…[T]oo often the hiring and the inevitable firing of the school superintendent is a spectator sport in a community…. - Brian Gallagher, President of United Way of America

 

When Brian Gallagher made this observation during a panel discussion at the opening general session of the 2008 United Way of America Community Leaders Conference, the response of the other panelists and the audience indicated an all too familiar acquaintance with the fate of school superintendents in many places.

My first thought was, “Apparently, things are rough all over.”

Rich Harwood, the panel’s moderator, observed this is the frequent fate of people to whom communities turn for leadership. Upon whom we bestow - by virtue of election, employment, or nomination – the responsibilities of leadership.

 

Too often, after we turn to these people, especially in times of difficult transformation, we abandon them in the midst of the very changes we have asked them to achieve on our behalf. In the aftermath of difficult decisions we have called upon them to make, we leave them on their own to answer the inevitable opponents to which any change gives rise.

 

Harwood writes in Make Hope Real, that these leaders are “left standing alone naked in the public square just at the moment when they most need us to stand beside them and vouch for their worthiness.” He asks of us,

[W]hen a leader comes under fire, do we step forward to offer our support:

 

• by literally standing beside the individual and vouching for the person’s integrity, even when we do not agree with a particular position?

• by saying clearly that the individual leader is a good person, and that we and others will not stand for scurrilous and mean spirited attacks against such a person?

• by praising an individual leader for taking a tough-minded and principled stand, whether we agree with the person or not?

 

“If we want good leaders,” Harwood concludes, “then we must vow not to abandon them and instead find ways to show our support.”

 

What happens to those who assume positions of leadership is also shared by those who provide leadership in the responsibilities they take on as part of the civic life of a community. These people serve on committees. They meet with neighbors. They convene. They converse. They write. They speak. They stand up. They give their names to the causes in which they believe. They are present to be seen in public gatherings.

 

This leadership assumed by virtue of the positions we accept or the actions in which we engage is open to us all. Doing so entails risk and requires a measure of courage. Gallagher and others on the panel made this clear as they discussed the nature of the transformations contemplated by many communities seeking to advance the common good. 

 

Harwood and Gallagher agree, “Live United” means taking sides. “Making a difference right where we live,” assumes something different is required. “Creating lasting change,” means changing. “Advancing the common good,” declares there is good we hold in common.

 

“Live United” is not a plea to “get along.” It is a call to action that also summons what Harwood describes as the “enemies of the public good - enemies like inertia, cynicism, mechanized responses to human problems, false hope, distorted reality, and superficial efforts to take on real challenges.”

 

We must recognize viciousness in speech as a mask for a deep and abiding indifference - a voice that speaks only of itself and about nothing.

 

“Live United” is something to which we aspire, that comes only as a renewing achievement, and for which we are all accountable to each other. Sometimes – maybe always – it means looking out for each other. Standing up and standing for and standing with.

 

We must return to public spaces for only in public spaces is taking a stand possible - not because we agree, but because we agree to engage in the hope of coming to agreement.

 

“Live United” is a call to action that calls us forth into public places. Public places where we bestow the position of leadership upon some and require acts of leadership from many.

 

Living united, we are part of the change.

 

Dave Beal is Vice-President for Communication and Advocacy at United Way of Olmsted County.