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In An Act of Citizen Leadership…

…Zach Whals, a 19-year-old University of Iowa student, addressed the Iowa Legislature about the strength of his family headed by his two moms. Mr. Whals spoke with conviction before the House of Representatives in an effort to dissuade and even admonish its members intent on amending that state’s constitutional and repealing the existing right of Iowa same-sex couples to marry.

In my past blog posts, I have regularly described a citizen leader as the man, the woman, the young adult and the teen who applies their character, their convictions and their courage to speak up, take action and lead efforts that contribute to the community and serve the common good.

In this video of his address, Zach Whals shows us what citizen leadership looks like, feels like and sounds like.

In an era when we are all being assaulted by others’ agendas, tempted with profit, prestige and personal gain, or taunted by peer pressure and political expediency, it is our job to be solidly grounded in who we are and how we want to be in the world, and have the courage to stick by that. 

Character: Personal Integrity and Credibility (II)

Credibility derives from the Latin verb credo, which means I believe. Our believability — or our credibility — rests in the eyes of others. It is their having faith that we will behave and speak and act in ways that adhere to the values we profess and thereby the expectations we create.

But what about those occasions when we consciously choose to ignore our principles and “make an exception to the rule”? Whether for expediency’s sake or for our own gain, believing that the ends justify the means can result in giving others reason to pause, wonder or doubt that we are who we claim to be. If our adherence to guiding principles is the bedrock of our credibility, then shedding those values — regardless of the reason — is a blow that can fracture the foundation that others rely on when choosing whether to believe, trust, join or follow us. At its most damaging, a pattern of making an exception to the rule gives others cause to say to themselves non credo — I do not believe.

Consider the employer, the manager or the team leader who claims to highly value the principle of work–life balance, but who regularly texts or emails queries after hours, over the weekend or during vacation time, and expects a timely response. What message is this individual really giving about what she or he is committed to? What happens to their credibility vis-à-vis their professed principle of work–life balance?

Assess the current state of your credibility by answering two critical questions:

  • What are the promises I make about how I will conduct myself, both in private and out in the world?
  • How consistently do I live up to each one of these promises — to myself and to others? 

Excerpted and abridged from The Citizen Leader

The Citizen Leader eBooks Now Available

I am delighted to let you all know that The Citizen Leader is now available as an ebook:

Amazon [for the Kindle and Kindle app for the iPad/iPhone]

Barnes & Noble [for the Nook, Nook app for the iPad/iPhone, and Sony Reader]

The Citizen Leader is a book which invites your active participation (reading and writing your responses). Since an ebook precludes your writing on the page, I have designed and put online a writable (fill-in) pdf workbook that includes all of the questions in The Citizen Leader and allows plenty of space for your reflection and responses. Feel free to download it, and print or save it to your computer. 

The workbook is free. The instructions for access and use are in the introduction of the book: “How to Use The Citizen Leader as a Self-Directed Guide for Personal and Professional Development.” Of course, the workbook is also available to anyone who has bought a print edition.

If you’d like to learn more about the book before diving in, take a look at my more recent blog posts in which I describe the content of the chapters and applaud individuals who exemplify citizen leadership, Among Us: Citizen Leaders. You can also read almost the entire introduction for free by clicking on Look Inside! at Amazon’s Kindle page for the ebook.

Thank you to the many of you who have honored my work by ordering the print version of The Citizen Leader. And thank you for your feedback and your congrats. 

Character: Personal Integrity and Credibility

Character is the embodiment and the expression of our guiding principles and values. It is who we are on the inside, and what we show on the outside. Our guiding principles and values are the promises we make to ourselves about how we will behave, both in private and in the world at large. When we live up to those promises — when we act consistently with what it is we say we stand for, and consistently deliver on our promises (even when no one else is looking) — we are living in personal integrity.

For most of us, our personal values don’t remain a private affair, either. We often share them with the other members of our community. We make a promise to them, and we give them the expectation that we will conduct ourselves in ways that are consistent with our promises. By living up to those promises, we build our believability – and strengthen our credibility.

Credibility derives from the Latin verb credo, which means I believe. Our believability — or our credibility — rests in the eyes of others. Our credibility manifests in others as I believe you. I believe you because your actions are consistent with your promises. Our credibility is other people placing their faith and trust in us. It is their having faith that we will continue to behave and speak and act in ways that adhere to the expectations we have created or stated.

