Inspired leadership

Physician Executive, July-August, 2004 by Andre Delbecq

IN THIS ARTICLE ...

Nationally known expert on change, Andre Delbecq, says leaders should follow the gentle callings that are presented during their careers and not be discouraged if the true impacts of leadership materialize after the leader leaves office.

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Tonight some of you may be contemplating changes in your careers in the foreseeable future. Years ago, in the weeks before I graduated from the doctoral program at Indiana University, I experienced a period of anxiety. I became concerned with such questions as:

* What is my career about?

* Will all this study lead to anything that matters?

* Is there anything I can add to a field occupied by all these individuals more brilliant than I?

* Will there be a meaningful contribution to point to at the end of my career?

As confident physician administrators, such unsettled thoughts probably never enter your minds. But should they arrive, I offer this reflection.

From the vantage of 41 years later, I now understand such self-torture is wasted energy. My life experience shows careers unfold in wonderful and unanticipated ways allowing our gifts to be well used. But there is a condition: the flow is smooth only when we focus on service to others and forget ambition.

Let me make a public confession. I had an occasion three years ago, when receiving a Lifetime Service Award, to review my resume. I am now at an age when I can face truth. This was my discovery. It was easy to distinguish between different periods of effort. Some accomplishments evoked fond memories and just pride in what was achieved. In other instances, frustration was still etched in the remembrance.

I was able to discern that the motivation underlying the effort held the key to the differences. When I had acted out of ambition simply to advance myself, or out of fear of missing an opportunity. I lost the inner joy that is associated with creative work. What followed was a miserable period of drudgery leaving me burned out while achieving only mediocre results.

By contrast, my truly important contributions did not come from ambitious over-reaching. Instead, they flowed from "gentle callings" to service that arrived unexpectedly. Yes, I needed to prepare through prior work and training. But every important stream of scholarship and teaching, and every leadership action that mattered, was initiated by unexpected invitations.

I could share many examples. I will mention only two.

Callings

My initial involvement in community programs leading to the development of the nominal group technique, as well as my interest in innovation planning that has shaped my entire career, came from an unexpected invitation. A business school dean I had never met invited me to accept my first academic appointment at an institution that was not on my intended list of possibilities.

Accepting the invitation involved risks. It was not a prestige university. However, its programs partnering with the urban poor spoke to my heart. I wisely accepted the invitation. Good scholarship followed. The rich stream of scholarship from this early period of my career led six years later to an appointment with tenure at the number one doctoral-granting university in my discipline. And through this appointment, much of the research I have shared with you over the years was initially formulated.

The second example is intimate to ACPE. In 1975, Roger Schenke (the College's executive vice president) invited me to meet with him at the Madison Wisconsin airport. I had no premonition where the conversation might lead. I remember our meeting as if it were yesterday. Roger's enthusiasm, vision and commitment to physician leader education was as contagious then as it is now.

Little did I know that this invitation would result in more than a quarter of a century of shared adventures with health care leaders who became my "executive" mentors.

Accepting his invitation meant I had to share in the development of a program that was only emerging, and take risks with an organization that was young and fragile. Some colleagues certainly felt it would be wiser to work with the established executive center programs at my university instead. Still, this was another invitation wisely accepted.

I won't bore you enumerating the "bad" choices. Each was a reasonable decision in itself. Each directed me toward worthy efforts. However, these were not decisions from the heart, but rather, choices associated with ambitious rationalization. The results were mediocre.

This is my first comforting "life reflection" to you. Essential pivotal moments in a career can never be anticipated by worrying about how a career will unfold. Remain open to the mystery of unforeseen callings. Be wiser than I was. Don't waste time accepting positions or working on projects that do not speak to your heart, as I occasionally did. The invitations that matter are always gentle and can be refused. They are often less glamorous than the callings of ambition.

But through them you will be mysteriously taken to an intersection where your gifts and heart align with real needs. Your inner joy will know the difference, and your achievements will testify to the wisdom of such choices years later.