Remarks by
A. Kathryn Power, M.Ed.
Director
Center for Mental Health Services
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Partners for Recovery/Addiction Technology Transfer Centers Leadership Institute:
Transformational Leadership: The One Thing You Should Know
July 25, 2006
Washington, DC
PowerPoint version
Attached is the text prepared for delivery; however, some material may have been added or omitted at the time of delivery.
[SLIDE 1: Intro]
Good afternoon everyone… thank you, Wes ( H. Westley Clark) for the invitation to speak today… and for fostering the development of emerging leaders through the highly successful Leadership Institute Program. We look forward to the opportunity to participate in the Mental Health Services Leadership Institute this fall.
It’s good to see all of you. Over the past six months your participation, commitment and dedication has served you well, and I congratulate you on your graduation. The benefits of the in-depth personal assessments, skills development, and project mentoring will continue to enhance your professional career. Even more valuable are the relationships that have been formed during this time period. A national network of colleagues who have agreed to challenge and support each other into the future is a tremendous asset for you and our fields.
[SLIDE 2: Today’s Discussion]
I consider it an honor and a privilege to be here with all of you. I usually speak, as the Director for Mental Health Services and a representative of SAMSHA, from the federal perspective. However, this afternoon, I would also like to share with you my personal perspective about leadership.
I first became engaged in mental health issues back in 1975, when I got involved in rape crisis counseling and consumer advocacy. I have since led several community and statewide mental health and substance abuse organizations, including serving 10 years as Director of the Rhode Island Department of Mental Health, Retardation, and Hospitals. As President of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, I helped encourage debate on trauma, recovery, and mental health/mental retardation issues.
Administrator Charles Curie brought me to SAMHSA/CMHS to guide the transformation of the mental health system at the Federal level. What was it about this job that captured my attention? There were a number of things, but one of the most important ones was that I believed in the future that was envisioned in Achieving the Promise – the landmark final report of the President’s New Freedom Commission…and I knew I was the right person to move it forward.
[SLIDE 3: Achieving The Promise Vision Statement]
Why was I chosen to lead this transformation process? I believe I was given this incredible opportunity because of my ability to engage individuals who move systems to better serve people…and because of my action-orientation. Throughout my career, and my life, I have worked to ensure that being a leader is something that I do— it is a set of actions, not simply a title or a state of mind.
My philosophy on leadership was greatly influenced by the principles of servant leadership as described by Robert K. Greenleaf. Not only does Greenleaf’s philosophy reflect my personal belief that true leadership emerges from a primary motivation to serve a higher purpose…but it also illustrates the tremendous effect even one person can have on the system.
We are used to thinking it takes a legion of foot soldiers and an equally impressive budget to successfully implement a large-scale systems change. However, let me tell you the story of one man who proved otherwise.
John Woolman was an American Quaker who lived in the 1700s. During that time, many Quakers were wealthy, conservative slave owners. Woolman dedicated his adult life to eliminating the practice of slavery among his people.
Woolman pursued this effort by using the art of gentle persuasion. He spent more than 20 years visiting Quakers along the East Coast. He did not criticize people, nor did he make them angry. He merely asked questions like, “What does it mean to be a moral person? What does it mean to own a slave?” Driven by his vision, he persisted, visiting farm after farm.
By 1770, a century before the Civil War, not one Quaker owned a slave. The Quakers were the first religious group to denounce and renounce slavery.
[SLIDE 4: Greenleaf Quote]
This story was told by Robert Greenleaf in Robert E. Quinn’s book Deep Change.1Greenleaf commented further:
“One wonders what would have been the result if there had been fifty John Woolmans or even five, traveling the length and breadth of the Colonies in the 18 th century persuading people, one by one, with gentle non-judgmental argument that a wrong should be righted by individual voluntary action. Perhaps we would not have had the war with its 600,000 casualties…we know now, in the perspective of history that just a slight alleviation of the tension in the 1850s might have avoided the war. A few John Woolmans, just a few, might have made the difference.”
The Power of One…that’s why your participation in this Leadership Institute is so important. We are counting on each and every one of you to go back and make the difference. As you know, we have begun to experience some major demographic shifts…the Baby Boomers are aging out and we have a great need for emerging new leaders. You have the opportunity to make a dramatic impact on the systems that we have today…so that these systems will be able to support you and the demands of the 21 st century and beyond. But to do so, you must be prepared to lead.
