LAS VEGAS–There are management lessons applicable to credit unions to be taken from a military battle that ultimately led to more than 51,000 casualties, according to one person.
Steven Wiley of the Lincoln Leadership Institute in Gettysburg, Penn., said that in the tragedy of the 1863 Civil War battle of the same name there is much from which credit union leaders can learn, which is what the Institute teaches.
Steven Wiley speaking to Leadership Conference.
“What does the Civil War have to do with today?” asked Wiley in remarks before the Directors & CEOs Leadership Convention here. “It was the tsunami of its day, the Katrina of its day. No one had a clue to the magnitude of the challenge it would be. When Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were looking for leaders of 100,000 people, no one had it on their resume. What had to happen was ordinary people had to step up and take action in a rapidly changing situation. We now can see magnificent examples of leading.”
On the evening before the horrific three-day battle, said Wiley, the armies of the North and South had creeped toward each other. “The bigger stronger, higher tech, better in every way organization had been losing, and not just a battle or two. What was the issue? Better leadership in the smaller organization. Over-performance on one side vs. under-performance on the other side,” said Wiley. That changed at Gettysburg when leadership in the Union army improved.
Communications Breakdown
“Six-thousand people were asked ‘Why do you stop doing business with an organization?’ Two-thirds said it had nothing to do with rates or fees or cost,” said Wiley. “Two thirds also said it had nothing to do with the quality. A breakdown in communication with the person or organization is the primary reason.”
Moreover, said Wiley, relationships are at the center of another challenge in the U.S. marketplace, including credit unions.
“Seventy percent of U.S. workers say they are disengaged or actively disengaged at work. At some federal agencies it’s as high as 91%,” said Wiley. “The number one reason was quality of leadership. Employees often say that they don’t even know that I’m here.”
On his own road to teaching leadership, Wiley has had a few losses of his own. A graduate of Gettysburg College, he turned a $600 loan into a successful business doing historic restorations in the Gettysburg area. That business eventually grew to more than 130 offices across three countries. Then it all went south, beginning in 1989, when the business lost $4.7 million. It was involved in 14 litigations in 11 states and two countries simultaneously, was being pursed by 387 different collection agencies, and then the IRS spent six months on site. His car was repossessed and foreclosure proceedings began on his home.
'I Woke Up'
“We came out of that,” he said, “and the next year lost a few million, but life is good today. We did not declare bankruptcy. What happened was I woke up. I realized where I was living, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the site of one of the most important battles in our country and world. There were 51,000 casualties and 10,000 dead horses in three days. It was a scene of horror, the greatest amount of human suffering this country has ever witnessed. And I realized what I was going through was a cakewalk. So I surrounded myself with some smart people and built a program on developing training on leadership in rapidly changing environments.”
Wylie, who told the meeting, “When we learn emotionally, the lesson stays with us forever,” offered one seemingly ironic observation for a leadership training expert: “We don’t even think leadership can be taught, but we do think it can be learned, and learned by reflecting upon experiences. That’s something organizations don’t do in 2016. We all have to go, go, go and act, act, act, and that means never having the opportunity to get better and to change.”
Attendees of the Institute’s program are brought to Gettysburg, including to the battlefield where more than nine-million bullets were shot.
Core Concept
A core of the program is the concept of transactional leadership vs. transformational behaviors. “In the former we produce order and consistency. This is budgeting and organizing and directing. In the latter we create change and movement. This is creating a vision, clarifying the big picture and living your values. Remember none of us ever took a course called Visioning 101.”
Visioning, said Wiley, is not about predicting the future, it’s about creating the future. Or, more correctly, “co-creating the future, with our clients and colleagues and family members.”
Other observations shared by Wiley:
- “Don’t Do As I Do, Do as I Say” leadership doesn’t work. “You have to be a vivid, personal, living example.”
- Communication is the most important piece of transformational leadership. “One of the reasons for poor leadership in this country is we’re not as good as we think at listening.”
- Seven percent of communication is just the words coming out of mouth; 38% is tonality or how we say it, and 55% is physiology, or how we say it.
“If we want to survive, we’ve got to co-create the future. It’s all about engaging people,” he said.