I have a friend who was recently identified as a NASA Future Leader in some publication that is supposed to be arriving in my mailbox soon. I’m horrified… the agency should be ashamed that it is trying to make such an allegation!
Why am I so upset?
First, it seems to me that to call someone a Future Leader implies that this person is not a Current Leader. And this is certainly not true.
Second, it seems to indicate that somehow, someone gets to decide who is and isn’t a leader. Wow, if there’s ever been a misunderstanding of how leaders become leaders, that’s it!
Third, it implies that there’s some prerequisite for leadership that has to be completed before someone can be a leader. What is this hidden prerequisite? Age? Experience? Being a manager?
I could probably go on, but do you see my point? How do you define leadership? How do you know when someone is or isn’t a leader? Does it make any sense to define who is going to be a Future Leader?
March 24th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
First, relax. It’s meant to be a compliment. It means that your friend has done or is doing the right things to one day become a leader-with-title (as opposed to just a leader with a particular skill set). I found it somewhat amusing when I entered the defense field at the tender age of 35 and was told that I was a “promising young man.” It’s a polite way for old folks to say, “Keep up the good work. One day all this can/will be yours.”
March 26th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Rivers does a great job with this post in pointing out another real fundamental difference and perspective that a younger generation brings to the workforce. Granted, there is historically a difference in leadership styles between generations, but with the arrival of Generation Y, and I would argue, even X into the work force, the topic of generational differences in leadership styles gets really interesting. Ultimately, I believe the definition of leadership within our culture needs to change a bit. When I first read the response from @BD above, I was a bit offended. Why should I relax? I think the term “future” leader is a bit offensive – and being told to “wait my turn” is even more offensive. I know what BD is trying to say, but again, it goes back to how we communicate that message.
I was taking a look at the Harvard Business School website today. Their mission captures what Rivers is saying– “we educate leaders who make a difference in the world.” I think it’s an excellent mission statement. Being a leader is a prerequisite to getting into HBS. What if we adopted that type of thinking at NASA? Maybe we need to approach leadership in a fundamentally different way.
More importantly though, I think this is the type of leadership we all want to talk about: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=18901
March 26th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
The best leadership training I’ve ever had came when I was a sophomore in high school and was picked to attend a leadership ranch in Colorado. The ranch was run by a couple whose son had killed himself when he was also a sophomore, after taking steroids for a time to try to make himself a better football player. The couple determined to devote their lives NOT to trying to help all troubled kids and save them from committing suicide, but to help kids with leadership potential by empowering them with the tools to be even better, more effective leaders in their own lives, so that they may make the right decisions and positively affect all those around them.
That mentality still inspires me today.
Everyone has the potential to be a leader. To solve the real problems we face at NASA, we need a more serious devotion to human investment. We need less of the “You have been selected to be a NASA future leader” memos and more of mentors making an extra hour of their day to help employees work through struggles they have with their careers and lives. We need less thinking that leadership requires a position and more thinking that PEOPLE are our greatest asset. Less putting up walls and defending positions by explaining why things can’t be done and more courage to listen to all opinions and value new approaches to constantly adapt to changes happening all around us.
Yes, positions of leadership take experience. But leadership does not need someone to grant it.
March 28th, 2008 at 4:04 am
I really like this post because it poses some great questions, that I don’t think are rhetorical at all. Who really is a leader? How do you define leadership? Does it really make any sense to define a future leader?
So, starting at the beginning, who really is a leader? Thinking back over my own experiences, the leaders in my life have been those people that have listened to me and had discussions with me so that I could grow and benefit from experiences they had that I had not. The people spanned everyone from my boss to my co-chair on the student planning committee. In fact, some of the best leaders I’ve ever experienced were actually not in positions ‘above’ me at all, but they were my peers working with me. So the problem with defining a future leader is that it assumes that leader indicates management. But, a leader is not just management. Leadership is an action and not a position.
It becomes difficult to think of leadership on a personal level when we are talking about all of NASA. I’ve found it difficult to wrap my head around what exactly does it mean to lead an entire organization vs. leading a small group of people. A key question when determining who are the leaders of NASA: Who has used their knowledge and experience (wherever that has come from) to help NASA benefit and grow. Yes, people in management have experience and obviously want to help guide NASA, but the definition can apply to those not yet in management either. Garret - I think your sentence was great!: “We need less thinking that leadership requires a position and more thinking the PEOPLE are our greatest asset.”
Let’s stop asking who our future leaders are! Instead, let’s look at who our current leaders. Who listens to NASA and improves it? Who shares their experience to benefit NASA? Who helps NASA understand what it doesn’t and pushes NASA to be it’s best? NASA has a lot of leaders across the board and I couldn’t be more proud to be working with so many of them!
