A Tribute to Hal

My friend Hal is the kind of leader I would like to be – or at least he has character traits that I aim to learn from. He is kind, sensitive, funny, and makes connections with people and with leadership principles by using magic tricks and experiential activities. We compared Myers Briggs types, and he is the exact opposite of me – my ENTJ to his INFP, for those who are familiar with the “types.” That’s why I asked him to team up with me in facilitating some leadership training recently. Creativity experts talk about the need for difference in group members, in environments, in senses accessed, and so on, if people are to generate creative and innovative solutions to problems. And I knew that those I was training would benefit from our differences.

And yet, there are many things that join us together, regardless of our differences and the benefits of “gifts differing.” And when Hal was recently felled by a major health tragedy, it was hard not to feel his and his family’s pain deep in the center of who I am. After all, we are both in business for ourselves. We are both trainers. We are both about the same age. We are both vulnerable to the vagaries of health, the economic climate, and many other things beyond our control. We are both humans who inhabit the same community. It escapes me how people can find their way out of such holes of vulnerability without appealing to something higher than themselves, however they define it. I certainly have, this week, called out for that Higher Power. Called out for a strength greater than my own.

And I know that the families of those shot in Aurora and Wisconsin are doing the same at this moment. As are Hal and his family. In fact, the maxim “Behind every good man is a good woman” comes to mind as I consider Hal and his wife’s current journey. The notion that “no one is an island” and that we all need one another takes central stage as I consider the shootings. And it brings me to the thought that we all need to be focused on what is really important in life, reaching for the best of what we have to offer, because we never know when our greatest strength or kindness will be needed. In fact, one wonders if there is ever a time that it is not needed. If we are not noticing the need, perhaps we are not opening our eyes!

And yesterday, I watched great strength and kindness in Hal’s wife. A gentle, tender, wise, hopeful woman whom most of us could do well to emulate. A woman tuned in to her husband’s needs of the moment. A woman reaching out to her husband’s community to inform them, trusting them to care and to do the right thing. A woman ready to do whatever is necessary. A woman who has created a loving family that is also gathering around Hal. A woman of faith – who will need great support in this time of tremendous challenge.

And I think, “Can any of us really afford not to aim toward being like this woman?” If we look around at our world, can we really accept that love and hope and encouragement and other character traits are not essential and needed in every moment of every day? Shouldn’t we take a little time each day to figure out how we can aspire to the higher? To our better selves? To what’s optimal – instead of the minimum necessary? I know that tragedies make me rethink these things. What about you? What will you do with the pain and tragedy around you? Will you join me in investing energy in love and joy and faith and kindness and . . . . ? Well, you get my point!

Crazy About Airplanes: The Character of Charles Dryden, a Tuskegee Airman

Model airplanes dancing from strings. All types of planes adorning the ceiling of a young boy’s room. A boy crazy about flying growing up to become one of the first Tuskegee Airmen. “We knew he was going to do something with airplanes,” says Charles Dryden’s sister Pauline. “He was crazy about airplanes!”

And yet, during the years following his birth in 1920, barriers for Black people abounded. Segregation and discrimination were rampant. Jim Crow laws and customs permeated southern life, codifying segregation, and establishing separate railway cars, drinking fountains, and theatre seats. Klu Klux Klan membership was on the rise. Blacks couldn’t vote. Lynchings were legal and were often celebrated by Whites with partying. Blacks fled the south by the millions for Northern cities during the Great Migration, and then found themselves segregated into dangerous black ghettos, where they faced overpriced housing, exploitative landlords, and the practice of “last hired, first fired.” They fought back in riots that erupted around the country. How, in this discriminatory and tumultuous environment was Charles going to be able to make his dreams to fly a reality?

And yet he did. In fact, just before he died, President George Bush said, when honoring Charles and other Tuskegee Airmen with the Congressional Gold Medal, “The Tuskegee Airmen helped win a war and helped change our nation for the better. [Theirs] is the story of the human spirit, and it ends like all great stories do – with wisdom and lessons and hope for tomorrow.” Shirley Franklin, as Mayor of the City of Atlanta said they “helped pave the way for equality among African-American fighter pilots.” Charles and the rest of the Tuskegee Airmen played a major role in proving that African-Americans were not inferior to Whites in any way. They helped advance the cause of African-American successes and leadership in all areas of American life.

So, what was it that enabled this man to be accepted into the 2^nd class of the Tuskegee Army Flying School and to become a member of the 99^th Pursuit Squadron, the squadron that, during WWII, escorted bombers to their target locations and never lost a bomber to enemy fighters? What was it that enabled him to succeed in a segregated Army, to be part of a group whose success challenged segregation in the military and won desegregation in 1948, and to become a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force? What was it that enabled him to succeed so exuberantly that he received the Congressional Gold Medal and was welcomed to address the New York State Legislature?

I asked his sister, Pauline, her thoughts about how her brother succeeded when so many other Black men were over-challenged by racism and failure. In her answer, she told the story of her parents emigrating to the United States from Jamaica as young adults. In Jamaica, she said, education and talent were rewarded, regardless of color of skin. And so her parents hadn’t been molded by a culture in which hundreds of years of slavery and oppression had demoralized an entire race, limiting their possibilities and laying waste to their self-esteem. In fact, Charles and Pauline and brother Denis hadn’t inherited the sense that they were “less than,” that they couldn’t achieve, or that their future was automatically limited by their skin color.

