The Leadership We Need

The New Brunswick news has been rightly focused on the death of Jack Irving. As one of K.C.’s three sons, his leadership in business and the community made an indelible and positive mark on the province and region. David Ganong told the Telegraph Journal that “he left a huge mark. He made enormous investments and created a huge number of jobs.”

David’s comment got me thinking -- what qualities do our leaders need to leave a huge mark? The impacts made by Mr. Irving no doubt qualify him for the “huge mark” title, but are there others?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Given our challenges like demographics, low entrepreneurship rates and education scores, or our incoming health care apocalypse, what kind of leadership do we need to solve them and how can we (as a society and as an organization) encourage this?

These were the questions swimming in my mind while reading “Measures of Leadership,” from the current issue of strategy + business. The study looked at leaders in the Gulf Cooperation Council (defined by Wikipedia as a political and economic organization involving the six Arab states of the Persian Gulf with many economic and social objectives) and what leadership qualities were helping them modernize and develop their region.

Those qualities are:

• Farsighted vision: A long-term outlook that recognizes the importance of building sustainable institutions for future generations.

• Pragmatic openness: A willingness to seek ideas from around the world and customize them for the GCC’s unique circumstances.

• Conscious presence: A recognition of the fact that the GCC’s leaders are not just building their own organizations but also acting in concert to establish the region as a global player.

If we change GCC to Atlantic Canada, how do we fare? I don’t know. Clearly our titans of industry are thinking about these, particularly Farsighted Vision, as they build companies into sustainable institutions. J.D. Irving’s becoming the biggest private sector consumer of IT in New Brunswick is a good example.

What about Conscious Presence? Have we been building the institutions and infrastructure to encourage action that can help our communities and organizations thrive globally over the long term? For sure we're trying, but only time will tell if we succeeded.