THE LEADER’S RESPONSE-ABILITY, PART II. . .

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. –John Quincy Adams

What else is the leader response-able for?  Consider the following:

• The leader must be concerned about the institutional value system. The value system is the tap root that feeds, nurtures and sustains the principles and standards that guide and support the practices of each person, team, department, division, Board, and institution.
• The leader must be clear about which values are ‘core values’ – those 2-4 values that to the best of the ability of each person, team, etc. will never be compromised. This means that these core values must also be clearly understood and embraced by all.  The core values shape our individual and collective behavior.
• The leader ensures that all know what the value system is rooted in, how the values are expressed (lived into and out of), how they are audited, and how they are determined to be ‘core’ in the first place. These are not easy charges to hold.
• The leader is also response-able to ensure that future leaders will be developed. The risk in developing future leaders is that some of them will leave the institution.  Leaders who are rooted in an abundance mentality will not be threatened by this but will embrace it.
• The leader is response-able to ensure that the institution is open to being influenced and is open to shifting, changing, transforming and evolving. The leader supports a balance between ‘maintaining’ and ‘experimenting’.
• The leader seeks to understand the Culture and, perhaps more importantly, the Sub-Cultures that form two of the major tap roots that both nurture and deplete the health of the institution and its members.
• The leader knows that the development of each person, team, department, division and board is crucial for the leader knows that ‘what we can become is rooted in who we are and who we are choosing to become.’ The leader knows that ‘all’ are in a constant process of ‘becoming.’
• The leader owes ‘all’ a commitment to his/her own development.
• The leader is committed to a number of ‘ways of being’ – here are a few of them: Being Rational, Being Authentic, Being Vulnerable, Being Present, Being Faithful, Being Useful – there are others but these will suffice for now.
• The leader ensures that the ‘Environment’ and the ‘Climate’ support the health of ‘all.’ The ingredients of what helps ‘all’ be healthy vary.  It is crucial, however, for the leader to ensure that ‘all’ understand the ingredients that nurture and deplete the physical, intellectual, emotional, relational and spirit(ual) health of the person and the institution and to enhance what nurtures and minimize what depletes.
• The leader ensures that ‘all’ develop or develop more fully ‘critical thinking skills/capacities’.
• The leader ensures a commitment to high achievement and to working with distinction – ‘being mediocre’ is not an acceptable ‘way of being’ for anyone.

In closing this morning, I leave us with a guiding question: ‘What is it, without which our institution would not be able to live into its potential?’ 

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. –Theodore M. Hesburgh