WHY LEADERS NOW NEED TO BE MORE THAN EFFECTIVE

This article originally appeared in IEEE-USA InSight. It is reprinted here with permission from IEEE-USA. Copyright 2019 IEEE.

A few years ago, I participated in a charity date auction to help raise funds for a need in my community. As often is the case, I ended up learning a lot more than I had anticipated from this experience. This lesson was a particularly painful one.

Let’s skip to the auction itself. The auctioneer was warm and charming, and by the end of her introduction, the crowd was already laughing and engaged. I was scheduled as the third “date” and was feeling rather nervous, but I was somewhat encouraged after hearing the lively commentary the auctioneer had for the first bachelor…

I was just thinking, “This isn’t so bad,” when the first bachelorette tripped forward to the makeshift stage.

I recognized her as one of the singles I’d seen at the bar ingesting some last-minute liquid courage, while I had been working the room and engaging with potential bidders. The auctioneer began by providing the bachelorette’s short bio, and then, the bidding commenced. Without warning, the bachelorette snatched the microphone away from the auctioneer. She took a breath, made a sexually explicit comment, and handed the microphone back to the stunned auctioneer. An astonished silence filled the room as the auctioneer scrambled to salvage the situation.

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