Thinking Paper #4

TAKING A STAND by DR. Ernest L. Hughes

Several years ago, when I started my doctoral program in education at Seattle University, I wrote the following definition of leadership: 

Leadership is the focusing of function and forces that provide energy for an organization of people to accomplish their purpose and realize their human potential.  The leader is purposeful in aligning the actions and values of her constituents with a vision for a new order.  The leader demonstrates courage to face the natural resistance in people, and to change the order of things.  This courage comes from caring.

Since that time, I have reviewed hundreds of other definitions, some simple, like Kouzes and Posner’s (2003) five practices of leadership, and some more comprehensive and complex, like Ron Heifetz’s (1994) model of adaptive leadership.  At some point in time I will get around to expanding my own.  I believe at the core will be an extension of the construct of courage that John Graham (2005) calls “sticking your neck out,” and what Barry Oshry terms “taking a stand.”

Webster’s Dictionary defines stand as: “To support one’s self; to take a specified position, maintain one’s position; to hold a course at sea; action taken because of commitment; to remain firm in the face of; to bear courageously.”

Leadership occurs, according to Oshry, when we choose to take a stand about a condition or issue.  He describes taking a stand from the perspective of roles we play in a system: Top, Bottom, Middle, and Customer.

• Tops create responsibility throughout the organization.
• Bottoms are responsible for their own condition and for the condition of the system.
• Middles maintain their own independence of thought and action.
• Customers get in the middle of delivery processes and help them work for them.

I first got an awareness of this as I watched my dad die of cancer.  He had three flavors, and understood the inevitability of the outcome.  He took a stand about the ending of his life, making choices that were often in conflict with the intentions of his doctors, nurses, and family.  He would walk down the hall and outside the hospital in his open robe pulling his IV to have a smoke.  He challenged his nurses for stronger doses of pain medication, and told them a dirty joke afterwards. 

In a scene in his recent movie, The Terminal, Tom Hanks portrays a character that takes a stand against the deportation of an immigrant from a New York airport.  In a verbal and physical struggle with the head airport authority, his hands get photocopied.  Later, we see these copies around the airport.  They become a symbol of his stand and leadership.

I’m sure that other leaders come to mind as you think about taking a stand, including Gandhi, Rosa Parks, and Dr. Martin Luther King.  My list includes my dad.

REFERENCES

Graham, John.  (2005).  Stick Your Neck Out: A Street-Smart Guide to Creating Change in Your Community and Beyond.  San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

Heifetz, Ronald A.  (1994).  Leadership Without Easy Answers.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kouzes, James M., & Posner, Barry Z.  (2003).  The Leadership Challenge, 3^rd edition.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

Oshry, Barry (2004).  The Organization Workshop Trainers Manual.  Boston, MA: Power & Systems.

Spielberg, Steven  (2004).  The Terminal.  Dreamworks Pictures.