humanity would long ago have gone extinct in a blaze of total anarchy. For if not for a common base of knowledge, we wouldn’t have the capacity to collaborate, build and evolve as a species.

A foundation of facts has led us to establish cities near plentiful water sources. It has helped us to accurately calculate profit margins for our business. And it has given us a jumping-off point as we seek to create ever more powerful microprocessors for our tech devices.

While it could be noted that an interpretation of specific facts could be directly attributed to these innovations, the point remains that humanity had to accept the ironclad nature of those facts in order to have a base to build from.

By attacking the fortress of factuality, we risk it all. With no semblance of order in our collective universe, those with the most power can coerce us into accepting their opinions as absolute. With no common core in our consciousness, we’re likely to jump off the figurative cliff, unwilling to accept the indisputable pull of gravity leading us to our demise.

We must fight back.

We must advocate for the presence of facts in our society, regardless of our views regarding them. We must separate fact from opinion, taking great care to evaluate each with the proper amount of weight. And regardless of our views, we must never let anyone rob us of the ability to think for ourselves.

These actions don’t represent the hallmarks of democracy. They represent the hallmarks of humanity.

And that’s something worth fighting for.

The Control Illusion

I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.

Truer words might never have been spoken. But is it all an illusion?

As a general rule, we are captivated by control. Ensconced in it. It’s why we wear our lucky jersey when we watch our favorite team play, why we head out to vote, why we lock our doors and park our vehicles in well-lit areas.

We are addicted to control because the unknown is disturbing. The possibility of disappointment or failure leaves us vulnerable, cold and unprotected. So we shield ourselves from danger by convincing ourselves we have a say.

We don’t.

Think about the first thing you did this morning. You opened your eyes to a brand new day, and you’ve likely felt in control of your actions ever since.

But what caused you to open your eyes? Was it the sun through the blinds? The beeping of an alarm clock. Some silent cue you can neither recall nor explain?

Truth is, you had no control over that primary action in your day. Something else — God, nature, circadian rhythm, who knows — something else was responsible.

And it goes far beyond that. We’re all riding on a spinning ball orbiting a blinding light, with no seat belt to protect us. As such, we have far less of a say in how factors of time, space, weather, physics or circumstance will alter our immediate destiny than we’d like to believe.

So we set up smoke screens. We jump into the Matrix and convince ourselves we’re at the helm, that our actions will lead to desired outcomes.

It’s comforting, reassuring — and preposterous.

Our one vote won’t swing the election. The jersey we wear when we watch our favorite team won’t help them win. And that safe, well-lit parking spot probably won’t protect your ride if the sky fills with hailstones.

Why must we spend all kinds of karmic energy trying to grasp control of these unknown variables, when it won’t do us a lick of good in the end?

There’s a better way. It requires us to accept the profound, and refocus our controlling tendencies in areas where we really can make a difference.

The kind of person we are. The decisions we make. The ways we act towards others. These are the factors we should be controlling; they can help us positively contribute to our society and improve our well-being.

Sure, shifting our focus in this direction means leaving the outcomes of many other events we care about to chance — and that’s scary. But we’ve never really had control of these independent variables anyway; we just blinded ourselves from the truth with the illusion that we did.

So let’s double down on controlling how we contribute to our family, community and society. For at the end of the day, the outcome of that pursuit is how we’ll be defined.

The ball’s in our court. It’s on us to pick it up.