[SLIDE 5: Managers vs. Leaders]
I’m sure you’ve discussed the differences between leaders and managers…at least once or twice during the past six months.
Most troubled organizations, according to Warren Bennis, distinguished author of more than twenty five books and dozens of articles on leadership, are over-managed and under-led. Bennis recounts a lecture in which it was said that lots of people spend their lives climbing a ladder—only to get to the top of the wrong wall. These managers accomplish the wrong things beautifully and efficiently. They climb the wrong wall.2
I recently heard a different twist on this story. Marcus Buckingham spent 17 years with The Gallup Organization and helped lead research into the world’s best leaders, managers and workplaces. He’s turning that experience into business bestsellers…and his latest book is entitled—The One Thing You Need to Know About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success3. Mind you, he still writes an entire book to tell you what one thing you need to know about these three topics, but he has an intriguing take on these themes, and goes into interesting detail about the thought process that led up to choosing his “one thing.”
Buckingham sees it this way: Managers focus on the individual person. Leaders focus on the future. Each is critically important to the overall success of the organization but the focus of each is entirely different.
Mr. Buckingham says the manager’s starting point is the individual employee. He assesses her talents, skills, knowledge, experience, and goals and then uses these to design a specific future in which the individual can be successful. That person’s success is his focus.
The leader sees things differently. He starts with his image of the future. This better future is what he talks about, thinks about, ruminates on, designs and refines. Only when his image is clear in his mind does he turn his attention to persuading other people that they can be successful in the future he envisions. But, through it all, the future remains his focus.
[SLIDE 6: The One Thing every great leader]
What is “The One Thing” every great leader must do: Discover What Is Universal and Capitalize On It.
In his book, Buckingham explains that as a leader, you must become adept at calling upon those needs that we all share. Our common needs include the need for security, for community, for authority, and for respect. The most powerful universal need is our need for clarity. Leaders transform our fear of the unknown into confidence in the future.
How can we apply the “One Thing” to the trends, challenges and opportunities that await us as we move into the 21 st century?
[SLIDE 7: Drucker Quote]
Think of the changes that have occurred in the past 100 years—automobiles, the interstate highway system, air pollution, airplanes, space travel. Think back over the last 30 years… who would have anticipated that computers costing millions that filled up entire rooms would end up in laptops that millions of people could own… and who would have anticipated that we could use our personal computers to instantly connect with anyone anywhere in the world via the Internet? Actually, we don’t even need the laptops… we just have to push a button on our cell phones. Think how much our lives have changed because of technology…how different our lives are from the lives of our parents or grandparents.
In their book, The Cultural Creatives4, Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson discuss in fascinating detail how these examples of social plus technological innovations have moved our culture in unprecedented direction. They started as trends, but became much more…they were transformative.
As Ray and Anderson state: “The word ‘transformation’ signals a change in social structures and cultural beliefs. Challenging trends in population, ecology and technology can bring forth responses that create a new culture. When enough trend effects accumulate and pressures have grown sufficiently, social transformation occurs.”5
Real change, fundamental transformation requires that we change the underlying patterns of thought and emotion that created the old structures in the first place.
I know that Ben Zander was here with you yesterday afternoon to present his workshop on “The Art of Possibility.
I highly recommend the book. The introduction begins with the concept of transformation.
[SLIDE 8: Shoe Factory Quote]
The Zanders’ premise is that …”many of the circumstances that block us in our daily lives may only appear to do so based on a framework of assumptions we carry with us. Draw a different frame around the same set of circumstances and new pathways come into view. Find the right framework and extraordinary accomplishment becomes an everyday experience.” 6
Of course science figures into the equation as well…it never exists in a vacuum. Scientific thought and discovery grow out of a wider culture.
[SLIDE 9: Zohar Quote]
Physicist and philosopher, Danah Zohar, discusses this in detail…science focuses important trends in the wider culture through its precise language, imagery and capacity for experiment. In turn, science reaches forward to influence new developments in the wider culture.
“In the new millennium we live in a culture almost wholly underwritten by scientific thinking, scientific discovery and the application of science through technology. This is not new, but the science of today is new and thus offers up a radically new cultural understanding. This applies to our organizations as much as to our societal and personal lives.”7
Science has triggered dramatic changes in the way we think about behavioral health.
