Survive the dangers of leading

“Leadership on the Line”
By Ronald A. Heifetz & Marty Linsky
Harvard Business School Press, 2002



In a lunch with former Senate President Jovito Salonga, a friend made an obvious comment that “politics is dirty.” The venerable leader took a pause from taking his lunch and said: “You know, politics can be a noble calling.” And he narrated to us what obsessed him to run for political office – to achieve real freedom for the country – and to secure justice. His role in leading the Senate “that said No!” to the American military bases was one of the goals that gave him passion and intensity.

But there are risks involved in leadership. Senator Salonga almost did not survive the Plaza Miranda bombing. Still, this calling called leadership continues to beckon, and young and old, men and women respond, ignoring the dangers. This book is for such leaders – so they can master – if not survive – the perils of leading.

In politics, in the business world and in civil society circles – the same question resounds: Shall one take a leadership role, leave the peace and quiet of a low-profile job, and place your “leadership on the line”? It is actually putting your head on the chopping black, if you please pardon the shocking metaphor.

That is the title of this book, authored by professors of the Center for Public Leadership of the John F. Kennedy School of Government – where a number of our leaders had some training – with visible or invisible benefits!

The authors, showing intimate familiarity with the multifarious hazards of leaders, put it squarely: “To lead is to live dangerously …when you lead people through difficult change, you challenge what people hold dear – their daily habits, tools, loyalties and ways of thinking – with nothing more to offer perhaps than a possibility.”

And yet even if the dangers abound, some leaders – like Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho – chose to leave the ordered life of a highly successful investment banker and join the “snake pit” in the Palace. The book says that there are indeed those who are driven by a genuine desire to serve.

The first part of the book does not mince words about the dangers. The authors warn: “When exercising leadership, you risk getting marginalized, diverted, attacked, or seduced. When people resist adaptive work, their goal is to shoot down those who exercise leadership in order to preserve what they have.”

If you are a leader, you can identify with many of the hazards of leadership – from being placed in a freezer to being led to lose focus; from being attacked (verbally -- and even physically) to being seduced to take up a cause for its fleeting appeal.

After amply warning the reader about land mines and traps along the way, the authors discuss at length the suitable responses to the dangers – or challenges. One of the more useful advice is to “get on the balcony.” The book explains:
“Any military officer knows the importance of maintaining the capacity for reflection, even in the ‘fog of war’. Great athletes can at once play the game and observe it as a whole – as Walt Whitman described it, ‘being both in and out of the game.’ … We call this skill ‘getting off the dance floor and going to the balcony… We all get swept into action when it becomes intense or personal and we need most to pause.”

The book is also instructive to people who, when a business plan has been written, look at it as one “cast in granite.” “Leadership is an improvisational art,” the book says. And it goes on to narrate the story of General Dwight Eisenhower.

After leading the successful D-Day invasion on the beaches of Normandy, the first thing former American President Eisenhower did was “to throw out the plan.” The authors enshrine two leadership qualities: discipline and flexibility. You take action, step back and assess the results of the action, reassess the plan, then go to the dance floor and make the next move.

“Think politically,” is another valuable advice, not for the practitioners of the art – the politicians – but for business executives who are so focused on results that they forget the need to have some political savvy. Many sad and happy stories are documented in the book.

More strategies -- orchestrating the conflict and letting the issue -- ripen will serve the leader in good stead after he places himself on the line. On anchoring yourself, the book tells the engaging story of two good looking American presidential aspirants – one lost, the other won.

The press accused both Gary Hart and Bill Clinton of philandering. They responded in very different ways. Hart counterattacked and got defensive. Bill Clinton took a very different road. He went on 60 Minutes right after the Super Bowl, sat before the cameras holding hands with his wife, and essentially admitted that he had strayed. Hart responded personally; Clinton, strategically and more honestly.

The book’s aphorism is packed with meaning: “Your management of an attack, more than the substance of the accusation, determines your fate.” The perils of leadership are like landmines in a political landscape. This book shows you how to gingerly – and confidently – side step or master the terrain.