What Humpty Dumpty Teaches Us About Leadership

First posted as a riddle, most of us can still recite the brief story of Humpty Dumpty:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men

Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

Of course, we all now know that Humpty was an egg. But I think the allure of this riddle is the idea of the fall, and it ties directly to the cycle of  leadership.

My father was a Baptist minister. In the Baptist Church there is no political body deciding who will lead which church and for how long. Instead, ministers are “called” by pulpit committees that represent the congregation. Once in place, the minister is governed by the congregation through a series of committees.

As a preacher’s family, we always knew that every church would follow a certain pattern:

1. Dad would enter the church as everyone’s savior from all things done incorrectly by the previous minister.
2. The first year would be the honeymoon period, where dad would be filled with compliments and fancy roast beef lunches.
3. The second year, a group of congregants would become disgruntled for a variety of odd reasons, e.g. he didn’t preach from the King James Bible, display the American Flag properly, or comb his hair on the right side.
4. These congregants would create a windmill of concerns, jump on their skinny horses, grab their “Sancho’s” and challenge my father to a verbal jousting in a variety of Wednesday night business meetings.
5. Eventually, there would be a “call for the fall.”

Here’s a truth about leadership — when a leader falls, the rest of us can feel vindicated. There is no putting them back together again, because we are happier with them off the wall than on it. Don’t believe me; ask Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton.

Nobody likes to look up at others, whether they are preaching or giving the annual report. Once someone steps on a podium, we have an inexplicable, unrelenting need to knock them off of it.

What does this mean for leadership? It means leaders have to –

• Have the courage of their convictions.
• Be willing to be left out of the friendships created by lower level workers.
• Do good work in spite of  incredible amount of criticism.
• Know that a potential fall will be balanced by the good work well done.

My dad always left behind a church that was stronger than when he got there, but many refused to acknowledge that fact. They had fallen in love with the windmills they had created and fought. But dad knew the work he had done was important and good.

And sometimes, for a leader, that has to be enough.