Leadership Insights From Turkey and Alabama

"If your efforts are greeted with indifference, do not lose heart; the sun puts on a wonderful show at daybreak, yet most of the people in the audience go on sleeping..." - Anonymous

LEADERSHIP INSIGHTS FROM TURKEY AND ALABAMA

In his book, On Leadership (New York:  The Free Press, 1990), John Gardner, who served under six US presidents, draws inspiration from diverse sources in identifying the attributes of effective leaders.

To illustrate the importance of a leader understanding his followers, Gardner observed:  "The late Bear Bryant of the University of Alabama, one of the all-time greats among college football coaches, once said to me, 'I know my players better than they know themselves.  How else could I get the best out of them?'"

To demonstrate the importance of a leader being adaptible, Gardner used this example:  "It was said that Ataturk, the greatest figure in modern Turkish history, could shift swiftly and without second thought from a failing tactic to another approach, and, if that did not work, to still another.  Whether the field of action was war or diplomacy or domestic governance, he rarely clung stubbornly to an approach that was not producing results.  His goals were stable but his tactics flexible."

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