Stephen H Baum Leadership

“Dave,” a retired top 100 company CEO, has a passion for hunting and foreign travel. He does quite a bit of both. But most of his time is occupied as a member of boards of directors and board committees. One of the organizations is a not for profit. You might think that, at this stage of his career, he would value most the camaraderie of his peers and the satisfaction from giving wise input; that he would be pleased to play a relatively back seat role and let others do the heavy lifting.

That would be counter to his instincts to drill down for facts, analyze, chart a path, take charge, inspire and engage and lead others and have a major impact.

And so it is that for a major not for profit in a Southern city, he has had a self-effacing but strong hand in overhauling the basic governance, introducing rigor into the finances and financial management, mentoring the COO and personally leading the revitalization of one of the key community-facing programs. He is playing a key role in transforming the basic business model of the enterprise.

He does it because it is his instinct and has the capacity to do it. He has the confidence that he will make a difference and that matters to him as an individual and as a member of his community. He has been taking charge of situations since early in his life. I have no doubt that he had more than one shaping experience in which he tried taking charge and found he could achieve a good outcome for everyone around him and for himself.
That’s my view. What’s yours?