Leadership is a Responsibility
Three weeks after I turned fifteen, the world seemed turned completely upside down even for someone who lived in a remote rural Chinese village, at least that’s what I thought at the time. Mao Zedong died on September 9, 1976. I still remember exactly where I was at the time. People were standing around a radio in the only village store, all quietly listening and not sure how to react. A month later, the so-called Gang of Four including Mao’s wife was arrested and soon afterwards, Deng Xiaoping, purged by Mao during the Cultural Revolution and rehabilitated as vice premier, had decided to tackle education as his first national priority while he was hatching his plan for the historical economic reform in China.
As a fifteen year old attending high school, I followed what was happening but barely appreciated the true significance of the events at the time which would eventually precipitate one of the most significant transformations in Chinese history and became a profound turning point in the life of millions in China. Some of the changes happened dramatically overnight while other things did not happen fast enough. During my two years of high school which overlapped the tail end of the chaotic Cultural Revolution years, we barely had any normal class learnings until after Mao died when there was a sense that the world seemed to be changing. Parents and teachers started encouraging us to study. However, I had only about two months before I finished high school in January 1977. Without much of a choice or option, I was soon sent away from home for mandatory re-education in a remote farm village. Attending college never once crossed my mind and was never something I could even have dreamed of.
Everything then happened in a rush when the news came in the summer of 1977 that nationwide college entrance examination would resume for the first time since 1965. An accumulation of ten plus years of high school graduates would compete, with much excitement and anxiety, for the limited spaces across the country for the opportunity to attend colleges. Official figures showed that 5.7 million candidates signed up nationwide for the exam on December 10, 1977 and only 272,971 were admitted at an admission rate of 4.78 percent, even lower in Shanxi province where I grew up due to the limited numbers of colleges. Most of the admitted were already in their 20s, or even their 30s. Considering the limited formal classes we had during high school, I did okay but not good enough to be one of the lucky 272,971.
Disappointed but not discouraged, realizing for the first time in my life that college education could be a real possibility motivated me to dedicate the following several months to prepare for the exam again less than a year later. While continuing working at the farm, preparation for the exam became the sole focus in my life. The long hours of hard work paid off next year when I was accepted by Taiyuan University of Technology (Taiyuan Engineering Institute at the time) where the initial foundation for my chemical engineering career was set. I will never forget the smiles on my parents faces when the letter of admission arrived at my home.
We all know that China has completely transformed itself since then, but I never could have imagined just how significantly it would impact my personal lives in the coming years.
Unbeknown to me at the time, all my life journey was made by possible by a personal decision made by Deng Xiaoping on August 13, 1977 in a meeting held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Deng personally called the meeting with thirty three senior educators including university presidents and respected scientists, and asked their inputs about how to resurrect higher education in China as a top national priority after the disastrous prior decade. After some initial hesitation, several prominent educators brought forward many concrete needs and concerns.
To his surprise, Deng learned during the meeting that a national conference was already held a week prior on August 4th, coincidentally in a hotel about three miles from where I eventually attended college. Attendees at the August 4th meeting had already developed and submitted a formal recommendation to the Chinese State Council to restart college admission the following fall in 1978. Fall admission was the norm and also would give the bureaucrats and colleges sufficient time to prepare for the massive undertaking. After attentively hearing the recommendations and inputs at the meeting, Deng challenged the officials in charge to expedite the process by departure from the norm. As the meeting went on, the consensus gradually changed at the meeting. The attendees recognized that they were bestowed an unprecedented opportunity to change the trajectory of China’s education system.
“Don't waste another generation of talents”, Deng told the attendees at the closing remarks. He adamantly demanded the officials to simplify the bureaucratic approval process for candidacy, and revise the official recommendation to state council. Deng’s personal intervention prompted the official announcement on October 21, 1977 of the resumption of college admission and the hectic preparation process to proceed with the unprecedented national college exam less than two months later on December 10, 1977, thus allowed the first group of students to attend colleges in over a decade in March 1978, an unusual time to start a school year, but extraordinary circumstance calls for extraordinary measures. I had the chance to retake the college exam on July 20, 1978 and started college on October 16, 1978. Many of the students from those two years would eventually become key players in leading the transformation of China in the subsequent decades.
