Leaders In the Know

In Memoriam

"If you could chose only one: would you rather be a leader or a role model?"

That was one of the most interesting interview questions I've heard, posed several years ago by a local YMCA camp director of a potential junior counselor.  How would you respond? Unhesitatingly, my middle daughter Liz responded, "Given the choice, I'd much rather be a role model. After all, leaders just have to get people to follow them - a role model has to know where to go and show them the right way to get there." 

It seems to me that I've met many more leaders than I have role models.

There's one role model in particular I'd like to talk about today. Laura Snyder joined us at Cognetics as a senior usability designer and rose to take on the role of Manager of our Princeton design team. Like all new managers who move from being one of the gang to "the boss," she had her challenges. It's hard to take over a team of folks who are all talented in their own right, creative and smart. It can be hard to assert yourself among former peers, some of whom are your age and others significantly older.

Laura took a path that played to her strengths. She managed with dignity, charm, good humor - and negotiation. She worked hard, but she also had a life: small roles in Community Theater; singing; yoga; the dog; friends; family. I'm sure her amazing husband Mike topped the list. 

About four years ago, Laura returned from vacation and told us of her unexpected trip to the emergency room after a fall. Shortly thereafter, she was diagnosed with adrenal cancer. Like us, you probably never even heard of adrenal cancer. That's not surprising. Each year, there are only about 500 cases in the United States. Someone told me the odds of surviving longer than a year are about 3%. (Have you seen the movie 'Sicko'?)

Laura took a path that played to strengths I bet she didn't know she had and never thought she'd have to draw on for decades to come. She beat the odds through sheer determination and an iron will to endure. I can't remember how many clinical trials and rounds of chemo. Through it all she never lost an ounce of dignity, charm, good humor -- and apparently negotiation skill. The day before yesterday, Laura Snyder, age 34, passed on.

They say you die as you live.

Just a few weeks ago I visited Laura in the hospital. She couldn't eat. She could barely drink. But she was sitting up in a chair, laughing and smiling. Completely bald and skeletal, she grabbed a friend's magazine out of her hand, feeling great sympathy for actresses caught by paparazzi without their make-up on! She talked about looking for another clinical trial, not giving in to the disappointment of rejection. She was eager to read the stack of novels on the bed and listen to the 78 hours of "books on tape" my husband brought her. She told us about the trips she had just taken to Michigan and Pittsburgh. Mostly I'll remember her laughing and smiling, how her face lit up when Mike arrived. Laura Snyder was not just a role model for living every day to the fullest; she was an inspiration to all of us who knew her.

A Mutiny... in Florida?

When you have a daughter living in New Orleans, just seeing the word "hurricane" in a headline catches the attention. Like many other students at Tulane University, despite an unexpected detour following Hurricane Katrina, my daughter stayed on in NOLA (she as a Tulane medical student.) Katrina is not "yesterday's news" to us.

Given my fascination with leadership - where the goal is not only to keep the job but actually live up to it - well, let's just say you don't hear a mutiny story every day. Except where hurricanes are involved, I guess. (Anyone remember Michael Brown?) So today's headline story in the New York Times entitled, Hurricane Center's Director Is Replaced After a Mutiny was a must-read.

For those of you who may have skipped it, the long and short of the story is that the director of the National Hurrican Center in Miami, X. William Proenza, first upset his bosses with public criticisms of spending priorities and predictions of disaster caused by a failure to replace an aging satellite named QuikScat. You'd think his employees would have lauded his efforts to call attention to their urgent need for more funding. But you'd be wrong. According to the Times, nearly half signed a petition to send him packing. And they got it.

Forecasters at the Hurricane Center took exception to their ill-informed, outspoken leader (who lacked recent hurricane forecasting experience by the way). By overstating the problem, they claimed, Proenza raised worries unnecessarily and undermined the Center’s (and, I suppose, their own) credibility.

So it seems that professionalism and dedication can trump rank and increased funding. (Yes!)

What I don't get is the next part.  One of the meteorologists at the Center (who presumably didn't sign the petition) is quoted in the article as saying,

“What bothers me the most is Bill was sharply reprimanded for his public statements about the lack of funding for certain things and the way certain funds were being used. Where is the reprimand for what amounts to a mutiny by a group of federal employees, the likes of which has never been seen in NOAA? Bill’s removal is going to come across to some that a public rebellion — meaning going to the media — is O.K."

Would you want to be this guy in the company cafeteria today?

Ah for the good old days when a mutiny meant curtains for the mutineers. How 1980's.

Several reactions to this story leaped to mind:

• Shouldn't we expect leaders to be taken to task for what is, in effect, irresponsibly "yelling smoke in a crowded movie theater"?
• You don't need to be an expert to lead, but shouldn't we expect a leader to be informed before speaking publicly?
• Sure, dated experience doesn't mean no experience, but shouldn't we expect a leader to recognize that the world has changed in the interim? Surely this should be even more obvious when working in a scientific realm.
• Signing a petition to have their boss removed has crossed everybody's mind at least once during their career. Who says government workers don't have moxie? How much you want to bet they never thought it would actually happen?

But the last statement really blew me away. "Bill’s removal is going to come across to some that a public rebellion — meaning going to the media — is O.K." Wow. In a Web 2.0 world is there anyone out there who seriously believes that even a whispered conversation among 23 people - let alone an actual uprising - won't find its way to the Internet? OK, maybe 23 renegade weathermen won't be as big a deal as Angelina and Brad, but you take my point.

I'd love to hear what you think and hope you'll post a comment.