Here in the United States, our population is nearly 300 million individuals. More than 15 million people have a serious substance abuse disorder and more than 15 million have a serious psychological disorder. The number of individuals with serious dual-diagnosis disorders is more than 4 million people.
The fields of mental health and substance abuse are distinct disciplines, but we experience many of the same leadership challenges. Not only are the organizational issues crosscutting…but also the people we serve are often the same.
I was reminded of that by an article in last month’s New York Times Sunday Magazine8 about an addiction medicine conference M.I.T. hosted for a small invited group of neuroscientists, clinicians and public policy makers. The reporter, Benoit Denizet Lewis ( Be-nwah Den-ee-zeh Lewis ) interviewed various people and predictably the pharmaceutical researchers emphasized the new drugs that will soon be on the market and those aligned with addiction treatment programs spoke to the behavioral and spiritual aspects that were their focus.
“William C. Moyers, a recovery advocate (and the son of the journalist Bill Moyers) who for 12 years has been free of crack and alcohol, spoke at the M.I.T. conference. In a room full of scientists and addiction researchers obsessed with the intricacies of the human brain, Moyers read a lecture that reminded them that treating addiction might be more complicated than they thought.
“I have an illness with origins in my brain… but I also suffered with the other component of this illness,” he told the gathered researchers and scientists, some of whom dutifully took notes. “I was born with what I like to call a hole in my soul… A pain that came from the reality that I just wasn’t good enough. That I wasn’t deserving enough. That you weren’t paying attention to me all the time. That maybe you didn’t like me enough.”
“The conference room was as quiet as it had been all day. ‘For us addicts’ he continued, ‘recovery is more than just taking a pill or maybe getting a shot…Recovery is also about the spirit, about dealing with that hole in the soul.’
William Moyers is why we, as transformational leaders, must transcend the silos that have separated us in the past and work together to address the needs…mind and body…of the people we are here to serve. William Moyers is why we have to reach outside of our current networks…and connect with providers, researchers, lawyers, journalists, and others. As leaders, we carry the vision…but we need to be able to leverage our networks. Networks are the basic element of systems thinking.
From my perspective, if an integrated vision is the goal then systems thinking is the means to that goal. It’s been said that vision takes us beyond our own identities. Then systems thinking enables us to map the territory. And when we take the system’s perspective it enables us to focus on our common ground at the intersections and the leverage points…rather than our differences.
We are one nation…but as I’m sure you have experienced in your efforts…each State is governed by its own legislative body with its own priorities and constituency to please. Even though the Federal government awards a mental health block grant to each State each year, the States have wide latitude in how the funding is spent. Decisions about what services will be provided and who will have access to them are State decisions. And that holds true for those of you that are involved at the regional and local levels. We depend on each other for communication when we’re working together in a close collaboration.
My role as director of the Center for Mental Health Services is to facilitate, motivate, and compel change at the State level. But how do I ensure that changes being pursued by the individual States reflect national values and leadership efforts? How do I ensure that the States, territories, or protectorates embrace the concept of recovery? How do I motivate them to make greater use of the tools of recovery: that is, evidence-based practices, individualized plans of care, and social inclusion?
Several months ago, the Center for Mental Health Services launched a new mental health transformation grant program. We awarded 5-year grants to seven States. The program is aimed at radically transforming the State infrastructure to better support treatment and services for people with, or at risk for, mental illnesses. The process through which the States are going about transforming their systems is itself transformative.
Each State is taking a different approach to transformation, based on its resources and the needs and desires of its constituents. This diversity is its own challenge to leading transformation in the United States. The seven States that received transformation grants will be role models for other States to follow—even though their circumstances may differ significantly. As a leader, I must be able to ensure that the States capitalize on the synergy of their differences… because their unique vision of transformation and the steps they take to achieve it can be…in fact, must be…as diverse as the needs of the individuals they serve.
The answers lie in leadership…at all levels so that we can identify and promote strategies that are successful in accomplishing our service directives. We can share as many solutions as challenges.
As leaders, our job is see that the right policies are in place so that the best services are provided. We have a recognized need for leaders who can operationalize these concepts. However, we face a curious dichotomy in trying to carry out this responsibility.
I am a government official, as are some of you. We function in an environment that values stability and maintaining the status quo. This, in and of itself, can be good. There is strength in stability, and the public rightfully places its faith in institutions that hold fast to their mission. But what if the mission remains the same, but the right policy becomes radically different? We saw such a reversal in policies and practices when we began moving from mental institutions to community-based services.
