Rethinking Leadership

By Daria Hall, ProInspire Alum and Vice President, Communications & External Relations for America’s Promise Alliance

– “We’re all born into certain circumstances with particular physical traits, unique developmental experiences, geographical and historical contexts.  But then what?  To what extent do we self-construct, do we self-invent?  How do we self-identify and how mutable is that identity?  Like, what if one could be anyone at any time?”
–Sarah Jones, Tony® and Obie Award-winning playwright and performer, whose “A one-woman global village” was performed at a TED Talk in 2009

Leadership is often simply defined as “to be in charge of or to demand.” However during six days in Aspen, Colorado as a participant in the American Express Leadership 2.0 Academy at the Aspen Institute, I came to rethink its meaning within the context of my life and today’s world.   

During my time there, I joined 14 other nonprofit leaders from across the country and around the world on a mission to think critically about leadership. What is leadership? When to use it? How best to use it?  What makes a good leader?  How to build trust? What makes good government? What does it mean to lead in today’s world?  

We explored timeless and modern readings by some of the world’s greatest thinkers – Aristotle, Confucius, Machiavelli, Alexis de Tocqueville, Dr. Martin Luther King, Hernando de Soto, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Mohsin Hamid, among others.  Not since my college English classes had I wrestled with such broad ideas as the pursuit of happiness, human nature, power and the importance of civil disobedience, but the beauty and greenery of the Aspen mountains created the perfect setting for deep thinking and reflection.   

Our facilitated conversations provoked and challenged us to think about ourselves as leaders, examine our core principles of who we are and what we believe in and explore our approach to leadership. What I took away from the experience is a reminder that there are many ways of thinking and leading, but that the development of leadership starts way before that.  As Sarah Jones point out in the quote above, we are born with a unique set of characteristics, those characteristics eventually get shaped and fine-tuned through education and experiences which helps you to establish your core values, and it is those core values that are at the heart of everything you do as a person.

As a nonprofit leader, the nature of our work forces us to constantly grapple with the question: How best to solve societal issues with limited resources and often within highly collaborative settings? In our country today, many organizations are at a crossroads trying our best to navigate an often stressed political, financial and cultural reality. And in this digital age where many of us are often battling information overload and the high speed in which it is delivered, a slower pace to contemplate this question and others was welcomed.   

Leadership requires time to think and reflect.  As I continue to grow as a leader, constantly learning along the way, I am grateful for moments like the one in Aspen that are rare but appreciated – a time to reflect, question, reinvent, if necessary, and keep fighting the good fight.

Daria Hall is the vice president of communications and external relations at America’s Promise Alliance. She was a member of the 2017 American Express Leadership Academy 2.0 at the Aspen Institute and the 2015 class of ProInspire’s Managing for Success program.  She can be reached at [email protected].  Follow her on Twitter @DHall27.