Leader is a title we throw around too easily. A leader is someone who has earned the title. Leaders earn the title by helping others grow and by helping to become more ready for life's challenges. One of the fundamental indicators of integrity is doing the right thing without the expectation of a payoff or when doing so works against you. Leadership is above all, stewardship. Kim Strassel writes about the hard decisions that often accompany leadership. It's the story of Wisconsin Congressman
Paul Ryan. Here are a few excerpts:
- What Leadership Looks Like
by Kimberley A. Strassel, Wall Street Journal
Voting for what's right, not what's safe.
If political leadership is hard to come by in Washington, it's because it invites political retribution. Just ask Republican Rep. Paul Ryan.
Mr. Ryan, perhaps the free market's truest friend in Congress, earlier this week voted to help rescue that free market. He hated the Paulson plan, but hated more the economic crash he is convinced will follow inaction. And in casting his "yes" vote on Monday, he knew what was coming: "The easiest thing would be to vote no and go hide in my office and watch the markets collapse. I will suffer politically for this, but I will sleep at night."
He was right. For his sin of acting to forestall economic mayhem, Mr. Ryan is being pilloried in Wisconsin, where he's in a competitive race. He's been accused of abandoning his conservative principles, of "caving" and "bailing out" Wall Street. He received 3,000 calls last week and wryly notes the "only one in favor came from Hank Paulson."
Mr. Ryan is now busy sending out charts of Libor spreads to radio talk-show hosts (no joke), intent on explaining the seriousness of the crisis, and hopeful his credibility will see him through. "The best outcome is that [those of us who voted yes] take a political hit but avert a crisis," he says. How's that for leadership?
Read the complete essay online:
What Leadership Looks Like
* * *
Stumble It!
Comments
What leadership does NOT look like?
“Almost no one expected what was coming. It’s not fair to blame us for not predicting the unthinkable.”
Daniel H. Mudd. former CEO of Fannie Mae.
How about blaming you for irresponsibility of failing your key job requirements like protecting the viability of the enterprise against a wipe-out, ensuring risk-taking is not bet-the-ranch and doing the essential contingency planning? What were your assumptions? That the price of homes could never go down? That derivatives are all sound investments and you understand how they work? That Alt-A mortgages to people who have bad or no credit histories cannot get you in trouble? Was there no limit to how and how much you would put the capital at risk?
It is one thing for a less educated public to get frenzied with greed, but should there not be a higher standard for leaders of financial institutions than encouraging “tulipmania” that lines your pockets? What does fiduciary responsibility look like for people who should remember the savings and loan crisis bailout, the Long Term Capital crisis and the many other periods in which unrestrained greed led to catastrophe for homeowners and small investors?
Just my view. Your name is Mudd and should be.
Posted by: stephenhbaum of www.stephenhbaumleadership.com | October 6, 2008 07:15 AM
Stehphen, Isn't that the job of a high level leader to "prepare for the unthinkable?" If they don't who will? Leadership is about foresight and protect the interests of those you are leading. I agree with you 100%
Chad C.
Posted by: Chad C | October 6, 2008 10:28 PM