Lighthouse Leadership

A funny thing happened to me the other night.  I left for my one-week vacation at the beach, and my cell phone just happened to die.  I mean really dead - blank screen.  Nothing.  No more checking the e-mails while away.  No more texting back and forth to check in on folks.  No more checking in on the morning news, how the Cubs are doing, the NBA play-offs, etc, etc.  As the saying goes, I was off the grid.  I have obviously become addicted to instant access to information that can only be provided with a smart phone.  But I have to tell you, the freedom from the cell phone was liberating!  My wife kept asking if I wanted to go to the local Verizon store to see about getting the phone fixed - "No, it can wait 'til we get home." 

The beach is my sanctuary - it is where I can fully decompress, rest, relax, and re-energize.  Minus the temptation to check in at work took things to a whole different level.  I highly recommend it (but maybe not by having your cell phone die!).  Anyway, I was able to get to a few books that I have been waiting to read.  One of the books that I read was the new book by Matthew Dowd called "A New Way: Embracing the Paradox as We Lead and Serve."  It was fairly concise and easy to read.  Dowd used a lot of analogies and personal stories to describe what he thought was the way that leaders should lead in society today.  He used one analogy in particular that I liked a lot.  He compared being a leader to a lighthouse. 

A lighthouse serves two critical functions (or at least historically they served these functions - the modern age of navigation and GPS has made them more and more obsolete).  First, a lighthouse serves as a beacon so that sailors can find their way home.  The rotating, powerful light at the top of the lighthouse can be seen from far away, and sailors would navigate towards the light to be able to find their way back to shore.  Second, the lighthouse serves as a warning to keep sailors away from dangerous shoals and rocks near shore.  The sailors would see the light from far away, but they would also know not to sail too close to the light, as the lighthouse was usually positioned near the shoreline.

Leaders are a lot like lighthouses.  As we have discussed a number of times in previous posts, leaders set the vision, the so-called "North Star" for their organization.  Just as the lighthouse serves as a beacon, true leaders serve as beacons of hope for their organization.  They point the way home, to where the organization will achieve its greatest success.  Leaders light the way and show the path forward.

Leaders can also play a cautionary function by making sure that the organization does not stray from its true, intended path.  When leaders notice that the organization is moving towards "troubled waters", they pull the organization back on the right path to success. 

Maybe it was being at the beach this week.  Maybe it was Matthew Dowd's analogy.  Maybe it was the freedom and liberation from my work that allowed me to think about things in a different way.  Regardless of what it was, I did think a lot about lighthouses this week.  Leaders are a lot like lighthouses...