The Trials of Leadership

By Volodymyr Kish

I have been in managerial and leadership positions for most of my adult life.  This includes both my real world working career as well as my extra-curricular organizational involvement that started in my teens.  I did not seek to be a leader, yet fate and circumstance steered me into that role and I have been in it for most of the past forty years.  I have run the gamut from chairing small committees of a few people to managing corporate organizations numbering in the hundreds.  

To those who have not had any significant experience in management or been elected to executive positions in any kind of organization, these roles may seem somewhat of an ego trip, even glamorous and garbed in honour and glory. However, I can assure you from experience that those aspects, though not entirely absent, are but a very minor, peripheral facet of being in these positions.  More significant is the fact that undertaking the responsibilities of leadership imposes some pretty substantial demands and constraints upon you as an individual.

To be effective as a leader, you must work longer and harder than those whom you lead or manage.  The number of things you need to worry about increases exponentially.  You are held to a different standard than those below you in the hierarchy.  You are expected to always be knowledgeable on everything that is going on within your environment, to be able to quickly assess any issue or problem and always find the correct solution.  Absolute dedication is taken for granted, and your personal wants and needs must always assume secondary priority.  There is no such thing as an eight-hour working day.

Such high expectations are but the easiest part of the challenge.  More stressful is the fact that there will never be a shortage of people who will take you to task and criticize you no matter what you do.  Although we may all acknowledge the old adage that you can never please all the people all of the time, as a leader, there will be times when you will wonder whether you can please anybody at all, ever.  There will always be people who think they can do your job better than you, and will make your life miserable when you do not acknowledge their suggestions, ideas or points of view.  No matter how constructive and cooperative you try to be, people will attack your plans, your motives, and when all else fails, your character, your intelligence and your ethics.

Over the four decades that I have been involved in such activities, I have found that the situation has progressively deteriorated as society has evolved in what we call the “modern” era.  There is not the respect for leaders and positions as their used to be.  Further, the scrutiny and level of uninformed criticism has reached disturbing proportions.  To a great extent, holding our leaders more accountable for what they do and how they do it is a necessary, positive thing.  However, as with all things, we must know when to draw the line, and I am beginning to think that we may have pushed transparency and expectations perhaps too far.

We see the direct result of these demands especially in the quality of political leadership we have had the past few decades in the Western world.  Good people motivated by altruism and idealism are no longer willing to pay the price of running for office in our age of microscopic scrutiny and irresponsible media attacks and manipulation.  Often, who we have running for office instead are the rich, the egotistical or the unscrupulous.

All of this is applicable to a greater or lesser extent to the people who run our various Ukrainian community organizations.  Ukrainians, being who we are, are typically not a shy bunch and all too often, we are quick to criticize and lambaste those whom we do not agree with.  Our leaders often put up with a lot of criticism and second-guessing that is questionable and unwarranted.  Petty jealousies, biases, factional dogmatism, inflexibility, intolerance, unwillingness to compromise, historical enmities and outright stubbornness make the Ukrainian community and any organization associated with it extremely difficult to lead or run.

We are therefore indeed fortunate that we still have as many high calibre folks who are willing to put in the long hours and the energy towards a cause they feel strongly about. Their efforts and sacrifices are seldom adequately recognized or appreciated.  As you read this, I would ask you to ponder for few minutes how much effort it takes to put out a paper like Noviy Shliakh, or to run an organization such as the UNF, UWO or UCC on either a local or national level, or our Ridna Shkolas, dance groups and choirs. Then consider the leaders and activists that make those organizations function and contribute so much to the Ukrainian community.  The next opportunity you get, take a moment and show them your appreciation and give them your thanks for enriching our lives.