TO: Our Readers
FROM: Linda M. Hatcher, Leader Letter Editor
SUBJECT: EFFECTIVELY IMPLEMENTING CHANGE
DATE: June 9, 2007
“Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.” ~Francis Bacon
Even in Bacon’s slower paced world, change was the one constant a person could securely count upon. It has been the outstanding leaders of the world who have led the charge of necessary change through the ages. Yet, as the old saying goes about being such a leader, if it were easy, everyone would do it. But “it,” whatever that may be for various organizations, is so complicated, difficult, challenging and outright hard that most leaders at one point or more fail to stick with their leadership mandate long enough to see a worthy vision to fruition. That’s not the case with Wendy Kopp.
Maybe it was the fact that she was just 21 at the time that Kopp, then a Princeton student writing an undergraduate thesis, was able to stubbornly ignore the obstacles in her path to become an outstanding leader achieving worthy results for the children most in need in our culture. Kopp created a national success called Teach for America (TFA), a Peace-Corps-esque model designed for graduates of Ivy League schools to teach in inner city schools for two years. Teach for America is a program so successful that it now recruits more recent college grads than Microsoft, P & G, or GE. Read about a remarkable leader, Wendy Kopp, in our June issue of Leader Guide Magazine. Also new for this month is Part II of our look at Kopp, an article about the secrets of leadership she brings to the topic of change. CLICK HERE.
Also in this month’s Leader Guide Magazine is part two of a four part series by Mr. Fred A. Manske Jr. on how a leader can set the proper example for others to follow.
No doubt about it. As Bacon’s quote at the beginning of the letter points out, change will happen TO us, or as a RESULT of us. With determined leadership that keeps its focus on the larger why’s; each leader has the powerful potential of literally changing the world.
Defining Leadership……..He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery. —Harold Wilson
Inspiring Leadership Quote: After you have done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over. ~Alfred Edward Perlman, New York Times, 3 July 1958
Leadership Resource of the Month….Following is an excerpt of a recent article from that website “Standards of Excellence Practiced by Ethical Leaders….” Much has been written about leadership. Regrettably, less time and thought has been afforded the concept of ethical leadership. Perhaps it is the very lack of discussion about what it means to lead with ethics that has created the current business environment of SEC investigations into improprieties, dot-com greed, and the general public’s lack of faith in the stock market. Though we would have preferred that the government did not have to force the issue of business propriety through threats and legislation, apparently for some leaders fear and not moral certitude is their personal motivator.”
