Old School: How lessons from the past can inspire leadership for the future

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Newspaper editors, facing the challenges of declining circulation and competition from new technologies, can learn valuable lessons about moving forward by looking back -- in some cases, way back.

"We learn inspiration from what others have done," says Robin Gerber, whose book, Katharine Graham: The Leadership Journey of an American Icon, was released in November 2005.

Gerber will be the featured speaker, along with historian and author Peter Henriques, in a daylong session for API's seminar for City and Metro Editors in February.

The two authors will lead discussions on "Revolutionary Leadership" at Mt. Vernon, the historic home of George Washington, America's first leader in a time of dramatic change.

Henriques, whose book, Realistic Visionary: A Portrait of George Washington, will be released in February, will explore aspects of Washington's leadership style that are especially relevant today.

Gerber will analyze the leadership traits that guided Graham's toughest decisions -- traits that can help metro editors weather modern storms.

"Graham teaches us that to be a leader one must be capable of dramatic change," Gerber says. When Graham's husband died and she took over as publisher of The Washington Post and chief executive officer of The Washington Post Co., people were shocked.

"She didn't have to utterly change her life and stretch her emotional and personal learning in the way she did," Gerber says. But the woman who once called herself a "doormat wife" went on to stand down a violent labor strike, defy the U.S. government by publishing the Pentagon Papers, and take on President Nixon in the Watergate investigation.

"Research shows that risk-takers are seen as leaders," Gerber says. So she advises editors to take risks in various ways:

• propose non-traditional ways of covering communities
• find a mentor and ask for help
• follow through on what you are passionate about and the legacy you would like to leave.

Gerber took a risk in writing her first book, Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way.

"I was not an author or a writer," she says. "I was a lobbyist on Capitol Hill."

When Gerber saw that nearly all the books written about leadership were about men, she decided to write a book about a woman leader.

Although the context of their times might be different, Gerber says, the experiences of these women leaders offer valuable lessons for today.

The lesson from Roosevelt, who faced numerous painful personal and professional challenges, is persistence. "She never gave up and never gave up hope," Gerber says. "She had the ability to keep going even when things looked impossible because she had hope."

Especially when times are tough and the future uncertain, leadership requires optimism, Gerber says. "The minute you think something can't be done, that's when your persistence flags and what you want to have happen doesn't happen."

Whether effective leaders are male or female, Gerber says, they have lessons to offer.

"For many years, women have been learning leadership lessons from stories of men," she says. "There shouldn't be barriers of gender. It's just about who has something to offer in their life stories, and just as men have learned profitably from other men, they can learn profitably from women, also."

For details on Gerber's appearance on February 21 and information about the City and Metro Editors seminar, go to www.americanpressinstitute.org/06/CityMetro.

lrabasca@americanpressinstitute.org

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