Stephanie Fournet--Responding to Fields Wicker-Miurin's "Learning from Leaderships Missing Manual"

I watched Fields Wicker-Miurin’s TED Talk, “Learning from Leadership’s Missing Manual”. There, she featured the work of three unlikely leaders whose names I will not try to spell. The first was about a young tribal leader of a forest-dwelling people in Brazil who left his village for the first time at age 18 in order to speak out against the illegal logging of mahogany that threatens both the local ecosystem and his people. Not only has he become an agent of change locally by creating reforestation projects and bringing satellite and internet technology into the forest so his people can track logging, he has become a leader on the global level by educating policy-makers and partnering with conservation organizations. The second was an Indian woman who began her career as a literature professor but left academia in 1993 to found what would become one of India’s most significant organizations in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. The third was about a Chinese man who has had both a military and political career. However, he has been a lifelong collector of artifacts of China’s contemporary history, and he preserves these in museums that dare to show many of China’s darkest moments of the last 60 years, moments that the authorities and many members of the country would like to forget.

As Wicker-Miurin points out, their accomplishments are remarkable and inspiring, but what may be the most empowering aspect of their stories is the fact that these leaders responded to a need in their cultures and communities, despite what life and circumstance had trained them to do. What ultimately mattered for these individuals was their passion and commitment about a specific cause.

I see a connection between Wicker-Miurin’s message and the thesis of Simon Sinek’s TED Talk about the “golden circle.” Sinek discusses how companies and individuals are most successful when they begin with a “why” instead of a “how” or “what”. In essence, they are most successful when they begin with a belief. Clearly, the three leaders in Wicker-Miurin’s talk began with a belief in filling a need for their own people, and ultimately, for the world. The belief creates a space and a means for the “how” and the “what” to follow.

Fear of failure (or the uncertainty of success) is usually what holds people back from pursuing their deepest dream. I see this on a regular basis with students who are artists but who have been told that they cannot prosper as artists, so they mistakenly apply to architecture programs in college. Because they don’t honor their passion and their gifts, they never have the “why” that Sinek discusses, and, ultimately, their potential is staunched. Taken together, these two TED talks provide a great antidote to the fears that kill real success. At times, I may find myself a bit shaky about “believing in myself.” But I never find it hard to believe in the need I am trying to fulfill. That’s easy.