FRANCES HESSELBEIN—UNCOMMON LEADER—UNCOMMON LEADERSHIP

AbstractThe author, a retired U.S. Army General, describes his long friendship and collaboration with Frances Hesselbein. The friendship and collaboration also extended to the author’s wife, Joyce, including one of the latter’s volunteer organizations, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship Foundation. The author addresses Frances’s work and leadership in the greater context of leadership studies, He notes that “every so often, you can be blessed and privileged to get a PhD level education on leadership by witnessing the personal, first hand example of a great leader. This was the leadership class Frances Hesselbein conducted every time the opportunity presented itself to be in her presence.” In further amplifying these leadership lessons, he writes: “When being in the presence of a great leader, all you must do is observe, watch how they operate, what they do in signaling the importance of the action and how they value and utilize all the people in the organization.”