Frances Hesselbein
From her Pennsylvania beginnings as a volunteer Girl Scout troop leader to her rise as the CEO of the largest organization serving girls and women in the world – the Girl Scouts of the USA – Frances Hesselbein has always been mission-focused, values-based, and demographics-driven. For her transformation of the Girl Scouts in the 1970s, former president Bill Clinton awarded Frances the country’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. For more than 25 years, Frances has been at the helm of a very small but strong organization based in New York where she continues to train a new generation of leaders through leadership education and publications. She is chairman of the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Forum, part of the Graduate School for Public and International Affairs, Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership at the University of Pittsburgh, and editor-in-chief of Leader to Leader. Frances is the recipient of 21 honorary doctoral degrees, the author of three autobiographies, and the coeditor of 30 books in 30 languages. Frances has traveled to 68 countries representing the United States, and Fortune magazine named her one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.”
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Be careful of your thoughts,for your thoughts become your words. Be careful of your words, for your words become your deeds. Be careful of your deeds, for your deeds become your habits. Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character. Be careful of your character, for your character becomes your destiny.
—Author anonymous
Today our work – our dialogue – is all about destiny: our own destiny, as leaders; and the destiny of all the organizations and the leaders we support. In this age of the lowest level of trust and the highest level of cynicism in my whole lifetime, my own country, and in many countries, we face new leadership imperatives. The backdrop of this dialogue is as serious, as challenging, and as difficult as any of us has faced in a long time, facing massive change all over the world, in a world at war.
In speeches, I often mention that from the beginning of our country, there are two institutions that have sustained our democracy: public education and the United States Army.
Recently, after speaking to cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, we had a wonderful Q&A session. As I was leaving, I encountered a group of cadets waiting for me in the back of the auditorium with many more questions. One young cadet asked me, “Mrs. Hesselbein: Why are you so positive?” I smiled and responded first with a corny joke: “Well, you see, even my blood type is B-positive.” Then I went on the share with them my B-positive approach to leadership, which begins with my definition of leadership as “a matter of how to be, not how to do. It is the quality and character of the leader that determines the performance and the results.”
People often wonder why I am so positive about a bright future in our own country and in communities where we are facing some of the greatest challenges the world has ever faced. In our schools and in our neighborhoods, there are families and local organizations in need, all of whom are attempting to cope with today’s challenges:
All this is part of the backdrop of our times, yet it is only part.
I continue with this bright future stuff because I have high hopes for the generation of Millennials – men and women born between about 1980 and 1995 – the first generation to come of age in the new millennium, in whom I envision great leaders with the opportunity to connect their present with a bright future.
Pew Research Center studies tell us that today’s Millennials are more like those born before 1928 – the so-called Greatest Generation – than any cohort since. Millennials are said to be career-focused with a very high potential to lead a robust and sustainable economy. They face many challenges, as swift and exclusive policy changes are adopted that may harm large groups of them. There is a new vigor to Millennials, and the upcoming professionals of Generation Z – those born between 1996–2010. A language that includes, not excludes, which communicates in a way that reminds me of Peter Drucker’s definition of communication: “Communication isn’t saying something, communication is being heard.”
And they are being heard! It is inspiring to join them. Remember: Every challenge is an opportunity. In these times of great challenges, the opportunities are even greater for our new generation of values-based leaders.
And it is the learning leaders who are the partners for ethical, principled, effective corporations and organizations. They will open doors. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote,
Be an opener of doors for such that come after thee,
And do not try to make the universe a blind alley.1
Recently, three young men from the Middle East arrived at my office door. They had attended our Hesselbein Global Academy at the University of Pittsburgh, a Leadership Summit now in its tenth year, bringing together 50 students from all over the world with distinguished mentors for a three-day conference. We had wondered how long it would take such a diverse group to come together, to connect, to open wonderful personal doors.
Well, it took about five minutes for all the hand-shaking and embracing to begin. They were one remarkably close group from the beginning. It is inspiring to learn how participants from our past summits have stayed connected – global as they are. The emerging leaders I meet are sending a powerful message of leadership, of building trust, of ethics in action, of the power of diversity and inclusion, of the importance of courage, of celebrating the intellect, and of service. To them, To serve is to live is not a foreign language.
Peter Drucker said, “I never predict. I simply look out the window and see what is visible but not yet seen.” Today I hear leaders everywhere discussing the same fundamental challenge – the journey to transformation, moving from where we are to where we want to be. Our quickly changing, turbulent times do not accommodate any neat and tidy but this is the way we’ve always done it strategy. It takes courage to challenge the Gospel of the Status Quo. In our young leaders, I see that courage!
As we hurtle into the future in this crucible of massive change, there is no time to negotiate with nostalgia for outmoded, irrelevant policies, practices, procedures, and assumptions. There are no leaders of the past, only leaders of the future. The young generation of leaders will lead beyond the walls, change lives, and change our world as they are called to do. For them, and for all of us, this is a time always to be remembered. Let us honor them. We must shine a light in this age of cynicism. Our turbulent times cry out for leaders who live the mission, who embody the values, who keep the faith.
As leaders of the future in a global society, our next generation of leaders will take hold of a new adventure in learning. We look to them to take the lead into the future, as inspiring examples of the power of learning and as models of ethical global citizenship.
I have a vision of what I call the bright future, which I hope we are all called to share. It is a world of healthy children, strong families, good schools, decent housing, safe neighborhoods, work that dignifies, and faith that sustains – all embraced by the diverse, cohesive, inclusive community that cares about all its people. That vision shimmers far in the distance. Bright Future.