Leadership Excellence - March 2012 - page 18

Baseball manager, St. Louis Cardinals
Robert Reich,
former US Sec. of Labor
Michelle Rhee,
former Chancellor for
District of Columbia Schools
Susan Sheridan,
co-founder of
Consumers Advancing Patient Safety
Jim Sinegal,
CEO of Costco
I also address some of problems
plaguing the status quo of American
leadership—how there is a lack of real
leadership in many of our organiza-
tions; an intense focus on the short-
term goals; a serious lack of long-term
strategic planning; and how corrosive
to our organizational cultures executive
salaries are that have skyrocketed and
bear little relationship to performance.
In
Making a Difference
, each man and
woman demonstrates how important it
is, given the rapid pace of change, not
only in our culture, but across indus-
tries around the globe, to have strong
and decisive leadership in our world,
and to strive for
innovation
and
excellence
.
Leadership Moment
In the instant after geese crippled
both jet engines on US Airways Flight
1549 and the aircraft lost thrust, I was
shocked to my very core. There was a
sense of dread in the pit of
my stomach from what I
felt, smelled, and heard.
The sound of finely bal-
anced machinery being
destroyed was like a tennis
shoe thrown into a dryer,
only much louder. It was
intense—the worst thing
that had ever happened in
my life. It was intense.
I remained stunned for
approximately 1.5 seconds after we lost
both engines—then immediately kicked
into solution mode. After recognizing
the enormity of the situation and my
body’s reaction to it, co-pilot Jeff
(Skiles) and I followed our manuals
verbatim. We decided to land in New
York’s Hudson River in an effort to
save all 155 people aboard. We just did
our jobs. It’s a priority for me to get
things right and show professionalism
in the cockpit.
Something about this event was life-
affirming. It reminded people of the
potential for good that exists in all of
us. I’m just an ordinary guy who, hav-
ing cultivated certain virtues, was able
to perform an extraordinary act. I want
people to see that in themselves.
LE
Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger, III is a retired airline
pilot and safety expert and author (with Douglas Centry) of
Making a Difference
(William Morrow) and
Highest Duty
.
Visit
ACTION: Be an example of courageous leadership.
O
NE OF THE MOST UN
-
derrated aspects of
leadership is the ability
to create a shared sense of responsibili-
ty for the outcome: to inspire those
around you to make tomorrow better
than today, to constantly strive for
excellence and to refuse to accept any-
thing that’s barely adequate.
That’s why I embarked on a person-
al quest to meet with distinguished
Americans—young and old, famous
and less well known—from fields as
diverse as space exploration, business,
government, education, sports, finance,
medicine and the military. These are
vastly different individuals with varied
styles of leadership, but all embody the
credo of
leadership by example
.
I discussed with these leaders what
it takes to achieve
genuine
leadership
—having a clear
set of values, intense prepa-
ration, lifelong learning,
making your actions match
your words, creating a cul-
ture of trust, and caring for
those you lead.
Basically, I asked people
of achievement what it
takes to lead and inspire:
What is the essential nature
of leadership? What core qualities and
characteristics shape our best leaders?
And how can each of us learn some-
thing we can apply to our lives?
Leaders Interviewed
The leaders interviewed for the book
Making a Difference
include:
Admiral Thad Allen,
former Comman-
dant of the US Coast Guard who led
recovery efforts after Hurricane
Katrina, the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti
John C. Bogle,
founder and retired
CEO of the Vanguard Group
Bill Bratton,
former NYPD Com-
missioner and LAPD Chief
Lt. Colonel Tammy Duckworth,
for-
mer Asst. Sec./Dept of Veterans Affairs
Jennifer Granholm,
former Governor
of Michigan
Gene Kranz,
former NASAFlight Dir-
ector during Gemini/Apollo programs
Tony La Russa,
retired Major League
Leading by Example
Stories of vision and courage.
by Chesley Sullenberger
LEADERSHIP
EXAMPLE
Leaders around the world are eager
to work with us.
America remains
the
one indispensable nation
in world affairs.
Lesson in Leadership
Our freedom endures because of the
men and women in uniform who
defend it. And those of us who’ve been
sent here to serve can learn a thing or
two from the service of our troops.
When you put on that uniform and
march into battle, you look out for the
person next to you, or the mission fails.
When you’re in the thick of the fight,
you rise or fall as one unit, serving one
nation, leaving no one behind.
One of my proudest possessions is
the flag that the SEAL Team took with
them on the mission to get bin Laden.
On it are each of their names. Some may
be Democrats, some Republicans. But
that doesn’t matter. Just like it didn’t
matter that day in the Situation Room,
when I sat next to Bob Gates—a man
who was George Bush’s defense secre-
tary—and Hillary Clinton—a woman
who ran against me for president.
All that mattered that day was the
mission.
No one thought about politics.
No one thought about themselves. One
of the young men involved in the raid
later told me he didn’t deserve credit
for the mission.
It only succeeded, he said,
because every member of that unit did their
job
—the pilot who landed the helicopter
that spun out of control; the translator
who kept others from entering the com-
pound; the troops who separated the
women and children from the fight; the
SEALs who charged up the stairs.
Moreover, the mission only succeed-
ed because
every member of that unit
trusted each other
—because you can’t
charge up those stairs, into darkness
and danger, unless you know that
there’s somebody behind you, watch-
ing your back.
So it is withAmerica. Each time I look
at that flag, I’m reminded that our des-
tiny is stitched together like those 50
stars and those 13 stripes.
No one built
this country on their own
. This nation is
great because we built it together; we
worked as a team; we get each other’s
backs. If we hold fast to that truth, in
this moment of trial, there’s
no challenge
too great; no mission too hard. As long
as we are joined in common purpose,
as long as we maintain our common
resolve, our journey moves forward,
and our future is hopeful, and the state
of our Union will always be strong.
LE
Barack Obama is President of the United States; this article is
adapted from his State of the Union address, Jan. 24, 2012.
ACTION: Learn leadership from Navy SEALs.
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