Charles said that his father, Charles Levy Tucker Dryden, and his mother, Violet Adina Dryden, held an “abiding faith in God and a dedication to educating their three children” that set him on the road to achieving his childhood dreams of becoming a pilot. The Drydens’ spirituality was clearly in evidence. Mom would have became a nun had Dad not returned in time from WWI to persuade her otherwise. And as family, they attended the Presbyterian Church. Pauline tells the story of a loving family who set their children up to succeed, telling them to “go for it” and follow their dreams. They faced difficulties with the mottos, “Nothing beats a trial but a failure” and “Not to worry, press on regardless.”

Both parents had also been educators and their close extended family – mom had five sisters living nearby on Sugar Hill in New York City -- set good examples for educational achievement. Indeed, the Dryden children excelled in school, were able to gain entrance to exclusive White schools, and pursued higher education. Pauline became a social worker after attending Hunter College and then pursued graduate school at Columbia University. Charles attended the Civilian Pilot Training Program at the City College of New York to obtain his pilot’s lesson. He spent the rest of this life pursuing educational opportunities and excellence, inside and outside of the military, earning degrees in political science from Hofstra University and public law from Columbia University. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate by Hoftstra.

And yet, despite these auspicious beginnings and ongoing accomplishments, Charles often found himself bitter about the racism that challenged his pursuits in the military. He and his colleagues were risking their lives for their country, succeeding in ways that White pilots had not succeeded, and yet, Black pilots were forced to live and eat and recreate in substandard facilities separate from those available to White servicemen. At one point he even faced court martial and dishonorable discharge. He had expected the military to be different from the rest of society, and it simply wasn’t. Even the Germans, during WWII, wondered why Blacks fought for a country that treated them so badly.

Charles overlooked his own pain at such humiliating treatment in order to be able to fly. And he excelled. But he didn’t stop there. He extended a hand to other Black men, demonstrating tremendous leadership, and inspiring others to succeed as he had. He served as a professor of air science at Howard University, leading the ROTC, and encouraging other young Black men who wanted to fly.

His is a story of overcoming massive obstacles to achieve incredible success, a success powered by faith in God, family encouragement, pursuit of education, determination, and love of flying. His is a story of sacrifice and risk that saved the lives of other American fighters and led many African American youth to success in their military careers. His story is not absent fear and failure and loss. And yet he overcame and led others to do the same. As he frequently recited from the poem High Flight by Pilot Officer Gillespie McGee, “I have slipped the surly bonds of earth. . . and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of. . . I’ve trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space; put out my hand and touched the face of God.”

Virtue vs. Vanity

Here we are in the New Year, a new decade, a time that most of us hope will be better than the last couple of years. If you are like me, you have either thought about New Year’s resolutions, are avoiding thinking about them, or are wondering when you will find the time to carefully consider what you want your life to look like in the New Year.

But whatever state your resolutions are in, what are your thoughts about how to decide what you will aim for? Will you decide on “fixing” areas of your life that are in disarray? Will you decide to become something that you are not? Will you let vanity overwhelm values? Or do you have other strategies?

I ask these questions because of what our resolutions typically look like. I have heard many people aspire to lose 20 pounds; to get in shape; to buy the new car they’ve dreamt about; to get the mess in their house cleaned up; to make $1,000,000; to change jobs; to get the big promotion. . . . Well, you get my drift. Is it any wonder that we hear over and over again how few people actualize their resolutions?

Could it be that whatever needs fixing can’t be fixed with just a decision, that some depth work, some digging is needed to recover from past experiences? Could it be that we are aiming for something that has little real worth, something that won’t really fix our lives or bring us joy? Could it be that we are trying to reach our goals by ourselves, without asking for help from others or from a Higher Power? Could it be that we have set our goals without consulting the people who really matter to us, and had we consulted, we would have discovered the need for some compromising in order to ensure that we weren’t impinging on another’s dreams and hopes and resolutions? Could it be that our resolutions are really just responses to external pressures, rather than drawn from our innermost selves, and that as a result, a healthy part of ourselves rebels against merely doing what others seem to want?

What would it look like to do New Year’s resolutions differently? What would happen if we considered making Resolutions to be an opportunity to get our lives in order, to become clear about who we want to be, how we want to live and work, and how we want to do relationships – at home, in the neighborhood, and at work? What would happen if we used this opportunity to set aside regular time for reflecting, for talking seriously with the people who matter to us? Might our resolutions turn out differently if we made them more an exercise in discovering our values than in feeding our vanity (you know, the car, the figure, the body, the money)?

For instance, if we chose several character traits to aim for (e.g. integrity, trust, courage, wisdom, caring, respect), reflected on them each morning with our coffee, and decided to do just one thing of character each day – what might happen? If we chose several areas of our lives (e.g., our relationships, our work, our commitments to “giving back”) or only one to focus these character traits on – might we actually make our resolutions a reality? Consider how your world might change if you decided. . .

• to smile at everyone whom you encountered;
• to look into the eyes of people who were talking with you so as to really
hear them and understand them;
• to take on one new thing each day that you’ve never done before;
• to approach every conflict or disappointment with peacefulness in your heart;
• to get rid of the impatience in your voice as you spoke with your children
or employees;
• to always tell the truth, even it is hard;
• to see the people around you as people, rather than as instruments to help
you to reach your aims
• to ask yourself, as you approach each relationship or conversation, what you
might offer to the other person?

Well, these are some of my ideas about living with character. But no one can decide for you. You have to decide what being wise means, how to be caring, where you need to be courageous. You get to decide what your life will look like this year. Make it a good, well-considered choice – and remember, you get to decide what “good,” or “better,” or “best” is. May you make it the best year yet in very important and meaningful ways!