Leadership Lessons from a Prison Cell - Introduction
Everything I needed to know about leadership I learned in Prison
It was near dawn in a dark warehouse turned makeshift gym in Huntsville, Texas. The temperature was already rising above 80; and the humidity arrested all evaporation, preventing the sweat on our skin from cooling us. The loud industrial fans created nothing but noise.
I was standing before dozens of men in white jumpers seated in neat rows on metal folding chairs. Some had already connected with people they knew from their neighborhoods back home and they chatted above a whisper about nothing significant. For nearly all of them, arriving at prison was a relief from the months of cold uncertainly in county jails. At least here they could experience the passage of time.
Cynicism hovered over the room like steam. They had been rousted out of their uncomfortable bunks before dawn to come listen to me, another man in white, talk to them about sexual assault prevention. The prison guard standing at the back of the crowd scowled. She marched down the middle aisle, picked up a metal chair, and flung it over the heads of the chatterers in the back row.
Even before the clanging stopped echoing off the warehouse walls, she yelled, “If I hear you talking again, I’ll write you up! Now listen up to Offender Smith!”
Angry eyes glared at me.
I took a deep breath. This was the start of something. Even before my downward slide into mental illness and addiction everyone had always seen me as a leader. I was too ashamed and terrified to really believe it, so I faked it until I couldn’t fake anything anymore. If I were going to be effective at preventing sexual assault, I had to learn some lessons about leadership.
Over the next five years, I began to see what it really took to lead people toward a vision for change:
1. Stop kidding yourself. You’re not in charge of anyone. You never were.
2. Accountability is nonnegotiable.
3. You can only transform what you truly own.
4. Don’t fail to notice leadership qualities in others - no matter how they show up.
5. People show up when you invest in them.
I’ll release a new blog post every week to share about each of the leadership lessons from a prison cell. You’ll find immediate application in your own practice of leadership.
Allow me to support you and your organization in creating a leadership culture that can turn a vision into reality. doug@d-degree.com