The Gumbo Coalition: 10 Leadership Lessons That Help You Inspire, Unite, and Achieve 

Leadership – Visionary communication

Gumbo Leadership by Marc Morial

Speed

Rolling stone gathers no moss. When you have something going, the momentum rallies the team.

Would you go in a train that is ready to leave or one that is stationary? In Amazon, Jeff Bezos takes it a step forward and appreciates those with ‘Bias to Action’ with an award. We are cautioned to have a plan first and then move but, in a place, where agility is needed and the step you have taken might not be the right direction. In fact, based on ground reality changes, Morial had to change paths many times. One time he realized that the executives he hired with an executive recruiter’s help were individually strong candidates for the job but could not make it work as a team. He had to take on a different plan. Similarly another time based on new supreme court justices and then their stand on certain issues he realized that they have to go for a legal settlement after having fought for a case for 7 years and receiving a favorable judgement in supreme court. With his bias to action, he was cognizant of how well the plan was going to be successful and knew when to steer course or clean up the pot and start with the right ingredients.

Teamwork

Once you get going, you need a team to be successful.

Success according to Morial does not come from a bootstrap or self-made mentality. Everyone knows Arnold Schwarzenegger is successful in body building, Hollywood and in politics. For such a person to claim that he is not self-made is a great bow to the collaboration of coalition building.

There are challenges and choices. You can take the choice of being a leader or making a leader. You be a leader with your commitment, you make a leader with your support. And sometimes leaders make other leaders too.

Morial himself was inspired by many great people like Bill Clinton, ex-president with same roots as his and similar age striking it big on the national scene.

Recognize the Elephant in the room

These were his lessons but the lesson I identified is that you see a problem, you do something about it. When Morial noticed that even though 1/3 of the population was black, there were hardly any black lawyers. He said that Civil rights lawyer in him would not let him forget about it. He fought for it in the courts that Voting Rights Act was not being followed.