When Frances Hesselbein was approached by a neighbor to be a scout leader of a failing troop, she thought the idea was ridiculous. Not only had she never been a Girl Scout, she didn’t even have a daughter.

Busy assisting her husband in his business, Hesslebein agreed to help, and a six-week chore as a scout leader turned into an eight-year commitment. But she was just getting started with the Girl Scouts. Next, she became a local council executive director and then a national board member. In 1976 she was tapped to serve as CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA, a position she held until 1990.

Courage To Reinvent Your Organization

When we think of courage, we tend to think in terms of physical courage  — fending off an attacker. Occasionally, we include moral courage — standing up for what’s right. But there are many types of courage. One is managerial courage. The late Peter Drucker, who was a good friend of Hesselbein’s and the dean of American management theory and practice, said that whenever you see a successful business or organization, “someone once made a courageous decision.”

Clearly, Hesslebein made a courageous decision when she chose to lead the moribund organization. “With eight straight years of declining membership, the Girl Scouts were in danger of going the way of the Howard Johnson motor restaurants — a classic American icon of a bygone age, increasingly passed by as a people’s needs and tastes changed,” wrote Jim Collins in the forward toHesselbein on Leadership.

“The Girl Scouts organization of 1976 was predominately white yet eager to serve all girls. The girls of America were fast becoming aware of their diversity, their talents, and their ambitions. They worried less about preparing for marriage and more about preparing for college and work, less about household skills and more about how to respond to increasing peer pressure to have sex or drugs.”

During her 14-year tenure Hesselbein was credited with reinvigorating and modernizing the Girl Scouts into the largest organization for girls and adult members in the U.S. with 3.7 million members.

The School of Sadie Pringle

Ironically, Hesselbein who would come to be identified with managing and leading large, complex organizations — Fortune magazine  recognized her as the “Best Nonprofit Manager in America” — never attended business school. She didn’t need to. At an early age she learned the importance of  character, courage and commitment on her grandmother’s knee. Would that we were all so lucky enough to attend the School of Sadie Pringle.

“She was a quiet, lovely, thoughtful person,” Hesselbein said. “From her I learned respect for all people, the importance of good manners, and the art of listening. I also learned a sense of history, that when you really understand your family and the history of your family, it illuminates your life.”

Every weekend Hesselbein would visit her grandparents in South Fork, Pennsylvania, nine miles from her hometown of Johnston. “She had a large family, 14 grandchildren,” Hesslebein said. “But when I would walk in the rooom, I was the only person there. When she talked to me, I still remember, she would look in my eyes, not all over the place, looking at other people. For that moment you were the most important person in the world.”

This “look” and its all-embracing focus is a quality others have noted in Hesselbein.

Grandmother Pringle would tell young Frances about the courage and sacrifice of her ancestors. Three Pringle brothers were so inspired by the American Revolution  they emigrated from Scotland to fight in the Revolutionary War. Sadie Pringle’s direct ancestor, William Pringle, enlisted with the Continental Militia. He was private No. 19.

His great-great-grandsons, seven Pringles ranging in age from 19 to 28, fought in the Civil War. Six left wives and children. At war’s end six returned; the youngest died in the Battle of the Wilderness.

No doubt that if you had 10 ancestors, veterans of our nation’s two seminal wars, who lived as vividly in your imagination as they lived in Hesselbein’s consciousness (”He was private No. 19.”), you too would be driven to serve others, make a difference in people’s lives, and keep the faith in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Northwestern University psychology professor Dan P. McAdams who has researched the life stories of highly productive individuals — like Hesselbein — has identified six recurring themes in their narratives: early advantage, the suffering of others, moral steadfastness, power vs. love, redemption, and future growth.

One can see three of these themes in the stories Frances heard from her grandmother: 1) early advantage (”For that moment you were the most important person in the world.”), 2) the suffering of others (”the youngest died in the Battle of the Wilderness.”) and 3) moral steadfastness (”In the Civil War six left wives and children.”).

Leadership and Cynicism

Hesselbein doesn’t mystify leadership; she believes its’ simple and straightforward. “Leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do,” she said. “You and I spend most of our lives learning how to do and teaching others how to do. And yet we know that, in the end, it is the quality and character of the leader that determines the performance, the results.”

In Hesselbein on Leadership she recounts meeting a university student at the end of one of her speeches. He told her of a corporate titan who had donated money to a charity to get a big tax donation and his name in the newspaper. Then heasked her, “Why shouldn’t I be cynical?”

As the audience filed out of the auditorium she told him of three CEOs she admires who are building healthy companies and making contributions to local communities. They agreed to stay in touch and Hesselbein assured the student that he was asking the right question, a question that still haunts her.

Hesselbein said young people reflect a society, a world, hungry for genuine heroes. Still, she’s optimistic. “Heroes can be found throughout society — not in the person of the man on the white horse, but among men and women who know the future is going to be different and who are themselves making a difference as they help shape tomorrow.”

“Today’s heroes move beyond the walls of their enterprise and help build a better world,” Hesselbein said. “They provide an alternative to today’s sober realities. They hold a vision before us, a vision beyond what is, to what could be.”

“I Am Peter Drucker”

A hero in Hesselbein’s life was the late Peter Drucker who once told The New York Times, “Frances Hesselbein could manage any company in America.”

“I met Peter Drucker in 1981 quite by accident,” Hesselbein said. “I had been using his materials, his books, for a long time, back in Johnstown, before I ever went to New York to become CEO of the Girl Scouts USA. I had received an invitation from the Chancellor of New York University to dinner to hear Peter Drucker at the University Club. If you come from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, 5:30 p.m. is 5:30 p.m, and that’s what my invitation said for the reception.

“At exactly 5:30 p.m. I walked into the room, looked around, and there was a man. Obviously, he grew up in Vienna, where 5:30 p.m. is 5:30 p.m. And he said, ‘I am Peter Drucker.’ I was so stunned. I blurted out, ‘Do you know how important you are to the Girl Scouts?’ He said, ‘No, tell me.’ And I said, ‘Go to any of our 335 Girl Scout Councils. Look at our corporate management monographs, and you will find your philosophy there.’ And he said, ‘You’re very daring. I would be afraid to do that. Tell me, does it work?’ And I said, “Works remarkably well.’”

Over the next eight years Drucker consulted regularly with Hesselbein and her national staff. Six weeks after she left the Girl Scouts she was named president and CEO of the Peter Drucker Foundation for Non-profit Management, which is now called the Leader to Leader Institute. Today she is the Chair, Board of Governors of Leader to Leader.

In 1998 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor. The citation reads in part: “Frances Hesselbein has devoted herself to changing lives for the better…She has worked to imbue other nonprofit groups with the hallmarks of true leadership: openness to innovation, willingness to share responsibility, and respect for diversity. With skill and sensitivity, Frances Hesselbein has shown us how to summon the best from ourselves and our fellow citizens.”

Something tells me Sadie Pringle would be tremendously proud of her granddaughter but not overly surprised.

Founding father John Adams said, ” Think of your forefathers! Think of your posterity.” Hesselbein has nurtured this delicate balance between reverence for the past with faith in the future.

Summarizing her legacy, she said, “I hope that people who knew me and worked with me would say, ‘She kept the faith.’ Whatever was the mission, whatever was the purpose, whether it was family or business or the organization, whatever it was, I was faithful. I never broke a promise.”

Copyright © 2009 by Vince Reardon

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