Remember Leadership is About Courage, Not Popularity: Cornell Prof. Tells Graduating Class

Jim Detert, Professor of Management and Organisations at Cornell Johnson School of Management shared his advice for graduating students in a post on Cornell’s blog. Most of us grow up equating leadership with popularity but Jim says leadership is not about popularity at all and instead about having the courage to take unpopular decisions.  

A few years ago, a student I’d had in two classes told me that of all the things he’d remember about leadership and ethics from our discussions, the one that had the biggest impact was this statement that I’d made – “leadership is not a popularity contest”. He said that touched him to the core because he knew intuitively it was true, but went against everything he’d consciously thought until then because as a younger person it did seem like a popularity contest (think “prom court”, “student council president”, and other student-selected offices and honors that lead us to equate leadership with popularity when we’re young).

Michael Bloomberg seemed to grasp this idea (that true leadership often involves taking unpopular decisions), noting as he did during his last term in office as New York City’s mayor: “If I finish my term in office… and have high approval ratings, then I wasted my last years in office.”

What’s become even clearer to me in recent years than it was then is that one thing that really does matter for leaders is their willingness to be courageous – that is, to undertake worthy acts despite the potential risks and fears associated with doing so. And the reason courageous workplace acts are so important is precisely because they can be as unpopular as they are necessary. Michael Bloomberg seemed to grasp this idea, noting as he did during his last term in office as New York City’s mayor: “If I finish my term in office… and have high approval ratings, then I wasted my last years in office. That high approval rating means you don’t upset anybody. … You always want to press, and you want to tackle the issues that are unpopular, that nobody else will go after.” (The Atlantic, November 2012, p. 69)

Perhaps I’m recalling this now because of something David Brooks wrote recently about two types of virtues, résumé virtues and eulogy virtues. To quote Brooks, “The résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful.” What I’d suggest is that most things talked about in eulogies, even in the context of the careers we had, won’t be about resume virtues. Who stands at a funeral and says, “Jim sure had great analytical and project management skills”? The reality, even if it’s sad, is that in most cases it takes courage in workplaces to do things potentially worthy of mention in a eulogy. Why? Because it takes courage to stand against someone with more power, to go away from the status quo, to insist on people before profits, decency before dollars. These things can have serious negative consequences, both to our resume and to our popularity.

But despite this, the hopeful thing is that most people don’t seem to regret showing courage. My research on courage is showing that whether their acts succeeded or not, very few people report regretting doing what they did. Even external whistleblowers tend to say they’d do the same thing again, even though they can face the harshest retaliation. Maybe this is because in the long-term, regret tends to be more about what we wish we had done, know we should have done, but for some reason just didn’t. We seem to be wired to regret roads not taken, not the ways chosen paths aren’t perfectly smooth.

Many of these themes were evident when I analyzed responses from Cornell MBA alums who had responded to my request to help develop a “legacy exercise” for current students. I asked alums who had graduated anywhere from about ten to more than fifty years ago to share their views about success at work and in life, their best and worst life experiences, and what they hope their legacy will be.

Whether in their 40s or 80s, respondents had very similar things to say about their legacy: they want it said that they were helpful to others, that they were good to their families, that they left the world a better place. People didn’t write about all their work successes, or about how easy it was to achieve things. In fact, they were proudest about having the courage to do what they deemed right, independent of outcomes. Said one about what he hoped people would say, “He was an honorable man who did what is right even when it hurt.” Perhaps this is why most of the advice they offered had little to do with Brooks’ resume virtues but a lot to do with pursuing a life worthy of a great eulogy. And why the advice, in a nutshell, counseled, “Don’t wait around, don’t expect others to do it. Start doing what you believe is right. Today.”

As graduation season rolls around again at American universities, I remember one man who didn’t graduate from Cornell, and perhaps never will, but whom I will always remember and admire tremendously for having the courage to do what he believed was right. “Steve” took my leadership course during the first two-week residency that starts one of Cornell’s Executive MBA programs. Then, over a series of emails, it became clear that Steve was going to withdraw from the program to do what he now felt compelled to do.

As he explained, “After returning home, on my first day back in the office I had to let a couple of my top producers go for some pretty serious ethical violations. These issues had been brewing for some time and I’d been hesitant to get rid of these folks. … The termination of these individuals was something which should have occurred months ago but I was too concerned about a drop off in revenues to make the move.”

Beyond the general discomfort any of us would feel having to take these actions, what made them particularly hard for Steve? The dismissals meant he had to “get back on the road and in the trenches myself”. Dealing with his job as it was while also doing a rigorous graduate degree would have been difficult enough. But doing a couple extra jobs because he let those unethical people go made it impossible. So he took a second courageous action – he withdrew from the program so he could focus on righting the ship at his company. That was five years ago this summer, and I’ve seen thousands walk across our stage at graduation since then. But not him. So, this year while others don their caps and gowns, I’ll be paying silent homage to Steve too. He’s an inspiration to me, as are all the people who have the courage to put what is noble above what is easy, popular, or personally convenient.

Article authored by Jim Detert, Professor of Management and Organizations at Cornell Johnson School of Management on the Cornell Leadership Blog. Article courtesy Cornell.