Leaders Make the Most of Their Connections

Eye chart with glass

Source: PICRYL

It’s rare that a “vision” of leadership springs fully formed from your imagination. Experience down the road will help to define it. Other people will help to sustain it. In this sense, vision involves an element of luck.

But, of course, we can make the most of this. If chance breaks our way, we should think about how to take the best advantage of it. When we meet someone who can help us, we can’t be shy—actually, we should be as forthcoming as possible, enlisting them on our behalf, prevailing on their good will. We can’t invest so much personal capital in a vision that it becomes rigid, an extension of ourselves and our egos. We should, instead, accept that a vision is always porous and that other influences can shape it over time.

Think of a vision as kaleidoscopic (with lots of moving, shifting parts), rather than as a laser that’s narrow and unalterably linear.

Of course, if leadership starts with a vision, we must look behind that vision to see how that leader first understood and then developed it. Often, the process hinges on the unexpected. Leadership requires the ability to seize the unexpected and turn it to advantage. It requires accepting that a vision may look different from one day to the next, until finally it settles into what it should be. “Should” means what works best for us, given all the complex circumstances that we must navigate.

In effect, would-be leaders move on from emulating their heroes to take up leadership roles that suit them where they find themselves. Satisfying one’s ego means altering your initial vision for something more sustainable. Once a vision finally seems anchored in your own demonstrable experience, you’ll find people willing to sustain it.

From this perspective, acquiring your own, personal vision is a process of letting go. That is, it’s impractical to take on inspiration from some hero without also refracting it through your own reality. What comes out may be diminished in one sense but, in another, it may be well-adapted to where you can go. So, ask yourself:

• In formulating a vision, how much of what I admire in someone else’s career is practical in my own? Am I being honest and not letting pride guide my aspirations?
• How much of my original vision am I willing to forego, even as I still pursue it?
• How can I make the most of encounters with people to shape my vision? Do I know how to interest people in my ideas and how to elicit their most helpful responses?
• Am I willing to change my vision as my career develops? That is, do I understand that it must evolve along with my evolving circumstances?

If you answered No to any of these questions, then you know where to focus your efforts. Part of maintaining a practical vision is to let it go with the flow of your life. ‘‘Flow“ in this regard is non-linear, and includes productive interactions with other people. They see you from a perspective that, by definition, you do not have. Often, they have experience that you wish you had.

So, if leadership means having a vision of your future, then you should create a cast of characters to sustain it. Consider my client Larry, who had just graduated pre-med from college but wanted to be a physician/writer like Chekhov, Conan Doyle, and Michael Crichton.

It didn’t happen. But something more interesting did.

During a gap year in London before medical school, Larry worked in a hospital. He learned that while he was not, perhaps, creative like Chekhov or Crichton, he still had things to say. He wanted to tell people’s stories and to compare the humane practices that he found in a British hospital to the rigidly clinical environments of their American counterparts. “I guess this is medical sociology,” he told me. A fascinating idea.

So, over the next several weeks, Larry wrote an article and submitted it to a medical journal. He wrote an abstract citing “empirical research” and included comparative “data” from visits to British and American hospitals. He identified himself as a graduate student who would enter medical school in the fall. He sent a resume and a transcript. He received a polite rejection.

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My job is to talk people through disappointment. “Come on, Larry,” I said. “This is your first outing, and you’re hardly a conventional author with a university position.” I suggested that he not give up.

So, with the energy of someone convinced of his own good idea, Larry emailed the editor for an appointment, explaining that he could demonstrate the validity, novelty, and importance of his observations. Later, he told me that he could see how what he’d written might become part of a larger project—a whole field comparing the integration of culture and hospital administration—and that the article was, perhaps, its leading edge. In his mind, anyway, Larry was founding a new research area.

Larry waited. Finally, the editor said he could meet for coffee. Larry accepted. He thought at least he might learn something.

When they met, Larry was prepared. “I told him about all the future articles that people could write on this topic once they realized that it was a topic.” In other words, Larry attempted to interest the editor in becoming a pioneer. As Larry described the conversation, I could see that the whole experience, including rejection, had bolstered his sense of himself as a ground-breaker. What started as an article had, over a few weeks, become a focus for Larry’s future work as a physician/writer.

Larry and the editor finally came to an agreement. The editor offered to publish the article as a Guest Opinion, without the imprimatur of peer review.

In effect, the editor had challenged Larry to think harder and longer—and with more technical fire-power—about his initial perceptions. He had invited Larry to grow into his ideas and even lead a nascent field.

Fast forward to medical school. Larry started a journal. He raised funds from the Dean. He appointed an Advisory Board of professors from the medical school and the social sciences.

So now there is a journal devoted to comparative hospital administration.

But more to the point, there is a leader of a new field. Larry had a vision, both for himself and for an area of research that had yet to develop. By making the most of strategic connections, he turned that vision into reality.