Over the course of a 35 year career, Dr. Stephen Friedlander has made distinguished contributions as a practitioner, scholar, and teacher in fields as diverse as management consulting and clinical psychology.  He founded The Friedlander Center in 1995, and has worked since than primarily with entrepreneurs, executives, and other professionals on ways to get better results from individual and organizational effort.  In 2003, he was identified by Linkage, Inc as “one of the best executive coaches in the world.”   Friedlander’s wife Ann is an artist and devoted practitioner of the equestrienne sport of dressage.  He has 2 sons, Emil, an internet specialist in San Francisco, and Jesse, an investment banker with J.P. Morgan in Hong Kong.   He has been a member of the Rotary Club of Knoxville since 1998.  You can visit Stephen’s website at www.friedlandercenter.com  or contact him directly at sfriedlander@friedlandercenter.com.

 

“Leadership In A Rotary Context”

by Stephen Friedlander, PhD

 

Was anyone ever “born to lead” a Rotary Club?  I don’t know, but you would normally expect to find a good number of effective leaders in the roster of any local club by virtue of what brings us together.  Although it may not be easy to lead a Rotary — maybe, on some occasions, it is easy — several past presidents of my club agree it was “a very good experience.” And even if it’s not easy, if you are asked to lead, it is highly probable that you have all the necessary gifts to meet any challenge that leading your club brings.  That is, you are sure to be suitably equipped as long as you’re willing to learn something as you go along, and allow other people to help you. 

 

In this article, I will talk about some reasons that people enjoy the experience of leading their Rotary club (when they do enjoy it), as well as some steps you can take if you don’t feel sure whether you will enjoy it, or not. 

*        *        *

You can discover some interesting things about leadership just by going to the dictionary.  One of the first definitions you find under the word lead is “to show the way by going before or along” (Webster’s Unabridged). Definition number five is “to be first, chief, or head; to act as a leader.”  If you meditate on this for a minute, something important jumps out at you:  You can show the way by going before or along without having to be first, chief, or head.  In other words, you can do the things a leader needs to do, or you can act like you think people should treat you like you’re important just because you have the title of leader.  We have to be very clear about something here, namely, understanding that leadership is not a matter of title and position.  You can lead at any time and in any place if you think and act like a leader. 

 

So, what do we need to know about thinking and acting like a leader?  As Gary Wills wrote,

 

“We have long lists of the leader’s requisites — he or she needs determination, focus, a clear goal, a sense of priorities, and so on.  We easily forget the first and all-encompassing need.  The leader most needs followers.  When those are lacking, the best ideas, the strongest will, the most wonderful smile have no effect.” (emphasis added) 

 

No leader can afford to forget Wills’ point:  leaders need followers, which obviously means that leaders have to take followers needs into consideration.  Fortunately, for Rotary leaders, the first point is not likely to be a problem if the second point is kept in mind. 

 

Sam Coulter, immediate past president of the Knoxville Downtown Rotary, told me it was “easier to motivate Rotarians than my own employees.”   That natural willing­ness to help attests to the character of people that Rotary International attracts, high achievers who are drawn together by a noble ideal, Service Above Self, but Sam felt that there was another factor that promoted the cheerful cooperation among members that made his job as Club President easier.  Our club requires all new members to go through an indoctrination program.  Rotary College — that’s what we call it— stresses Rotary history and tradition while spelling out members’ obligations very carefully.  In Sam’s words, this program “ingrains the idea that you should say ‘yes’ when you’re asked to do something for the Club.  [Consequently,] members feel it’s an honor to be there and they’ll do what­ever they’re asked.” 

 

Frank Addicks, another of our distinguished past presidents emphasized the importance of keeping past presidents involved in the club.  They have the drive and dedication to do a lot for Rotary, and they know everybody.  To be quite specific, they know who can do particular things, and who always delivers when he says he will get something done.  Frank persuaded the past presidents to establish a “special projects committee” as a standing organization.  They took on a very special project to inaugurate their existence:  the job of renovating all access trails in the Smoky Mountains National Park.  (This project had a special resonance for our club because our first president was known as the “father of the Smoky Mountains National Park.”  His leadership had been critical in getting the federal government to establish this park.)  Frank had one other piece of advice:  “Start small when working on long range projects.”

*        *        *

It so happens that your Rotary e-Club frequently gets questions about effective club leadership.  One of the often-mentioned issues is “how to motivate members of a Rotary club that has lost much of its energy.”   The prospect of a club that has lost its energy is certainly a sad thing, but it is the kind of challenge that many individual Rotarians like to tackle.  I hope that the remarks below offer some inspiration and encouragement. 

 

ENERGY.  It’s an interesting concept.  For the most part, Rotarians are people with high energy — it’s almost an unofficial qualification for membership.  Rotarians tend to take on a lot of responsibility, so inevitably some members will have so many commitments to work, community, faith, and family that they don’t think there is any time left over for club service.  However, when you have “a Rotary club that has lost much of its energy,” something else is likely to be going on.  The loss of “energy” in a club is no different than the loss of morale in a business:  it means that most of the members don’t like what’s going on and don’t have faith that it can ever get any better.

