Portrait of a Leader

The "Portrait of a Graduate" got me to think about the "Portrait of a Teacher" as the group of people that I lead. Those thoughts today led me to think of the "Portrait of a Leader." One thing that as a white male leader I am grateful for, is that the Portrait of a Leader no longer simply looks like me. I firmly believe that the leadership of an organization needs to be as diverse as the people they lead in the organization and serve through the organization. I also believe that the leadership team needs to have a variety of backgrounds and skills so that the resources can be pooled together for the betterment of everyone.

A leader needs to have conviction in their decisions, and be able to communicate timely information in clear and concise language of why the decision was made, what problems it is trying to solve, what consequences may happen as a result of the decision, and a commitment to tracking the results. But that decision has to be made collaboratively, with input from relevant stakeholders, checking ego from the decision making, and after playing devil's advocate.

Once the leader has made that decision, they must own it. They must especially own the warts that pop up from the plan, and praise the team for the successes. A leader cannot use scapegoats for their decisions that do not work, nor leave behind the ones that truly made the decision a success. The leader needs to either be tracking the progress personally, or have a designated person doing this and openly reporting the good and the bad to be able to make pivots or complete changes in direction.

So in my vision, the portrait of a leader is abstract yet defined. As in my graduate, the skin tones are fully representative of all races, the body types of all genders. But what is critical is that this portrait has many eyes to have the vision of the decisions that need to be made and the impact they are having, and many ears to hear all the voices of those living out the decisions. Ideally there are many hands and legs as well, as the leader need to be involved in multiple aspects of the organization to have the empathy needed to know how the decision affects all the different levels and groups impacted. But key is that the leader have only one mouth. While their voice is obviously the most important in the organization, it cannot be the only one speaking. And it should only be speaking to ask questions, or when all their other parts have fully been used in their decision making process.

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