Some shone, others stumbled.
Sports are overplayed in our society, which is disappointing. Because sports teach us about leadership in a way few other institutions do.
There’s a great deal of academic study and a library of books published on the subject. Yet for all the intellectual heavy-lifting on the topic, leadership remains a difficult subject to pin down. The only true test of leadership is how leaders respond when a crisis or challenge emerges.
That was the message that 1980 USA Hockey Coach Herb Brooks delivered to his team in the locker room moments before Mike Eruzione and company took to the ice to create a miracle.
“Great moments are born from great opportunity,” Brooks began, “and that’s what you have here tonight, boys. That’s what you’ve earned here tonight. One game. If we play them 10 times, they might win nine. But not this game, not tonight…. Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team in the world. You were born to be hockey players…. And you were meant to be here tonight. This is your time.”
We work our entire lives to be able to respond when leadership challenges confront us. But the truth is, one never really knows how someone will respond until leaders are put into a crucible and challenged.
This past week, the Advance has had a front-row seat to what may prove to be legacy-defining moments for leaders in our regions. Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve observed.
Rising to the Occasion
Mayor Kerry Devine: Devine got off to a bit of a rocky start in her first council meeting this past January, but she showed her leadership mettle throughout the week, overseeing the city’s response to the CSX derailment Saturday night.
Devine has respectfully but forcefully demanded answers from CSX about why the event happened, and how they’re going to make things right. More important, she has been straight-forward in pushing CSX to ensure there’s no repeat of the event that was caused by human error.
At the city’s event on Wednesday that brought a CSX spokesman to address citizens’ concerns, she displayed an innate ability to make sure every voice was heard, stressing to CSX that not all loses were easily compensated, but that the company had to make sure sentimental items lost almost be dealt with appropriately.
Her combination of calm, forcefulness, and sensitivity to the trauma the derailment inflicted on the city and its citizens demonstrated that she has the reins of the city well-in-hand.
CSX (Crisis Response Team): In a New Dominion Podcast episode recorded Thursday night with Fredericksburg Fire Chief Mike Jones, and will be released next week, he explained both the working relationship he has with CSX and the collaborative work they do together to prepare for events such as the derailment.
On Saturday night, that paid off as CSX was on the scene and working hand-in-hand with first responders to address the immediate dangers in the aftermath of the derailment.
Communication and a commitment to serving others is key to leaders exceling in times of crisis.
Jesse Boyd: In a piece this morning by Adele Uphaus about the growing steam to ban books in King George County, Superintendent Jesse Boyd demonstrated a deft touch in navigating what is likely to grow into an increasingly contentious issue over the coming year.
In an earlier response to having two school library books challenged, Boyd took the concerns seriously and placed the books behind the circulation desk and implemented a series of checks and balances on who could check them out.
Unimpressed, Board of Supervisors member Kenneth Stroud said during public comments: “Why would you equip Satan in fulfilling his mission? If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”
Boyd retained his cool, and rather than reaching for a counter insult, appealed to reason.
“If we continue to move forward in recognition of parents’ decisions as it pertains to their children—I think that’s a valuable concept and one that puts us in relatively safe ground moving forward,” Boyd said.
He continued, saying that opinions on what constitutes sexually explicit material differ and that the matter is not as black-and-white as some think it is.
“In our community and in this room we might all sit there and think that we define good and evil, sexually explicit and not sexually explicit, the same. I’m telling you right now that if we sit down and have that conversation, we all define it differently,” he said. “This conversation goes much deeper than what’s on the surface.”
Work to Do
CSX (Community Response Team): It’s tough to blame Randy Marcus for what transpired Wednesday at the event called by the city to allow CSX to respond to citizens’ concerns about the derailment. As CSX’s director of VA, WV, & DC State Relations, Marcus was sent into the meeting to apologize and explain what happened. He did this well.
What didn’t set well was Marcus being sent there in the first place. Rather than sending someone who understood more of the details about what caused the event, protocols for handling the situation that led to the derailment, and other safety questions the company surely knew was coming, CSX chose to send a government relations guy.
Kudos to Marcus for standing in the arena and handling the questions as best he could. But CSX showed poor judgment for not seeing the need to have someone there who could address the concerns they should have seen coming.
Kenneth Stroud: As a member of the King George Board of Supervisors, Stroud does, indeed, have the right to speak out “publicly as a citizen,” as he told Uphaus in the piece that ran this morning about book bans in King George. Yet, he is still a public servant who is supposed to respect the views of those who agree, and disagree, with him personally.
It’s hard to see any respect in his naming a middle school librarian in the county and accusing the individual of “leading our children to the war.”
That wasn’t the only thing he said that raised eyebrows. “Why would you equip Satan in fulfilling his mission?”
Apparently, tolerance is a trait missing from Stroud’s leadership toolkit.
While King George County — like many rural counties in Virginia — is dominated by evangelical Christians, Stroud must know there are constituents who don’t share his religious views.
Even Christians don’t agree whether “Satan” is a real entity, or simply a mythological character used to talk about evil.
Nearly one-third of people across the United States have no religious faith at all. King George isn’t likely to be an aberration. In fact, only about one-fourth of King George’s 26,000-plus residents attend any religious congregation at all, according to the recent data collected by ARDA, the leading source tracking attendance at America’s congregations.
As a public leader, Stroud would do well to spend more time studying the First Amendment — particularly the part about separation of church and state and the long history of that separation that none other than Thomas Jefferson strongly defended — than spewing Jeremiads.
If not the First Amendment, then perhaps the Gospel of Matthew. “In everything, then, do to others as you would have them do to you. For this is the essence of the Law and the Prophets.”
Better yet, Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” who closed by saying: “If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.”
That level of temperance — whether we be people of faith or not — is sound advice for us all.
Follow us on Facebook | Instagram | YouTube
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit our website at the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past month, our reporting was:
$8 a month supports great journalism
- First to report on a Spotsylvania School teacher arrested for bringing drugs onto campus.
- First to report on new facility fees leveled by MWHC on patient bills.
- First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
- Provided extensive coverage of the cellphone bans that are sweeping local school districts.
- And so much more, like Clay Jones, Drew Gallagher, Hank Silverberg, and more.
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!