Naturally, we all trip up on occasion and do things that are against what we say we stand for. To the degree that we have built a well of credibility in the minds of others, we can ask for forgiveness and be forgiven. But, if the pattern of our actions, behaviors and words over time start to suggest something other than what we claim about ourselves, then it’s that pattern that begins to speak the louder.

Now, none of us is perfect, and we may all momentarily step on our principles or hot headedly transgress them. That’s the cost that comes along with being human, yet a basically healthy credibility can weather the missteps.

During our lives, most of us will face many challenges that will invite us, if not require us, to lead. When we step into the role of leader, the content of our character will shape the relationships that we form with the other members of our community. The ways in which we express our character will enhance or diminish our capacity to engage their willingness and their enthusiasm to want to participate, serve, act and persevere. You have the opportunity to be of such character that your partners will not only follow your lead, but will surge out ahead of you as, together, you strive to make contributions that are meaningful to everyone.

Excerpted from The Citizen Leader

Active Citizens Have the Foundation to be Engaging Leaders

I am of the mind that the person who has experience as an active citizen will possess the unique capacity to engage others as a leader.

By the same token, I feel wary of those who wear the mantle of leader, but who, on closer inspection, show little appreciable depth as citizens. I look to see whether an individual has in their history any evidence of service and contribution to their communities, or whether instead theirs is a record of activity undertaken largely for the purposes of self-advancement or enrichment. If the evidence supports the latter, I ask myself whether their conduct as a leader would be any different.

In my experience, self-serving behavior cloaked as leadership is a sham. It is the stuff of those who have traded integrity for expedience, for egocentric satisfaction, for selfishness. But it is not the stuff of engaging leadership, and it is certainly not the stuff of citizenship. 

Citizen Leaders: Surfrider Foundation’s Local Chapter Leaders and Volunteers

Surfrider Foundation in their own words:

Our mission is the protection and enjoyment of oceans, waves and beaches through a powerful activist network.

You can think about that as three concepts:

“Protection and enjoyment”, we don’t want to put a velvet rope around a beach and tell people to keep off. We’re surfers, we’re beach goers, we’re watermen… we enjoy the coasts. We’re a user group.

Next up is “oceans, waves and beaches.” Think coastlines, we’re engaged with environmental issues that affect our coastlines.

Finally, our “powerful activist network” speaks to how we go about this mission. The Surfrider Foundation operates through a network of grassroots chapters who volunteer members take action to protect our ocean, waves and beaches through campaign, program and educational initiatives in their communities.

The core activities and campaigns that the Surfrider Foundation uses today to protect our oceans, waves and beaches fall into the categories of Clean Water, Beach Access, Beach Preservation, Protecting Special Places, and Eliminating the Use of Single Use Plastics.

Today, there are 73 Surfrider chapters in the United States. Surfrider Foundation is also pursuing its mission in about 15 countries around the world.

In the past 6 years, chapter leaders and volunteers have achieved 175 individual victories in their campaigns:

Clean Water: 41 Campaigns

Beach Access: 34 Campaigns

Coastal Preservation: 51 Campaigns

Ocean Ecosystems: 17 Campaigns

Rise Above Plastics: 29 Campaigns

Know your H2O: 3 Campaigns

Total: 175 Campaigns

Bravo and thank you to the Surfrider Foundation chapter leaders and volunteers for bringing the strength of your convictions to your efforts to protect what we all love — our oceans, waves and beaches. Your actions to improve life for all members of your communities — your efforts on behalf of the common good — are quintessential citizen leadership!

Chapters 3 & 4: Character

The value of a leader is directly proportional to a leader’s values.

– A Golden Rule from the Notre Dame Executive MBA Program

In Chapters 3 and 4 of The Citizen Leader, I ask you to conduct a rigorous, thorough examination of your values and guiding principles. I will challenge you to substantiate what might start out as a broad bundle of qualities, and then I will guide you through a process that will help you clarify and define the handful of principles that truly reflects who you are, today. And I will help you articulate and explain who and how you aspire to be in the future, and why.

Your character consists of your values and guiding principles. They are your signature. They express who you are to the world. They are the substance you have with which to build and strengthen your relationships with others, or to weaken and break them. In these chapters, I will provide you with focused exercises to help you develop and maintain a quality of character that will inspire others to willingly follow your lead and want to participate, serve, act and persevere as you pursue your worthy goals. These exercises will also help you forge a strength of character that can, and will, hold steady in challenging times and circumstances.  

