Becoming a Great Leader

Is it your destiny?

AUTHOR KENNY MOORE

I’ve worked with business executives for more than 20 years, and only a few have proved to be exceptional. Those who are have never attended a “Leadership Development” program a day in their lives. I believe that great leaders are more like artists than executives. Picasso knew what he was talking about when he said, “I don’t develop; I am.”

Where does talent come from?
There is a best practice business model that explains this phenomenon, but it’s not from Tom Peters or Jim Collins. It’s from another astute business luminary: Plato. Granted, as a 4th century B.C. practitioner, he was in a different kind of business than today’s experts, but over the years his books have outsold anyone who’s ever been on Oprah.

Plato’s view of leadership derives from his Acorn Theory. He believed that all of us are born into this world with an “acorn” that is destined to grow into a mighty oak. This acorn is often referred to as our calling, vocation or destiny. Before arriving here, we were perfectly clear on what our calling was—but in the process of being born, all remembrances were lost. To help manage this dilemma, we are accompanied by our own “daimon”, loosely translated as a guardian angel. It’s our angel who remembers our vocation and is assigned to make sure it gets lived out.

Peril and misfortune may assail us. Enemies and miscreants may assault us. Parents and educators may even abuse us. No need to worry; the acorn will prevail. The daimon is ever near to provide a safe passage. For some, says Plato, the dangers and difficulties have elements of divine necessity: all required to mature the acorn so that it may blossom into a mighty oak.

Living out our acorn and cooperating with the daimon is of critical importance, because our happiness is intimately connected to it. Money, fame and success will not insure our personal fulfillment; cooperating with our calling will. We are all invited to do so, and do it well, in our own inimitable style. We’re not here to live out our parent’s wishes or our company’s vision. We’ve got more compelling goals to achieve.

Growing Up … and Growing Down
Being worthy of our destiny requires embracing the talents bestowed upon us and bringing them to public fruition. It’s about being visible and making a difference. Sometimes, the acorn manifests itself early in life. Other times, it ripens with the passage of years.

Growing up into our responsibilities is only part of the journey. There is a need to grow down as well. Like the mighty oak whose branches reach high into the air, there is a corresponding network of earthly roots that must sink themselves deep into the soil. The growing down part of the tree is as important as its growing up, lest in the face of foul weather, it topples.

The growing up part is public and often met with acknowledgment and worldly attention. Growing down is private, usually performed in the darkness of night and surrounded by the mundane affairs of daily life.

While speaking recently at a business conference, I quoted Gandhi’s dictum that we must be the change we wish to see in the world. After the talk, a woman asked if I was familiar with the entire quote. I wasn’t. She recited it from memory: “Almost everything you do will seem insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Gandhi understood the value of the prosaic. Engaging in the insignificant and pedestrian aspects of our lives tempers the grandness of the acorn’s call. Showing up for work, caring for family and friends, and performing daily chores are ordinary but critical components of our destiny. They keep us grounded, accessible and wedded to the earthiness of the human condition.

How does Destiny get played out?
Consider David Thomas. He never knew his birth parents and was shifted around from pillar to post, losing his adoptive mother when he was five and two stepmothers by the age of 10. He wound up being raised by his aged grandmother. Dave wasn’t the brightest of students, dropping out of school when he was 15. He got a few jobs, but nothing extraordinary. He had to grow down before he grew up. Dave performed menial chores under the auspices of his benevolent grandmother, and his ever-present daimon. But things began to change.

With some luck cooking food in the army and later running a KFC restaurant, he took a bold step and opened a small hamburger joint in Columbus, Ohio. He named it after his daughter, hoping it would bring him good fortune. He even made his hamburgers square, not round—remembering the advice of the woman who raised him: “Don’t cut corners.”

Mr. Thomas eventually became a philanthropist and a media darling, pitching his successful franchise, Wendy’s. Remembering the pain of his early childhood, he lobbied Congress to enact legislation to help families adopt kids and change employment law to extend benefits to people who did. He even hired a tutor so he could get his high school diploma at the unseemly age of 60. The teenagers at the school voted him “Most Likely to Succeed”, and elected him and his wife of 47 years as king and queen of the prom.

So, be bold. Be brave. Take more risks and stop playing it safe. You already are safe. And the next time someone offers to send you away for some leadership development, tell ’em to buzz off; you’ve got more important things to do with your time.

As another example, Harold Yuker, born with cerebral palsy, was forced to go to a school for crippled children—with little chance of academic advancement. Back then, kids like him were expected to stay out of sight and not embarrass themselves or others. However, he prevailed on the system, and went on to get his PhD. As Provost and Dean of Faculties at Hofstra University, he went out of his way to ensure other physically challenged children would never have to endure what he did. Harold got laws changed, doors opened and mindsets moved. The university even named a reference library after him. Handicapped? Yes. Disabled? Never!

As a little girl, Ella showed up at the Harlem Opera House to tap dance in a talent show. After the master of ceremonies introduced her, she had a last-minute change of heart: “I ain’t gonna dance; instead, I wanna sing.” And sing she did—to prolonged applause and wild raves from the crowd. Ella Fitzgerald came that day to the theater intending to dance. Obviously, something else was underfoot.

We need not look only at public personages. Carol, a friend of mine at work, told me that, as a teenager, she should have been in a car that wound up in a tragic, deadly accident, but she missed her ride. “I think there’s a reason I was spared,” is the way she looks at it. What that reason is, I haven’t a clue. Yet, last year I was present at one of my company’s off-site programs with 500 of our employees. When we asked them to speak publicly about leaders who have changed their lives, Carol was cited by more than a few.

Our HR staff is still wondering why Carol’s name has never appeared on their list of High Potentials. It’s quite possible she may be a step or two ahead of our performance appraisal system.

Role models abound; look at your own family and friends. They’ve got an acorn and an active daimon as well. More importantly, look within. It is most vibrantly present there.

Heed your Calling
In our more reflective moments, we’re aware that we have been awarded particular gifts; we know that we’ve been called; we are certain that we’re here for a higher purpose. Speaking about this deeper longing, Charles Kingsley reminds us: “We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” Even our English word enthusiasm comes from the ancient Greeks, meaning “possessed by the gods”.

It’s not by chance that we are here. We have a unique destiny with a clear purpose in mind. Powerful intermediaries have been dispatched to accompany us in bringing this about.

So, be bold. Be brave. Take more risks and stop playing it safe. You already are safe. And the next time someone offers to send you away for some leadership development, tell ’em to buzz off; you’ve got more important things to do with your time.

Kenny Moore is co-author of The CEO and the Monk: One Company’s Journey to Profit and Purpose, rated as one of the top ten best-selling business books on Amazon.com. He is Corporate Ombudsman and Human Resources Director at a New York City Fortune 500 energy company. www.kennythemonk.com

Article originally published in Your Workplace magazine issue 11-3