Consider the concept of recovery. Many of our current policies and practices are based on an old—and erroneous—assumption. What is the assumption? That individuals can not recover from serious mental illnesses. The evolving reality? People can recover; people do recover. We simply must transform our policies and practices to reflect this new reality.
We are finding that change of the magnitude we seek demands an entirely new kind of leadership within each partnering organization. We need leadership capable of changing the very language used to speak about behavioral health. Old language cannot convey new ideas. This tenet is behind many of the actions that SAMHSA/CMHS has taken recently, such as developing a consensus statement on the meaning of consumer-driven recovery and launching a multimedia anti-stigma campaign.
I’d now like to share with you some of what we are learning about the role of leadership in transformation.
[SLIDE 10: Transformation Leadership wheel]
Dr. Noel Mazade is the executive director of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors Research Institute. This institute supports the efforts of the States to improve the quality and accountability of their behavioral health service delivery. At SAMHSA’s request, Dr. Mazade identified the most tangible competencies of transformational leadership.
[SLIDE 11: Continuous Personal Development]
I’d like to highlight continuous personal development as a core competency of a transformational leader. Dr. Mazade’s assessment of desired traits includes this one: the ability to demonstrate personal values, vision, and goals.
I want to say a few more words about vision…often we think of leadership vision as something very large and grand…but a vision can come in all sizes to suit the need. In the book, Vision, Values & Courage, the authors have a wonderful passage that describes the concept:
“Haven’t you ever experienced that moment when the veil of the present was lifted, revealing with stunning clarity a picture of the future state that made you think, ‘Yes, that’s how it should be.’ From this we realize that many men and women have formulated visions. Not all of these individuals however have acted on those visions, and fewer still have seen their visions become reality.” The missing link? I believe it is “commitment.”
Commit comes from the Latin word committere, which includes in its definition this element of action: “to bring together, join, entrust, and do. This idea is echoed by J.F.T. Bugental ( Boo-gen-tall ). In describing the essence of the commitment of a leader to a vision he wrote, “Commitment is, in a paraphrase, the statement, ‘This I am; this I believe, this I do…’” 9
Leadership is character. It’s not a superficial role that we can take on and off. It has to do with who we are and the forces that have shaped us. Our actions as well as our words send daily messages about our personal commitment to visions, goals, and priorities. If we only talk the talk and don’t walk the walk, the people we manage…or hope to inspire…will stop listening, and quit following.
[SLIDE 12: Courage Quote]
Dr. Mazade also noted that transformation leaders must be courageous enough to take risks and be resilient and resolute in pursuing their vision. Transformation management implies that we, as leaders, develop these same traits in others and at every level of our organization. True change…continuous and sustainable change…occurs when many become dedicated to achieving the transformational vision…whether or not we ourselves continue in our current positions.
“Leaders are people who understand that without vision, there is no leadership; without honesty there is no communication; without communication and shared values, there is no performance; and without the confidence to reach out and try new things, there is no risk-taking or long-term success.” 10
[SLIDE 13: The One Thing]
And the One Thing you need to know about great transformational leadership:
Leadership develops from the inside out. John C. Maxwell sums it up best. “If you can become the leader you ought to be on the inside, you will become the leader you want to be on the outside. People will want to follow you. And when that happens, you’ll be able to tackle anything in this world.”
Thank you.
1 Quinn, Robert E. Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 1996
2 Learning to Lead. Warren Bennis and Joan Goldsmith. Perseus Books. 1997.
3 Buckingham, Marcus. The One Thing You Need to Know About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success. New York: Free Press. 2005
4 Ray, Paul H. and Sherry Ruth Anderson. The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World. Harmony Books: New York, 2000.
5 Ibid.
6 Zander, Rosamund Stone and Benjamin Zander. The Art of Possibility. New York: Penguin Books. 2002
7 Zohar, Danah. ReWiring the Corporate Brain: Using the New Science to Rethink How We Structure and Lead Organizations. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. 1997.
8 “An Anti-Addiction Pill?” New York Times Sunday Magazine. Benoit Denizet-Lewis. June 25,2006.
9 Bugental, J.F.T., as quoted by Hitt, D. Thoughts on Leadership. Cleveland: Battelle Press. 1992
10 Snyder, Neil H. and James J. Dowd, Jr. and Dianne Morse Houghton. Vision, Values & Courage. New York: The Free Press. 1994
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