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The high-impact leader is inspiring. He or she listens deeply to others to discover a common purpose, then gives life to his or her vision by communicating it so that team members see themselves in it.
If you are a leader and have never listened to the collections of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speeches, do yourself a favor and either download them from iTunes onto your iPod or buy the collection at Amazon.
We all know his “I Have a Dream,” but some of these others, like his sermon at the Mason Temple in Memphis the night before his assassination, is the epitome of inspiring. You can’t help yourself from getting goose bumps and, likely, shedding some tears.
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In the past couple of days, I have closely watched the news reports and appearances of actress Jenny McCarthy. She discussed her son’s autism, what she thinks caused it, and how she has dealt with it. In particular, she believes that her son’s MMR vaccine shot tipped him into autism. In something that is painful to watch, she describes how she raised the autism concern with her son’s doctor right before he administered the shot. The doctor condescendingly dismissed her concern and even swore at her. Soon after, she says, the boy’s “soul disappeared from his eyes” and he withdrew into the autistic state. She described how she subsequently interviewed many women who had endured a similar experience, with the same result…a clearly discernable change in their child’s spirit following a vaccine shot and a slide into autism.
As a parent of a 2 ½ year old daughter who was and remains very concerned about the possible effects of vaccine shots, her story resonated deeply with me. The medical profession is resolute that there is no empirical connection between autism and vaccine shots. Yet the anecdotal evidence strongly suggests otherwise. In our case, our daughter had serious problems in her delivery and nearly died. We felt there were real benefits to certain vaccines, but we also believed the risks were very real. The solution we arrived at was to take control over the content and schedule of her vaccines, selecting only certain vaccines and staging them very slowly over the first 2 ½ years of her life, instead of following the very aggressive standard vaccine schedule. In this way, we allowed her to grow and increase in strength and immunity over time, and never overwhelmed her immune system with a vaccine that could tip her into autism. Fortunately, we have a doctor who respects our wishes and follows our schedule, even helping us to structure the program in a way that will provide the most benefit to our daughter. He doesn’t agree with our assessment of vaccine risk, but at least he respects our differing opinion.
But my empathy for McCarthy is profound. I can see many, many parents with valid concerns being steamrolled into a vaccine program that ultimately harms their child and then having to live with their regret about not standing up to their doctors. I really respect how McCarthy has taken the lead on this issue. She isn’t broadly dissing vaccines. Rather, she is advocating against the one-size-fits-all institutional approach and in favor of a customized, conservative approach for each child. She may well get the attention of western medicine and save many people from a really challenging fate. It is not easy to take on an institution. Thank you, Jenny! |
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I grew up in the Martin Luther King, Jr. era, tremendously inspired by his example, message, and delivery. In the generations since his death, I have yearned for a leader who can inspire millions to move institutionalized mountains for the betterment of humankind. It was hard to believe the causes calling for a movement were missing. Indeed, the opposite seemed true. It was hard to believe that inspirational leaders did not exist anymore.
The answer to the puzzle has become more evident every day: In today's high velocity, highly complex existence, our problems are more plentiful, complex, and fragmented than ever before. It is simply not possible for one person to mobilize tens of millions behind one objective, at least in the visible way Dr. King did it. What is happening, instead, is multitudes of leaders are emerging in many different areas, working for positive change. In place of a Dr. King who could get millions of us on our feet and shedding blood sweat and tears in an effort to correct one major societal ill, we have thousands of leaders - across many sectors and lands - leading less visible but equally powerful missions to address all our other problems. We have Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank (www.grameen-info.org), providing thousands of tiny business loans to the poorest people in India who have dreams but need only a small amount of money to kick-start their realization. We have Lori Steele, CEO of Everyone Counts (www.everyonecounts.com), which has developed powerful technology to eliminate voting scandals. We have Jeff Skoll (www.skollfoundation.org), a co-founder of eBay and leading social entrepreneur, investing in a number of social causes and raising social consciousness by producing movies such as An Inconvenient Truth (global warming), Syriana (oil and terrorism), Fast Food Nation, and North Country (sex discrimination). We have Li Moxuan, a Greenpeace China researcher (http://activism.greenpeace.org/yellowriver), leading a global campaign to save China's Yellow River. True, none of these and leaders of thousands of other stories are likely to get us out marching in the streets and chanting together with fiery determination, but they are leading change the only way it is likely to occur today. That is, fragment by fragment, day by day. |
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| If you missed the Oprah special a couple weeks ago, Building a Dream: The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, I urge you to visit http://boutique.oprah.com/product/show/5830 and order the DVD. This is one of the most inspirational things I've seen in recent years. I challenge anyone to get through it without shedding tears. Or feeling a little bit different about their life. |
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A New Leadership Paradigm!
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