Some say it was a miracle that the process happened that quickly. I would say it was Deng’s leadership. He recognized that science and education would be the foundation for driving the changes needed for China to transform its economy.He created a vision for the nation but also personally challenged the team to achieve the impossible for execution. His leadership not only started the transformation of China as a country but also fundamentally changed the life of quarter of the populations on the planet. To me, the meeting on August 13th was the Sputnik moment for China.
Not all of us will ever be in a position to make such monumental decisions, but everyone in the business world or any other organizations today is expected to be a leader and called upon to stand up and take a leadership role, no matter the experience. The decisions we make during our life time can have significant implications on ourselves, people around us, the business or beyond.
This means that we need to train everyone around us to have a framework to develop the critical thinking skills in order for them to grow into leaders. The biggest challenge for many in real life is being stuck in the middle of how leadership should be done and how leaders should behave.
There seems to be proliferation of leadership books and trainings. Yet, traditional methods used to train leaders have not always kept pace with the monumental changes taking place in the world including finding the right balance on how to keep the new generations of employees constantly motivated, inspired and performing at their best. Many of the experiences historically foster management rather than leadership skills. In addition, traditional leadership studies tend to focus on the leaders themselves but there is an increasing recognition that leaders are shaped by specific situations and external conditions. Nevertheless, there seems to be an increasing recognition that there is no definitive style, characteristic, or personality trait of great leaders, especially in the context of today’s dynamic business environment.
Leadership obviously means different things to different people. It is always a struggle to personalize leadership and to translate leadership into decision making and action.
Twenty years ago when I was at Wharton attending the executive MBA program, I had a fantastic opportunity working with the Red Sox new owner John Henry and management team including new CEO Larry Lucchino on a class project on business strategy development process. A small team of us about six students had the rare opportunity to see in first hand the decision making process by the management team. One of the unique experience was attending the Red Sox spring training camp at Fort Myers, Florida and watching the spring training games with the team owners and top management in the owners box. Siting in the spacious owners box with food and drinks, the owners and team executives were discussing business issues while casually watching the games on the field right below.
I still have one of the Red Sox spring training booklet autographed by new Rex Sox owner John Henry and then CEO Larry Luchino, but the one moment more ingrained in my head than anything else was the scene of a decision making by Mr Henry at the time. It was a game between the Yankees and Red Sox and top of the third inn. One of the Red Sox prospects was pitching against the Yankees and he gave up two hits in a role. John Henry, watching attentively while asking probing questions, made a decisive comment about this prospect: “he is done”.
While the player continued pitching on the field, I kept thinking at the time that the young player, not aware of the decision already made, was still making his best effort in the hope of making the team, yet his fate as a major league baseball player was already sealed. Mr Henry obviously knew what he was doing in terms of baseball decisions based on the fact that the Red Sox won the very first World Series the following year in 2004 after 86 years of frustrations for the team and the city of Boston.
As I reflect on that moment, I realized that that the decision was not unique by any means. Players get evaluated and rejected all the times. Likewise, venture capitalists turn down over 95% applicants before they choose to invest. Ivy schools reject over 90% of its applicants each year. All of us, especially in the corporate world, get evaluated and assessed on a regular base. While those being rejected should find resilience and perseverance to move on. Leaders, as the decision makers, should always be cognizant of the fact that their decisions, however necessary and rational from organizational perspective, have consequences on people’s life, either positive or negative. Being a leader comes with awesome responsibility to the organization and the people involved.
Both Deng’s action about China’s eduction and Mr. Henry’s decisions have significant consequences to their respective organizations. At the same time, those decision also have direct or indirect implications on people’s career and life. If you are aspired to be a leader, you should realize that, on the one hand, leaders manifest of the quality of responsible behavior through a willingness to take charge and not shirk from decisions, especially during difficult time. At the same time, leadership is first and foremost a privilege and responsibility, not a right with certain authority.
We often hear people lement their lack of authority. In fact, authority comes only after a leader demonstrates responsibility. This is not only true for top executives and leaders of nations, it is also true for all leaders including anyone who aspires to be a leader. As the late Peter Drucker wrote, “management has no power. Management has only responsibility”.
