INSPIRATIONAL SPEECHES challenge people to reach within themselves for greatness, appealing to what Abraham Maslow called "higher-order values." 

Example OverViews speech was prepared for Thomas Nethery, executive vice president, Eastman Chemical Company. Delivered at Young Leaders Conference. 

Adolf Hitler, Don Quixote and You

As the story goes, Hitler thought a long time about this request,then finally said:  "O.K., I'll come back and lead Germany, but this time, no more Mister Nice Guy!"

Now there is nothing whatsoever funny about Adolf Hitler. He was the vilest force of this century, if not of all western history.

Yet he was a leader, which makes my point.

Leadership is not enough.

Leadership must carry with it a moral responsibility. The goal is not just to lead, but to lead men and women to better, more fulfilling ways of life.

John Gardner, in a Carnegie Report, summarized this responsibility in saying, and I quote: "Leaders have a significant role in creating the state of mind that is the society.  They can conceive and articulate goals that lift people out of their petty preoccupations, and unite them in the pursuit of objectives worthy of their best efforts."

So you are to be congratulated for being here today.   First, because others have seen something special in you -- they have recognized and wish to encourage your leadership abilities. 

Second, and more important, you have seen something within yourselves.

That you've committed to an 8-month leadership program, tells me you recognize the awesome responsibility that comes with leadership.

As the first speaker in this leadership program, I feel a responsibility to add value -- to give you everything I've learned about leadership in my 20-plus years of management.

After a lot of reflection, I concluded I could give you everything I know in a single word. That word is "faith."

Leadership is an act of "faith,"  both on the part of the leader, and of those who believe in his or her vision.

"Faith" is what separates leaders from managers.  Managers have lots of ways to mandate their ends -- rules, schedules, plans, and procedures.  Leaders go beyond these mechanics -- to inspire people to have faith in a vision... faith in their own abilities to carry out that vision.

Faith begins with trust.  You have to trust in people.

Believe that if given the responsibility, the authority, people will choose the right course of action.

Let me give you a minor example from my personal experience. 

When I became president of Texas Eastman, there was a 35-year commitment of one hundred percent United Way participation.  Giving was mandated -- managed. People were "heartily encouragged" to contribute.

The first thing I did was to throw out that rule.  I told every employee that United Way contribution was henceforth a matter of personal choice.  If they didn't choose to give, that was their business, not the company's.

What happened?  The first year contributions went up by ten percent, the second by 12 percent, and the third by 14 percent. Yet percentages are not the right way to measure what happened.

There is simply no comparison between people forced to give and those who are free to give of themselves and their money.

This kind of faith is identical to the faith parents display with their children.  A parent encourages you to try, yet doesn't scold when you falter.

A leader needs to be a little like the mother who told her son's teacher:

"Johnnie is very sensitive. If he acts up in class, just hit the kid next to him. He'll get the idea."

Kidding aside, I once heard a definition of a parent that epitomizes the faith leadership needs. That is  "A good parent is not someone to lean on, but someone who makes leaning unnecessary."

A good leader is not someone to lean on, but someone who makes leaning unnecessary.

That takes faith that the other person can, if given the opportunity, do the job as well -- or even better -- than you can.

That means faith enough not to hover, to let the individual find satisfaction in small successes that are not nitpicked into meaninglessness... small successes which build confidence for progressively larger endeavors.

Initially, you feel you could do it better yourself. And you probably could.  Yet to build faith in the other person, you say nothing.

Every good parent, like every good leader, has teeth marks on his and her tongue.

Now the parent analogy is a good one because underneath our polished adult facades, we all have a measure of insecurity.  The natural tendency is not to try, not to risk exposure, not to change.

Peter Block, management consultant and noted author, says the leader's job is to make people feel so good about themselves that they will risk change.

The leader's task is to help people choose between the status quo and attempting greatness... between caution and courage... between dependency and autonomy.

This takes a heap of faith in the individual.

As Block says, it takes..."belief that ultimate authority is within, that people are responsible for all of their actions despite what's happening in the culture and the environment around them."

Leadership, then, is not externalize control, but internalized faith in the judgment of the individual. 

Encouraging faith, and action based on faith, is certainly a fundamental act of leadership.  Yet faith should go well beyond even this.  Faith, by definition, means a belief in that which is not visible.

There is a play that expresses this point  so powerfully  that every potential leader should experience it. The play is Man of La Mancha. It's about an old man who goes mad.

He puts on a rusty old suit of armor, thinks he's a knight, and calls himself Don Quixote de La Mancha.

Don Quixote saw the world not as it was, but as he wanted it to be.  A world of chivalry, of caring acts, of noble deeds, and impossible dreams.

As the play unfolds,  Don Quixote picks a pathetic wretch "Aldonza" as his "dolcenea," his lady.  Aldonza is a realist.  She protests that she is, in her words: "Born of a dung heap, to die in a dung heap, a strumpet men use and forget." 

Yet Don Quixote insists she is "Dolcenea."  He sees in her far more dignity, more nobility, than she could dare see in herself. 

Aldonza resists, saying: "Blows and abuse I can take and give back again. Tenderness I can not bear."

Yet Aldonza gives in to the old man's dream of a better world...  even to where she performs acts of compassion for her worst enemies, as was the duty of a lady.

After the old man dies, Aldonza addresses his squire Sancho Panza. She crys out: "Don Quixote is not dead. Believe, Sancho.  Believe."

And when Sancho calls her Aldonza, she ends the play with a single statement:

"My name is Dulcenea."

"My name is Dulcenea" says it all.  She accepted another's faith in her until she was able to find faith deep within herself.  Because of one man's act of faith, we somehow know that life will never again be as squalid, as hopeless, for Dulcenea.

Yet, Don Quixote was insane.

I submit that leaders --at their best-- achieve a measure of Quixotic madness. Leaders are seldom hardened realists who see others as they appear to be, warts and all. More often, leaders are idealists who see more than meets the eye. The best leaders have seen the oak tree confined in the acorn, the world in a grain of sand.

Anyone can hold up a mirror to the world and reflect its harsh realities.

It takes a leader to hold up visions of a better world, to distort the mirrors just enough to give us a glimpse of inner possibilities.

That takes monumental faith. Faith to see qualities that are not visible -- to see others not as they are, but as tthey may yet become.

Now I started this little talk with a reference to Adolf Hitler and am ending on Don Quixote.

Both were leaders in that their concepts changed the world. And yes, both were insane.

One leader's insanity brought out the lowest qualities of humanity, the other's insanity expressed faith in humanity's noblest values.

As you develop your leadership skills, as you realize your power to influence and alter lives around you, I hope you will recognize that leadership is an act of faith. And faith, because it is belief in the unseen, is in itself a fine madness.

As Cervantes, Don Quxiote's creator, said: "Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams --this may be madness.  To seek treasure where there is only trash. 
Too much sanity may be madness.  And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be."

My parting wish for you as leaders is that you will place your faith -- develop your fine madness -- in seeing life not as it is, but as it should be. 

Thank you.