When my father was a young man, he worked at a lumberyard in north Texas. The president of the company was a tall, imposing man then in his sixties who had come of age before the turn of the century. He prized both manners and dash in his employees, whom he treated with a mixture of benevolence and severity.
The president's office was scrupulously clean and his desk impeccably neat -- the inkwell and blotter just so, and not a loose paper in sight. With one exception, the office furnishings were simple and very plain -- a small walnut bookcase next to the desk, a modest drafting table in the far corner, and beside it a storage rack for construction drawings.
The exception was the painting which hung on the wall next to the president's desk. It was a large painting, magnificently displayed in an ornately carved, brightly gilded frame. It immediately captured the attention of anyone entering the office.
Here, with bold strokes and strong color, the artist had depicted a sailing vessel, a three-master, tossed about in very heavy seas. Storm clouds covered most of the sky, with an ominous squall line approaching from the middle distance. On deck five or six hands could be seen securing cargo and furling sail, while from his position at the wheel the captain was shouting orders and pointing to the horizon. A brass plate on the frame identified the title which the artist had given his work -- "The Voyage Home."
This painting was very well known to every employee at the lumberyard, not only because its appearance was so striking in that spartan office, but because it figured in many of the president's conversations with his staff. Whenever anyone approached him with a problem, for example, he would listen carefully, sometimes probe for more detail, and then, more often than not, he would ask, "Will you bring in the ship?" New employees soon learned that the president expected them -- trusted them -- to supply an appropriate solution. What he asked for was their commitment.
He got it.
Even so, that old president may seem a little quaint today -- not as flatly unbelievable as one of those idealized men of business that Dickens offered up as an antidote to Scrooge -- but nearly as distant from the world of work as we know it. The old boy, charming in his way, wouldn't last long in the rough-and-tumble of late 20th-century corporate life. Or would he?
That question first crossed my mind a couple of years ago when I was reading John Gardner's On Leadership (1990). As I turned his pages, I kept running into that old lumberman.
The man envisioned and articulated goals, he affirmed values, he motivated by example as well as words, he unified his staff, and he most definitely served as a symbol of the whole enterprise -- key tasks and traits of leaders, according to Gardner.
But more than that, the lumberman did something that many graduates of today's "leadership courses" never succeed in doing -- he attracted willing followers. And it seems to me that the ability to do that is what sets real leaders apart from everyone else.
When I asked my father what made the president such an effective leader, he said he didn't know. "But I'll tell you this," he added. "The old man was always just himself -- I never knew him to do or say anything out of character. There was just something about him that made you respect him and want to do what needed to be done. When he'd ask us about bringing in the ship, we'd always say we would, because we knew he was on board with us. He was that captain on the deck, pointing the way home."
Have you ever known someone like that, a real leader, someone you followed not because you had to but because it was something you wanted to do? Or are you sceptical about leaders and leadership? I'd like to hear about your experiences with leadership -- have you had a taste of the real thing, or has it just been grown-ups playing "Follow the Leader"?
NEXT TIME: CIVILIZING MANAGEMENT
