By Jerry Grunska
Woody Allen once said that 90 percent of success is achieved by just showing up. Not so far-fetched, but add another phrase … showing up and doing the job.
All of us have seen people goof off at work. In fact, some people seem to devote much if not all of their energy to avoiding responsibility. Well, we can dismiss them right upfront for lacking leadership qualities.
But what genuine attributes do we recognize in bona fide leaders? Some people talk a good game but don’t play it. A strong talker, a person of grandiose ideas and entrenched opinions is not necessarily a good leader. In fact we hear people saying, “He prattles on, but when it comes to producing, he’s out to lunch.”
The opposite of a person who shirks responsibility is someone with a can-do attitude. If some of us find ourselves with a sputtering car engine, we’ll lift up the hood and say, “Right. There’s an engine in there.” A person with knowledge and zeal, on the other hand, will dive in hands first and begin feeling belts, electrical connections and hoses. He or she is a troubleshooter and determined to get at the root of the problem.
A good leader will approach issues as problems to be solved. Some of us throw up our hand at sticky conundrums. Leaders say, “Let’s identify the trouble and consider ways to go after it.”
Here’s an example. An association member is canceling out of games at an inordinate rate. What’s inordinate? A leader will want a true accounting, and he or she will consult with other board members about a course of action. Then the true leader will deal with the problem directly by contacting the offending member. We’ve all discovered mitigating circumstances in situations such as these. There may be a chronic illness in the family that flares up suddenly. The member may have a health problem that he or she is anxious to keep quiet. Perhaps an interfering job situation arises unpredictably. Then again, possibly the official just isn’t reliable and doesn’t treat backing out of a game a serious matter. A true leader will delve into the issue and decide on a sensible approach to the problem.
Yogi Berra is supposed to have said, “You can hear a lot by just listening.” All of us know blowhards and chatterboxes, as mentioned above. A solid leader — and a person who commands respect, without demanding respect — will usually be approachable and non-judgmental. “Hear me out,” you can say to a person of that inclination, and the response will be a cocked head and a hand on the chin, followed by more questions so as to extract the whole story.
There’s an added dimension to someone who listens well, namely doing the job, as suggested about the Woody Allen quote. You can see a lot just by observing too. Is there a real problem here, or is the person (or group) reporting an illusory difficulty, a contrived issue? A leader will employ all faculties and then do some cogitating. The best leaders are analytical.
The state office isn’t giving us our fair share of playoff assignments. Do we need to muster statistics to prove our point? Are we capable of making valid comparisons with other associations? Can an articulate representative of our group carry the ball in terms of offering a softly persuasive approach?
That is where diplomacy comes in. A good leader — after listening and analyzing — will spell out the difficulties in direct but non-confrontational language. He or she will even be open-minded about perceived discrepancies. Maybe the complaint is ill founded. If the leader is truly objective and sees the bias in a provocation, the leader’s duties may be to defuse animosities and restore calm. In short, he or she will be able to look at the big picture and cut through smoke screens.
The ultimate desirable quality in a leader, then, is the ability to solve problems. That means that in addition to observing, listening and assessing, the leader will “take the bull by the horns” (even though I dislike clichés) and move resolutely toward a clear path of resolution.
Here are some for-instances that could be faced by an association and that need addressing by a leader. A member has gone against the policies of assigning and has sent commercial foodstuffs gift baskets to the families of assigners at holiday times, with a note asking to be remembered. In another instance an aging official, hobbled by arthritic legs and losing his sense of judgment should be urged to retire. Or a baseball umpire has a dislocated right shoulder and must keep his arm in a sling; yet he is determined to work, declaring that he can compensate by thrusting his left arm across his body with a flourish and calling out strikes loudly. In another matter, a member long known to be cantankerous has been cursing at players when he perceives them to be out of line.
The tribulations can be varied and weird. The solutions must be carefully thought out. Sometimes the leader may wish to consult fellow board members or respected association people. At times a contingent of two or three “diplomats” may be dispatched to take a difficult person to lunch and indulge in serious counseling.
But back to the leader: Other words could be used to describe the ideal individual, such as friendly, personable, of staunch integrity, unimpeachable ethics. It may come down to just wanting the person on your side. We could also enlist the ideals of Britain’s Lord Baden Powell when he created the Boy Scout pledge: “A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.” He also uses his turn signal diligently.
Association members can’t expect a man of steel in a cape, but they’re looking for one of those storied “go to” people, a reliable clutch performer. Can you deliver?
Jerry Grunska, a retired official and educator, is a frequent contributor to NASO publications. He lives in Evergreen, Colo.
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