Robert Pittman, Executive Director and Founder, Janus Institute
Countless barrels of ink have been spilled over leadership and leadership development. Several months ago, I actually heard a comedian say “if all else fails, I could be a leadership consultant.” All joking aside, leadership is a recurring topic in one way or another at every Janus Forum. People sometimes ask me why some communities build stronger economies and move forward while others languish.” My standard non-response used to be “it depends” but now my answer is straightforward: if a community has good leadership and some knowledge of how the economic development process works, it has a much higher chance of success. Some Forum attendees praise the cooperation and support they get from local leaders while others wish they had more, but everyone agrees that good leadership is critical for community success.
At the August 2012 Janus Forum in Rabun County, Alan Price discussed leadership from a crisis management perspective based on his experience as Chief Pilot of Delta Airlines during the 9/11 terrorist attack. Executive management teams at all the airlines were forced to make critical decisions with enormous implications in an unprecedented situation. According to Captain Price company core values including the safety of passengers and employees helped guide Delta, and the airline was one of the first to ground all airplanes on the morning of 9/11 even before the Federal Aviation Administration ceased all commercial aviation operations. I believe core values and guiding principles regarding economic development could help many communities in a crisis or non-crisis situation, and we will explore this topic further in future Forums and related publications.
Speaking of, our next Forum will be held February 28-March 3 at the Amelia Island, Florida Omni Hotel complex. Our host sponsor will again be Enterprise Florida, who helped make the Forum held last year at Watercolor in Santa Rosa Beach a great success. We will continue to include active participation by site consultants and corporate real estate executives in the program, but we will never forget what has made the Forum such as success – strong peer learning and economic “best practice” opportunities for all participants. Undoubtedly, the upcoming Forum at Amelia Island will again provide participants and sponsors with ideas and contacts to help make them even more successful. The program schedule with invited guests will be announced soon.
To conclude, I would like to add to our on-going discussion of leadership and say simply that being a good community leader or economic development professional often involves having the courage and conviction to “stick to your guns” and continue to advocate and support economic development programs that will help the community achieve its goals whether they are popular or not. Sometimes leadership is just telling the truth.
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