The Leadership Moment summary

When on the hunt for a new job, which positions catch your eye? Probably those offered by companies that have goals similar to your own. Sharing a vision for the future with the organization you work for is also a prerequisite for great leadership, as is a deep understanding of your own values. This is something which Nancy Barry’s career reflects.

As a senior official at the World Bank, Barry was beginning to doubt whether their aid projects for developing countries actually did that much good. So she envisioned an alternative: alleviating poverty and hardship through microfinancing, providing financial and educational services to low-income groups to help them provide for themselves. The World Bank didn’t share this goal, but Women’s World Banking (WWB) did, which is why Barry accepted their job offer.

Some leaders find themselves in life-and-death situations, where a failure to make the right choice fast can have devastating consequences. Eugene Kranz was one such leader. His brilliant leadership as the flight director of the Apollo 13 lunar mission shows that a decision made quickly needn’t be a decision made poorly.

In 1970, the spacecraft Odyssey, in flight, suffered an explosion. This was nothing short of a catastrophe – air pressure, electricity and fuel cells were being lost at an alarming rate. The astronauts had to return to Earth as soon as possible. The situation called for rapid action; the team had mere minutes to dash from the command module to the lunar excursion module following the explosion.

Back in 1949, Wagner Dodge was the chief of a 15-man crew of firefighters, working together for the very first time. One day, they were called to Mann Gulch, a rugged area of central Montana; a forest fire was burning. Dodge had vast experience dealing with forest fires. But it was a different story when it came to leading a crew.

A man of few words, Dodge rarely offered appraisals of the situation at hand, nor was he particularly adept at expressing and explaining his decisions. Unfortunately, Dodge’s poor communication skills had fatal consequences at the Mann Gulch fire.

It was in 1863 that Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, who commanded the 20th Regiment of Infantry, Maine Volunteers, during the American Civil War, defended and secured Little Round Top, a crucial strategic point in Gettysburg. This would not have been possible without his top-performing army.

Given that a third of Chamberlain’s army were mutineers recently decommissioned from the 2nd Regiment of Maine, you wouldn’t think he’d have a very cohesive force on his hands. And yet, Chamberlain was able to win full cooperation of these mutineers by giving them what they needed: someone to voice their grievances to.