Know the power of the leader's voice.
By Michael Hudson, Ph.D. 
OK, I confess. During Tom Flick’s keynote presentation at last month’s CEO/Executive Team Network, I found myself daydreaming. Not exactly a desired behavior from one who would be leading a coaching session on the topic immediately following the speech, but it happened nonetheless. Here’s why… A former NFL quarterback turned motivational speaker, Flick spoke about the power of the leader’s voice--how words create pictures that create emotions that create attitudes that create behaviors that create habits that create reality. As he did so, my mind wandered to the time when I learned just what that meant—something I didn’t fully understand until hearing his insights. When I was 12 years old, my 4-H friends (finally) convinced me to attend state camp. They had tried for the previous couple of years, but frankly I didn’t get the appeal. Maybe that’s because my aunt and uncle lived at the camp year round and to me it was just a place that I went once in awhile to see family. So the idea of attending a full week of camp there certainly didn’t seem all that appealing. But that changed during the opening campfire program… It was dusk when we entered the campfire area and sat in our assigned groups on the wooden benches that formed what I would come to learn was known as the “council circle.” Then the leader of the camp entered the circle and walked to the bench on the other side that they all referred to as “council rock.” He began talking about the traditions of the camp and how the spirit of the camp was passed down from year to year. He explained how each year at the end of camp someone was selected to represent the spirit of that week of camp. Then he asked the person who was named the spirit of last year’s camp to come forward. He handed her a small wooden box, explaining that it contained the ashes she had gathered on the final morning of last year’s camp. He told us how that same box had been used to gather ashes from the campfire at the end of each camp since the first one in 1948, suggesting that it contained the cumulative spirit of all the camps held since. Next he instructed her to take the box and sprinkle the ashes on the current campfire ring—so the spirit of the camp might be reignited. She walked slowly toward the unlit fire and sprinkled the ashes carefully on it. She returned to council rock and passed the box back to the leader before sitting down again. We intently watched as the fire was started. A small trail of smoke began to rise. Then small flames flickered around the edges and the fire began to grow…
And at that moment I got the value of camp. I now knew the back story, about the common experiences people had when they were there. The story had power… it connected each of us to a vision that was larger than we were … a vision for learning and growing that we were now part of, that we now owned, and that we were now responsible for protecting. As Flick presented, I realized that the power of the leader’s voice was why, when I accepted the privilege of leading that same camp program 25 years later, I walked into that circle every Monday evening and retold that same story in exactly the way it had been told to my friends and me. For me, the essence of Flick’s message to the credit union leaders in the room was that they are responsible for a story that matters to the teams they lead, and that they need to take that responsibility seriously and commit to sharing it regularly to make it real. What’s your credit union’s story and how often are you sharing it with the people who really own it—the team you lead?
Michael Hudson, Ph.D., founder and principal of CreditUnionStrategy.com, is a speaker, facilitator, consultant and executive coach. He has been a credit union member since he was three months old. Hudson helps individual credit unions discover and implement strategy, build and sustain culture, and identify and develop leaders. Connect with him on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or Google Plus. Read more coverage of CEO/Executive Team Network on this blog.
