membership, and the opportunity that gives this organization
and its six hundred thousand volunteers. It’s a very exciting
time. We’re shifting the whole ecology of learning away from a
specific class or place into problem areas and issues, so that the
so-called problems become opportunities to serve in new ways.”
As president of the Red Cross in the late 1980s, Richard
Schubert used his voice to seek nothing less than a revolution in
an old American institution. “It’s harder to run the Red Cross
than Bethlehem Steel because, first, you do everything in a fish-
bowl here, and second, you’re working for the most part with
volunteers, and third, the nature of the organization demands
full-time leadership. You can’t ever just manage, you have to
lead. I spend a lot of time in the trenches. It’s important to me to
understand the people we serve and their views of us. And I al-
ways keep in mind the global nature of the organization. There
are really only two services that every chapter of the Red Cross
must provide: disaster and support services to military families
during crises. But we’ve created a new focus. We’re not going to
try to be all things to all people. We’re going to be an emergency
organization, and we basically let our chapters determine their
community’s needs in this area. Hence, anything you can think
of in health and welfare is done by some Red Cross chapter.”
Like Steinem and Friedan, Hesselbein and Schubert must
lead with their voices. They understand the lesson of taking
charge without taking control, that they must inspire their vol-
unteers, not order them.
Leading from voice is a necessary condition for movement
leadership, or for any situation in which the leader is dealing
with volunteers. But the same ability to inspire and persuade
through empathy and trust can be and should be present in all
organizations. In his book Leadership Is an Art,Max De Pree,
Getting People on Your Side