Lead In The Moment It Matters

“Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets” – Kevin Kelly

I usually use this space to talk about an event from my past and the lesson to be learned, but today I want to share someone else’s story.

I spoke at a conference this week, my topic was on how emotional intelligence builds trust and reduces conflict. For me, a key component of emotional intelligence is having an explicit understanding of your personal values and preparing yourself to apply them daily and in challenging situations. To illustrate this I talked about the Trolley Problem, one of my favorite mental models. At its root, the Trolley problem is an ethical question about action or inaction and consequence and accountability, Do you take an action and be held accountable for harm that may cause, or do you choose to not act and allow whatever harm may happen to others, even if the cost will be greater to them than it would for you? While the scenario of the train and people tied up on the tracks may be hypothetical, the situation is not. Programmers are wrestling with this question about self-driving cars and what should they program the car to do in emergencies. But a current story with national attention is much more the story of an average person and the way things have always been done.

I brought up the issue of the Tennessee school board member, a 59 year-old man who told a 16 year-old female student sitting next to him, “God, you’re hot” and put his arm around her to hug her in a public school board meeting. I told the audience that was issue one. Issue two was that no one else in the room made any comment or acknowledgement of any kind. The superintendent sitting next to the student on her other side said nothing. The board chair said nothing. The rest of the board members said nothing. The student was left to navigate the situation, a direct expression of her physically and unsolicited touching by a person three times her age with no one else interceding or acknowledging the moment.

After the meeting, several board members told people from neighbors to national media that they were uncomfortable with the comment, and the board later had a meeting where they voted to censure, but not remove, the man that made the statement. But in the moment?

Silence.

Not one person supported the student.

Not one person named their discomfort.

Not one person stood up for their values.

I am sure each one of those people value the safety and emotional well-being of the students. I’m sure if you asked the board members if they would tolerate students being objectified and coerced into physical contact they would have said no. I’m sure they would say they were aware of and would be concerned about power dynamics and the emotional safety of each of their students if you asked them.

And yet, there they sat. Silent.

That is a failure of leadership. That was the moment. That was the time to recognize the line had been crossed, values were not lived up to and harm had been done.

The student addressed the school board several weeks after the incident. In a public meeting she described the impact that statement, and their silence, had on her. The lesson they taught her, in her words, was, “no one will stand up for me besides myself.” She named their silence as cowardice and their lack of accountability as disturbing.

Why is it the responsibility of a 16 year-old female to defend herself from sexism and misogyny in a room full of authority figures whose entire job it is to protect and support the healthy development of students?

This story is one of hundreds, or thousands that play out every day. A couple weeks before this incident, a woman told me about a meeting at her company where a male from another department, with no experience or background in her field, berated her both professionally and personally in front of everyone. After the meeting several colleagues, including one of the vice-presidents of company came to her to give her moral support and tell her they didn’t agree with what the man had said. This woman, a department head, asked the vice-president why he didn’t say something in the meeting? He was the highest authority figure in the room, why didn’t he step in in the moment? Here was a need for leadership, and he failed. He said nothing.

Leadership isn’t about the good times. Leadership isn’t about making everyone happy or smoothing things out. Leadership, real leadership, is about standing on values and making the call in the moment. Just as I was faced with thousands of decisions which would have impacts that ripple through many people’s lives, just as first responders on the street do every day, leaders in companies and organizations face these moments as well. Have you thought about your values, deeply evaluated what matters and committed to following through, including accepting the cost that may come to you? Or, like too many people in leadership positions, do you give a nod to the values poster as wall art and sign the dotted line to get the authority without accepting the responsibility?

My hope for you: Make It Count.