March 28th, 2008 at 6:35 am
I’ve taken a few leadership courses over the last two years, and one very fundamental concept that was emphasized in every one is that leadership is not strictly an inherent ability or skill; it can be acquired through experiences, research, readings, and observation. Surprisingly, this concept is relatively new in our society, as many believed in the past (and perhaps many still do believe) that leaders are born, not made.
Keeping this in mind, I don’t think we should discount the current method of identifying “future leaders” - this is simply a reflection of common thought. Given all the technology and communication gaps that we see day to day here, it should then be no surprise to anyone that these older concepts are being applied to agency operations.
On the same note, though, I don’t necessarily think this label of “future leader” is condescending or derogatory to individuals who are identified as such. Keeping in line with the idea that leaders can acquire their skills over time, I think management is simply trying to provide these individuals with additional resources that will help develop their skills and supplement their experiences within the agency, resources that, perhaps, are not available to the general NASA workforce. I do believe, however, that if these folks are being identified, the practice should be stretched across all levels of employees (from GS-7s to GS-infinity
), so that every individual has an opportunity to demonstrate their leadership qualities and in turn, be offered access to resources that can supplement their careers.
April 12th, 2008 at 1:46 am
All of you reading this thread have a capability to demonstrate leadership and to be recognized for it in a way that far, far exceeds any perceived requirements in age, experience, position, or mystical “they” who decide who’s in and who’s out as far as being a “leader.” Trust me, NASA is actively seeking leaders who can lead this Agency during the Constellation era, as the last of the Apollo veterans retire and the Shuttle veterans start to depart as well. I’ll share with you how I define and display leadership and what I am looking for in one who displays “leadership.” In the end, I want to convince you that being a leader is both learnable and recognizable.
First, let me build upon a comment from Painting, who said that “…leadership is an action and not a position.” Good start. Indeed, part of leadership is action - more specifically, taking action and galvanizing others to action. Yet action without reason is activity without productivity. Something has to result from that action, and that essential item is that the action must be intrinsically linked to a compelling, measurable result. The result has to matter, is evident and obvious to everyone, and has impact. The accumulation of such results taken in a larger context lead to outcomes that can change society.
So, in thinking about the leaders around you, who are the ones that take action and galvanize you to action? Can the leaders around you, or you for that matter, articulate the measurable results you are trying to achieve? Can you say, “this tool will play a key role in assembly of the ISS” or “my work here is going to save the American taxpayer roughly $100 million a year” or some other example like that? Can you, or the leaders around you, converse about the larger outcomes you are trying to achieve? “I am contributing to the knowledge of humankind” or “I am establishing the first footholds in the colonization beyond Earth.”
There is one more ingredient in my definition of leadership. Put very simply, it is that thing, that motivation that gets one out of bed each day to do the things we do at NASA. It is the alignment of an individual’s personal values with what we’re trying to accomplish as an Agency. A true leader knows her personal alignment and engages others in conversations about their alignments with the purpose of the organization, group, or team. It is a willingness to share personal values and how those align with NASA’s mission. An associate administrator told me that, “people self-select into NASA because they believe in the mission.”
So, do you? Do your leaders? Do you even know?
Garret said that, “…we need less thinking that leadership requires a position and more thinking [that] PEOPLE are our greatest asset.” You BET! It is people who have values that align with a larger purpose, who initiate and galvanize others to action, who generate the compelling results that lead to outcomes that give meaning to why we’re here. This has nothing to do with age, experience, position, generation differences, or any of that. It is simple, you can learn it and do it, and others will recognize you for it by calling you “leader.”
In closing, I’d like to share an experience I had with a co-founder of a non-profit agency in Washington, DC, one that gives meaning to what I described above. She said that the mission of her non-profit agency is “to end the harmful institution of children worldwide.” Wow, talk about a mission! I could tell from her words that she believed deeply in that mission, and that her values were strongly aligned with that statement. Yet, I asked her a pointed question: “on day 1, did you have a clue as to HOW you were going to do that?” Her answer: “No”. Yet that didn’t matter; she didn’t let that paralyze her into inaction. She began a program of working with international governments to “rescue” orphans from various orphanages and get them adopted in the US. She had to adapt to ever changing rules, sometimes starting all over again. Despite battling through countless changes in rules, numerous bureaucrats and never-ending red tape, she slowly starting making progress, getting tens, then scores, then hundreds of children placed into caring families in the US each year. She has the alignment, the action, and the results to show for it. She is a true leader in my book.
So, again I ask you… Do the leaders around you exhibit leadership as I’ve defined it? Can you? If you can, others will notice by calling you “leader.”
April 15th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Rivers, it’s hard when others win and you don’t. Good leaders don’t complain about other people who are honored by the system. They look to them and try to learn from them.