Headlines today chronicle the devastating consequences of man-made and natural disasters – like bank failures, catastrophic earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, political divisions that fracture families and friendships, and the year-old war in Ukraine, which has no end in sight.
In these times, when despair lurks and hope seems elusive, I have been thinking back to a story I heard over 20 years ago.
The setting was a convening the Aspen Institute Business & Society Program hosted for experts in leadership development. We had brought these experts together to consider what it takes to develop business leaders who care about achieving both business success and positive impact on society and the planet.
Because of his stature as a legendary and forward-looking leader, we had invited Robert (Bob) Galvin, the retired CEO of Motorola, to speak to the group. Bob had a remarkable track record. When he became CEO of Motorola in 1959, it was a small, family-owned business based in Illinois. Under his leadership, by the time he retired in 1986, the company had become a global, innovative high-tech company with over $10 billion in revenues.
Bob told us a story from early in his career. He recalled his eagerness to learn about the practice of leadership and said he went to visit a well-regarded and experienced CEO for advice. That CEO, Bob said, opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out several index cards on which he had listed key leadership lessons which he shared with this new and eager CEO. Bob said that over time he had forgotten all of the lessons except one. The principal responsibility of a leader, this CEO told him, was to “spread hope.” That advice fueled Bob’s approach to leadership for decades.
I have often thought about Bob’s comments and in these disturbing times came to wonder what he really meant by spreading hope. How does a leader do that?
Bob Galvin passed away in 2011. But, fortunately, I was able to reach out to Bill Wiggenhorn, a long-time colleague of Bob’s, for insights.
Bill, a participant at that memorable meeting, is a leadership development legend in his own right. Hired by Bob Galvin in 1981, Bill joined the company as director of what was then called Motorola Education and Training Center, a department with about 20 employees. With a new vision of how companies could develop the talent they need to thrive, and with encouragement from Bob and the executive team, Bill created Motorola University, one of the first corporate universities in the world. By the time I met Bill in 1999, when he was President of Motorola University, it employed 2000 people and operated in 24 locations around the globe. To this day, Bill serves as a source for me of wisdom about developing the kinds of business leaders the world needs.
“In his leadership,” Bill told me, “Bob always spread hope and a vision of what could be. He reminded his leaders to say ‘yes’ to ideas rather than ‘no’ and not to defer by saying ‘I’ll get back to you.’ He saw the world differently than his peers and colleagues and encouraged his senior team to take risks.”
He had an expansive, responsible view of business. “As Motorola expanded around the globe,” Bill said, “Bob always believed that the company should enter new markets intent to create local wealth so that people could afford to buy the products they produced and sold.”
Bob expected the people around him to present him with fresh ideas. He referred to employees as “scouts” and always paid close attention to the insights they brought in from the field. “He always took time to listen to others,” Bill said. “I remember that he kept his office bare – no paper, no computer – so that he could focus on the person he was meeting with; and when that person left, he could take time to reflect on the conversation.”
Thus, I learned that for Bob Galvin, spreading hope was about having and refreshing a vision, believing in what was possible and engaging with others along the way. But does hope have any place in great leadership today?
Yes, according to one expert. In a recent Forbes article, Marc Correa, Dean of Executive Education at ESADE in Spain, wrote of the power of hope to enable people to act even when “all of the available data would make them lose heart or even despair.” He wrote that “Hope pushes people to imagine a better future, creating positive energy to move forward.” In fact, Professor Correa believes hope is the very cornerstone of leadership – even when we don’t notice that it is there.
As Correa writes, hope is rooted in the vision and a sense of possibility the leader creates. It enables people to set goals, build energizing relationships and see multiple ways of moving forward. Importantly, for those who often can’t see beyond the uncertainty of these times, hope helps us develop what Correa calls strategic patience, so that we can “await the arrival of the specific conditions needed to achieve the expected vision.”
Reflecting now on Bob Galvin’s story and Marc Correa’s insights, I am realizing that making hope a cornerstone of leadership requires rigor, not wishful thinking. It is the cultivation of a mindset that allows you to see over the horizon to imagine something beyond and to be courageous and thoughtful enough to manage in these VUCA times with so much Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity.
I wonder how many leaders consider whether they are spreading hope as they lead their teams, their companies, their countries. And I am wondering, even in my small circle of influence, whether I might say ‘yes’ more often and lift my gaze. What possibilities might open up as a result?
Another thing I remember Bob Galvin saying during that fateful meeting in November 2000 was that an effective leader is “someone who takes us elsewhere or does otherwise.” Hope, as it was practiced years ago by this legendary leader, may be just what we need now to move beyond the difficulties of these times – to elsewhere.
This blog post was originally published on LinkedIn. Follow Nancy McGaw for more insights on business and society.