 

It takes leadership to reverse a bad energy/bad morale situation, and the principles are essentially the same for a voluntary organization like a Rotary Club as they would be for a business.  Curiously, the chance of replacing an ineffective leader with new talent is probably better for the Rotary Club than it would be in most business situations (because a relatively inflexible perception of personal economic interests is likely to prevail in the business situation).  In other words, anybody who wants to change the direction of their Club can start immediately — he or she can move ahead with an effort to influence others without having to wait for authority from someone else. 

 

The only antidote for the loss of energy is a vision of how things could change for the better.  One person with a vision that, who has the energy and personal charisma to communicate that vision and excite passion can inspire others to mighty deeds.  Sir Winston Churchill represents one of the strongest examples of visionary leadership of all time.  He inspired an entire nation to maintain hope and dedication in the face of the most fright­en­ing and discouraging circumstances.  

 

One of the best ways to inspire people is to give them the feeling they are part of something much larger than themselves.  Since Rotary International does so many things of great moral significance you’ll never find a better opportunity to inspire people than here.  Just remember about what Rotary Clubs stand for:  “Service Above Self”.  Those words have inspired people to work together to establish more than 30,000 Rotary clubs around the world.  Obviously, it’s not a matter of nationality, creed, or ethnic identity.  If energy is a function of vision, we can assume that any club that has lost its energy is populated by individuals that have lost touch with the Rotary vision.  Curiously, any single member of that club, at any moment in time, can make the commitment to renew the sense of vitality and spirit in his club by focusing on the message:  “Service Above Self”. 

 

The current commitment to eradicate polio from the face of the earth is both important and inspiring.  However, a highly idealistic vision alone does not suffice to move people into action — it motivates by stirring up emotion, but motivated people still need to know what to do.  A vision has to be specific and “actionable” to be effective.  (By actionable, I mean that the listener interprets the leader’s message in terms of what he himself must do to help bring that specific result about.)  For example, a few years ago, our club decided to help one of the former iron curtain countries make the transition to peace and prosperity, but that’s the kind of broad idea that can only take people part of the way.  A practical result would depend upon having a practical goal, so we decided to establish a summer camp in Hungary.  Our leader­ship “energized” the members, to begin with, by helping them get to know Rotarians in the host country on a person-to-person basis. We invited Rotarians from Hungary to visit our club, and we provided home hospitality for everyone.  Their presence in our homes, offices and club meetings allowed us to experience the project as a gift to people we understood and liked.  Ultimately, that personal contact inspired and motivated us to do something much more meaningful than just giving money. Eventually, more than 30 of our members actually traveled to Hungary to ride bicycles through the Hungarian countryside with members of the host club — we called the event the Tour de Tridea.  In addition to enjoying a great recreational experience, our members brought equipment and worked together with local Rotarians to begin constructing the camp facility while the rest of our members followed their progress through the internet.  And it provided a great boost to our own morale — unique, tangible evidence of new friends plus the creation of promising opportunities for a better life for well-deserving people.

 

Every club is capable of doing something unique.  It doesn’t have to be big, but it should be fun, and it should do something for others.  If that’s not happening, each and every member can ask himself why not.  One might wonder if the club is losing energy because they are not taking in new members.  The effort to win new hearts and minds for Rotary  — figuring out how to sell yourself to your own community  — should energize things right away, and the new members will help the older members regain a sense of vitality and purpose. 

 

The surest enemy of that vitality would be something that betrays the objective of Rotary — if the club is distracted from the ideal of “Service Above Self” by rival factions or interpersonal issues that are irrelevant to Rotary purposes, members have to look for a way to get their focus back where it should be.  This situation calls for new leaders, individuals who aren’t beholden to any faction or self-serving party. 

 

In closing, I may summarize by saying that becoming a leader depends more on you than it does on others — you can decide to lead simply by exercising your native talents to help people do things that matter. Rotary Clubs across the world face similar problems; through effective leadership and adherence to the Rotary credo any problem can easily be overcome.

*        *        *

Here are some books on leadership that you might find interesting:  

 

Bennis, Warren. & Nanusm, Burt (1985). Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge. New York: Harper & Row.

 

Collins, Jim (2001). Good to Great. New York: HarperCollins.

 

Gardner, Howard (1995). Leading Minds. New York: Basic Books.

 

Goleman, Daniel, Boyatzis, Richard, & McKee, Annie (2002). Primal Leadership. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

 

Terry, Robert (2001). Seven Zones for Leadership: Acting Authentically in Stability and Chaos.  Palo Alto: Davies and Black.

 

Trompenaars, Fons & Hampden-Turner, Charles (2002). Twenty-One Leaders for the Twenty-First Century.  New York: McGraw-Hill.

 

Wills, Garry (1994).  Certain Trumpets: The Nature of Leadership. New York:  Simon and Schuster.