Geraldine Ferraro. Pinetop Perkins. Lanford Wilson. The gifts they, and many other Americans, have shared are almost too much to ponder. Their presence and passing through this age? A reminder to appreciate the many forms leaders take and the elements that turn them into icons.
One look at Elizabeth Taylor and those elements were abundantly clear. Or so one thought. It turns out that things went a bit deeper than incandescent looks and a lust for life that shot through every performance. There were loyalty and empathy, two traits that can, but should not, be hard to come by in a leader or an icon.
As a young Virginian exposed to Miss Taylor's charisma during a whirlwind political campaign, on a night when it seemed every man left every woman's side just to catch a glimpse of her, I witnessed not just the power of glamour but the pull of celebrity. Standing in front of her, though, I wondered what she was thinking about all of us. Turns out that evening was probably one of many during which she sacrificed her own comfort to support her spouse. Yet Miss Taylor not only made it look easy, she seems to have put this quality to use later in evangelizing the importance of compassion for others.
Sacrifice is not an element usually associated with stardom, God-given beauty, serial monogamy -- or being a corporate CEO. When it is, though, it's noteworthy.
The March obituaries told us the story of another onetime Virginian who had as elite a pedigree as any of today's CEOs, if not moreso, but chose to hone his leadership style from the ground up. Literally.
Ted Leisenring was the easy heir to the mighty Westmoreland Coal Company throne, but he worked as if that throne were someone else's to steal. Upon his graduation from Yale, he headed to Big Stone Gap, Virginia, to labor underneath the ground, side by side, with the people who would be his employees. Years after that, Mr Leisenring represented the coal companies in a long labor negotiation with the miners.
My guess is that, for someone who respected the union, Mr Leisenring's negotiating position was reached with clarity of conscience and purpose. According to Dan Rottenburg, author of In the Kingdom of Coal, Mr Leisenring dedicated the company to opening the lines of communication inside it after the strike was over. He didn't revel in the victory over wildcatters, he sought to anticipate the concerns that gave rise to action which hurt the miners as much it hurt the companies. The miners were not remote entities or heads on a spreadsheet; they were people, like him, who had a job to do.
Here's to the leaders who don't try to be icons. And the icons who lead.