Citizen Leaders: The Founding Members and Staff of Plastics Pollution Coalition

Plastic Pollution Coalition is a global collaboration and effort of individuals, businesses and organizations inspired by and working together towards a vision of a world free of plastic pollution and its toxic impacts on people, animals and the environment.

The Coalition was developed and is currently championed by this handful of founders and staff whose dedicated actions on behalf of the common good exemplify Citizen Leadership:

  • Daniella Dimitrova Russo, Executive Director
  • Dianna Cohen, Art Initiatives and Creative Director
  • Julia Cohen, Coalition Manager
  • Lisa Kaas Boyle, Esq., Legislative Policy Director
  • Michaelanne Petrella, Publicist
  • Manuel Mansylla, Regional Organizer, East Coast US
  • Mark LeRoy, Web site

Through their daily efforts, these Citizen Leaders seek to put plastic pollution at the forefront of global social, environmental and political discourse with the aim of:

  • Elevating the discourse about plastic pollution to the forefront of the public attention;
  • Delivering access to information about all aspects of plastic pollution and their interconnections;
  • Connecting all involved parties—local communities, environmental organizations, public health organizations, environmental justice organizations, individuals and businesses—to each other in their work to end plastic pollution.

Here is what success will look like:

  • Individuals, organizations and businesses end their dependence on disposable plastic, and reduce their plastic footprint;
  • Plastic product manufacturers own the end of life of their products; invest in truly biodegradable products; and self-regulate the output of non-biodegradable matter;
  • International leaders form global alliances against plastic pollution
  • Economic incentives are created that move businesses to invest in plastic alternatives;
  • Legislation is passed that curbs irresponsible proliferation of disposable plastic

 

Citizen Leadership = Courage to Act on Convictions

My heart goes out to the Citizen Leaders on the University of California Davis campus who demonstrated, by their peaceful sit-in, the courage of their convictions, only to be assaulted by the campus police. 

These sons and daughters, these American citizens, part of the Occupy Wall Street movement on the campus, became the latest victims of alleged police brutality to be captured on video. The videos show the students seated on the ground as a UC Davis police officer brandishes a red canister of pepper spray, showing it off for the crowd, and then dousing the seated students in a heavy, thick mist. (Note: This was an officer of the UC Davis Police Force, not the officers from the city of Davis, California).

“The UC Davis students were peacefully protesting on the quad,” wrote the student who took the videos in an email to The Huffington Post (from which this blog posting is excerpted). The filmmaker, a senior, asked that his name not be used for fear of retribution by campus authorities. “The cop gave them 3 minutes to disperse before he said they would come and disturb the protest. The main objective for them was removing the tents… The students did have a right to be on campus, they were assembling peacefully and the campus was open at the time.”

UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza defended her officers’ actions to KCRA. She argued that it just wasn’t safe for students to camp on the quad. “It’s not safe for multiple reasons,” Spicuzza said.

Claudia Morain, a UC Davis spokesperson said, “We are just not going to allow a tent city. Just period. In these budget times, we shouldn’t use resources that should be going to our core academic mission going to a tent city. The police tried to use the least force that they could.”

The UC Davis chancellor, Linda P.B. Katehi, released a statement Friday. It states, “We deeply regret that many of the protestors today chose not to work with our campus staff and police to remove the encampment as requested. We are even more saddened by the events that subsequently transpired to facilitate their removal.”

Nathan Brown, an assistant English professor at the university, released an open letter to the chancellor, calling for her resignation. He wrote, “You are responsible for it because this is what happens when UC Chancellors order police onto our campuses to disperse peaceful protesters through the use of force: students get hurt.”

The student filmmaker, who says he is not part of Occupy Davis, told HuffPost, “I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think such a thing would ever happen on campus over a tent being on campus. It’s embarrassing on the part of the police to take such actions.”

Excerpted from The Huffington Post 11-19-2011

 

Chapter 2: Conviction

It is a fundamental tenet of The Citizen Leader that citizenship challenges us to contribute to the world around us — that we act as citizens when we participate in efforts to better our community and improve life for everyone in it.

Let me propose that the caliber of our actions, or indeed even our willingness to take action at all, is directly proportional to our beliefs and feelings about our community. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American philosopher and advocate of self-reliance and personal initiative, reminds us that “nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

So we begin to explore your role as an active citizen in your community by asking you to consider your beliefs and feelings about the world in which you have the remarkable opportunity to make an immediate difference — about the communities where you live, work, play and pray.