Good Leaders: Who is your role model for promoting fairness?

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“Don’t let anyone, at any time take away the power you have over your own direction,” she answered with passionate intensity. The question I asked Rita Johnson-Mills last Friday at the Good Leadership Breakfast: “What was the message you shared with students, when you were the first African American ever invited to speak at your high school’s graduation?”

Steely resolve

Professionally, Rita Johnson-Mills is the President and CEO of United Healthcare Community Plan of Tennessee. Personally she is a recovering workaholic whose 11 year old son mocked and ridiculed her into letting go of her superhero leadership attitude about work. She was working one morning during a Florida family vacation when her son confronted her: “PTO for you means ‘pretend’ time off!” he said with a snarky tone. “We left, went to breakfast and played outside and you didn’t even notice.”

“At first I was angry at my smart-mouthed son,” she quipped. “But then I realized that I wasn’t being fair to my family or my team – from that moment on, I stopped working on vacations and let my team do their work when I’m gone. Today, I’m a much better person, and a better leader.”

Promoting fairness

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The theme for the October breakfast was “promoting fairness” – one of the four Cornerstones of Goodness.  Fairness is the most explosive of the four Cornerstones of Goodness: when we feel we are violated, or experiencing injustice…it triggers a “fight” mechanism. But fighting is not good leadership.

That’s not easy, because so many things about leadership don’t seem fair! If you dare to have a vision that’s different – or put yourself on the line for something extraordinary – someone, somewhere is going to make things difficult. Rita Johnson-Mills was told by her high school counselor: “You people don’t go to college! You get a job and have babies.” How was that fair? Rita is my role model for promoting fairness.

Here’s the most important thing to remember about fairness: for leaders, it’s not a “to me” concept…it’s a “through me” concept. Our job as leaders is to absorb and filter what feels “unfair” and find a way to spread goodness anyway.

Onstage, I demonstrated the concept with a red, juicy, crisp, delicious apple: we all know when we squeeze an apple really hard…we get pure and wholesome apple juice. Liquid goodness!

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But here’s the tester…what happens when life squeezes you?! When you are feeling sick or tired – squeezed by a difficult deadline…or slandered by a colleague or competitor. What comes from you? Is it bitter, toxic, edgy? Or, do you radiate goodness?

Good leaders radiate goodness by demonstrating “fairness” is not a “too me” concept, it’s a “through me” concept. And they do so even when they get squeezed really hard.

Please share with me: who is your role model for promoting fairness?

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