Denise Brosseau - Building Well-Connected Leaders
There is a downside...
There is a downside of being Well-Connected. You go to a lot of memorial services. Today was the second this month, and there is a third on the calendar for next month. Part of the story is that I'm getting older - and my friends and acquaintances are too. Sadly, that means more of us are reaching that age when bad things catch up with you.
My friend Frank Greene passed away the day after Christmas. He was an amazing man. Author, speaker, venture capitalist, serial entrepreneur, community leader, philanthropist. He was a rare individual who accomplished far more than almost anyone I know, while at the same time he remained one of the most understated people you'll ever meet. But when I showed up at the church at Santa Clara University 2 weeks ago for his memorial, it was obvious Frank had touched a lot of lives. The church is large and it was almost full of people who had traveled from across the U.S. to join in the celebration of Frank's life.
Mike Cassidy wrote a great tribute to Frank in the San Jose Mercury News a few weeks ago. You can read it here. Frank was the founder of the Go-Positive Foundation and spent a lot of time during the last years of his life teaching leadership to youth, film entrepreneurs, women leaders and many others. Frank studied leadership by being a leader in many different roles and in many different communities. When he stepped back a few years ago to write down what he learned, he had a lot of rich material to work from. He was able to sum it all up into a simple formula - the V-R-E Leadership model that I often use with my clients. V-R-E stands for Vision-Relationships-Execution and is fundamental to the Well-Connected Leader's success.
As Frank taught me, and many thousands of others, the first step to being a leader is to have a clear (or even murky) vision of where you are headed and what you want to get done. Next, you need to gather all the folks around you that you can find, cajole, convince or connect with - that's the Relationship part. Last, you focus on execution, execution, execution (that's, obviously, the E). Frank explained that successful leaders need to be good at all of those things, and if they aren't, they should be sure to fill out their team with others who do shine in the remaining areas.
Frank and I had the pleasure of teaching a two-day workshop together for a group of about 60 women leaders from the world of academia through the Anita Borg Institute of Women and Technology. We traveled to Atlanta and had the priviledge of leading a group of university deans and heads of computer science departments in developing their own understanding of themselves as leaders using the V-R-E model and then crafting a life plan to help implement their visions. It was a fun and exhilerating two days and the participants came up with some great ideas for their own lives and for other projects they'd like to work together to implement. I enjoyed seeing Frank in action in front of an audience and seeing his ideas come to life among the participants.
I originally met Frank when I was running the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs (now FWE&E). Frank was an investor then and he invested in a few of our companies. He also got engaged as a coach to participants in the Springboard Venture Forums. He was very generous with his time and expertise and he made a lot of friends there. It was nice to see a few of them at the memorial.
Frank lived the values of the Well-Connected Leader - he had many, many disparate and overlapping circles and communities. He gave generously of his time and expertise. When he reinvented himself (which was often), he brought along the friends/relationships from his old world into his new world - engaging them and inviting them to be a part of what he was excited about. He was active in his communities - 100 Black Men, Santa Clara University (where he was a Trustee), and many others. His conversations and his actions were always inclusive and welcoming and it was no surprise that the speakers at the memorial included elected officials, community leaders, his family and his squash partner.
Frank touched a lot of lives...and changed many of them for the better. He was a pioneer, yes, but he was also a kind and true friend. He will be missed, most certainly by me.
Posted by Denise Brosseau on 16th March, 2010 | Comments
Tags: FWE&E, well-connected leader, Frank Greene, Go-Positive Foundation, Santa Clara University, 100 Black Men, Springboard Enterprises There are no comments for this post Post a CommentHTML is not allowed in comments, http://... will be automatically linked.
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