Latest / Lead With Clarity: Practical Insight for Senior Leaders / How to Be: Frances Hesselbein on the Character Behind Great Leadership
Transcript
- Blake Holman: Welcome to Lead with Clarity. This is a space for leaders who want to grow without losing themselves in the process. Each episode is a short reflection on leadership, influence, and the inner work that shapes how we show up for others. It's not hype, not noise, just clear thinking for the journey of leading well. Today's episode is entitled How to Be Francis Hesselwein on the character behind great leadership. Here we go. There's something almost countercultural about what we're going to talk about today. The entire machinery of leadership development, the books, the courses, the certifications, almost all of it is built around doing, around methods, frameworks, systems, playbooks. And there's nothing wrong with that. But somewhere in all of that doing, we've lost sight of something more fundamental. Francis Hesselbein said it better than almost anyone ever has. Leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do. Six words that cut through decades of management theory. Hiselbein wasn't a theorist, she was a practitioner. She led the Girl Scouts of the USA and transformed it into one of the most respected organizations in the country. Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, called her the greatest executive he had ever met. Not the best strategist, not the most operationally brilliant, the greatest executive, and he grounded that assessment entirely in her character. Think about a leader who has had a lasting impact on you, not someone who gave you a perfect process. Someone who changed how you think about yourself, your work, your potential. Someone who made you want to be better. Now ask yourself, what do you remember about them? Is it their system? Their framework? Their quarterly plan? Probably not. You remember how they made you feel when the pressure was on. You remember what they did when no one was watching. You remember whether their actions matched their words. You remember who they were. That is the point. That is exactly the point. Now here's where most leaders get this wrong. They hear how to be and they think it's abstract, philosophical, nice to think about, but hard to act on. So they file it away as inspiration and get back to their to-do list. That's the trap. Because being is not passive. Being is not about personality. It's not about whether you're introverted or extroverted, warm or direct. Your way of being is expressed in your behavior, and your behavior is a choice. Every single day. When you micromanage, That's a choice about who you're being. When you take credit without giving it, that's a choice about who you're being. When you show up in a calm in a crisis, when you give a hard truth with care, when you admit you were wrong, those are choices too, and people are watching all of them. So let's reframe this. How to be is not a soft idea. It's the hardest discipline in leadership, because it requires you to look inward, honestly, before you ask anything of others. The question changes. It's no longer what should I do in this situation, it becomes who do I need to be in this situation? That shift is enormous. It moves leadership from a set of tactics to a standard of character. And character, unlike tactics, is consistent. It doesn't change with the audience. It doesn't shift based on what's convenient. It shows up the same way in the boardroom and in the hallway. That's what builds trust at scale. Not your strategy, your consistency. Here's what I want you to carry with you. Pick one person you lead, formally or informally. Think about what they need from you right now, not what you need to do for them, who you need to be for them. Maybe they need someone who believes in them before they believe in themselves. Maybe they need someone who tells them the truth without making them feel small. Maybe they just need someone who stays steady when everything else feels uncertain. That's your work. The real work of leadership. Not the calendar, not the metrics, who you're choosing to be every day. in the moments that matter. Frances Hesselbein gave us a gift with this line. She gave us permission to stop measuring leadership solely by output and start measuring it by character. The leaders who leave a lasting mark, the ones people remember long after the projects end, they're not remembered for their processes. They're remembered for who they were when it cost them something, for who they were when no one required it. That's the standard worth chasing, not perfection. Consistency of character, day after day, Conversation after conversation, decision after decision. Who are you choosing to be?