The Leaders We Need, And What Makes Us Follow

by Michael MacCoby

  Father Wasson’s leadership journey started in 1954, when the poor box in his church was robbed by a ten-year-old child. The little thief was caught by the sacristan and sent to jail. Father Wasson went to the jail, and when he saw a small boy among hardened criminals, he told the warden that he wasn’t pressing charges; the boy should be freed. The warden said the boy was an orphan who lived in the street and survived by stealing. If freed, he’d soon be back in jail. Father Wasson asked to take charge of the boy. The warden agreed and soon after brought him eight more orphaned boys. Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH) was born.

  At first, Father Wasson didn’t know where he’d get the money to feed his brood. He borrowed and begged and began to find donors among the American expatriates in Cuernavaca. As he collected more boys, he thought about building an orphanage. He visited Boys Town, which had been made famous by the popular film based on it. Father Wasson found Boys Town to be very well funded, with comfortable living conditions and good schools, but he was troubled by the strict policy of sending the boys away when they reached age eighteen. What if they weren’t prepared to leave? In a good family, parents don’t push their kids out just because they’ve reached a certain age. Father Wasson went back to Mexico with the idea that NPH should not be an orphanage; it should be a family where kids could expect unconditional love and stay as long as they wanted, but they would also be expected to do their share, to pitch in according to their abilities, and they’d be educated to the limit of their abilities. At first NPH was a home for boys, but after a few years, he added a girls’ house and then a house for infants.

  Like Dave Levin of KIPP, Laura Rico of AFT, and the most successful CEOs I’ve interviewed, Father Wasson was a natural systems thinker. He balanced principles of security, responsibility, hard work—in the fields, growing their own food; in the kitchen cooking; and in school, studying—and the cultural stimulation of sports, music, dance, and the arts. (Like KIPP schools, NPH homes develop exciting musical and dance groups.) He also infused these operating principles with teaching and modeling moral and spiritual development. From the start, Father Wasson preached a gospel of caring for your brothers and sisters and sharing what you have with them. He rightly saw the danger that these children, victims of violence and tragedy, could fall into a self-defeating fog of self-pity and depression. “Don’t let yourself start thinking ‘poor little me’ [ pobre de mi ],” he preached, “that just makes you weak”; and the children don’t let newcomers succumb to corrosive self-pity.

  Erich Fromm introduced me to Father Wasson over forty years ago, when I was living in Cuernavaca, studying a peasant village, and learning to be a psychoanalyst. I was impressed by the spirit of cooperation and mutual responsibility, and the pride the children felt about being part of this extended family; the term orphanage gives the wrong impression—this vibrant community was nothing remotely like the institutions portrayed in Oliver Twist or Little Orphan Annie. Together with two students, Dr. Salvador Millan and Rolando Weissman, I studied the attitudes of the boys and girls. We found that the new arrivals were depressed, but after two years, they expressed hope and happiness, energy and enthusiasm. They felt lucky to be part of NPH. It was amazing to observe that there were hardly any discipline problems and the children were motivated to work and learn.

  Pequeños, as they are called, arrive at different ages. The policy is to bring all brothers and sisters who are orphaned or abandoned.21 At first, Father Wasson allowed adoption, but because of the bad experiences with foster parents and because the children not chosen felt devalued, he stopped the practice and affirmed that NPH is a family.

  For the small children (some arrive as infants), schooling begins at age two or three with a Montessori program and continues as long as the children are willing and able to learn. Some go on to university education and become doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants, hotel managers, electronic and agricultural engineers. But they all must do a year of service after finishing secondary school and again after high school. During that year they supervise work groups and act as tios and tias (uncles and aunts) for the younger children.

  In Mexico, NPH also has a program to educate children living in a garbage dump (milpillas) near the orphanage at Miacatlan, Morelos. One thirteen-year-old girl, sick with malnutrition, with orange-dyed hair and spots on her face, accepted the offer for schooling. After seven years, including a year of service, she had entered the University of Morelos.

  Those pequeños who don’t qualify for higher education are trained in craft skills as electricians, carpenters, dressmakers, leather workers, welders, and plumbers. In the older homes, Mexico (900 children) and Honduras (550 children), there are thriving apprenticeship programs so that NPH graduates go right into good jobs.

  For those children who arrive at NPH with disabilities, physical or psychic, there are competent occupational and psychological therapists to help. Some of these are volunteers from the countries where friends and former volunteers raise the funds that support NPH through mailings and a godparents program: the United States, Germany, Austria, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain.

  Father Wasson was the model for three volunteers who later took over the leadership of the NPH extended family. Reinhart Kohler came from Germany. He studied psychology, and combines a profoundly caring attitude with systematic obsessive traits. He made the Honduras home into a model for the others with his schools, a medical and dental clinic, social workers to find children in need, apprenticeship programs, and a farm that raises food for the family. There is also a home on the grounds for abandoned elderly people, some of whom act as grandparents to the small children. Kohler is now director of Family Services, responsible for the development of the newer homes according to Father Wasson’s principles and the model educational system he established in Honduras.

  Father Phil Cleary, a diocesan priest from Chicago, came to Mexico in June 1983 to volunteer for a summer. It’s been a long summer. Father Wasson prevailed on him to stay, and Cardinal Joseph Bernadin gave permission after he had seen NPH. Father Cleary stayed because, as he says, “I love the kids.” He also proved to be the careful, thorough administrator NPH needed.

  When Father Wasson stepped up his travel to found new houses, he left Father Cleary in charge of Mexico. Then, when Joan Provencio, NPH’s executive director, retired, Father Cleary took over running NPH. Now responsible for a growing budget, he tried to limit Father Wasson’s drive to keep founding new homes. “Where will we get the money?” he’d ask. Father Wasson would answer, “I don’t believe God will let us be more generous than he is.” Like other productive narcissists, Father Wasson was eager to make the world a better place. Father Cleary, the obsessive and interactive operational leader, had to struggle to establish some order in an organization built willy-nilly by an inspirational, charismatic visionary. The challenge was how to do this while not transforming a creative family into a bureaucratic machine. He’s had help from Reinhart Kohler and Father Richard L. Frechette, a visionary priest who belongs to the Passionist order, which has supported his work with NPH.

  Father Frechette, better known as Father Rick, was considering becoming a volunteer when he came to see me in the early 1980s. Although he interviewed me about NPH and Father Wasson more than I questioned him, I immediately felt his dedication, combined with a brilliant smile and wicked sense of humor. Father Frechette joined Kohler in founding the Honduras home in 1986 and then in 1988 went to Haiti where he became director of Nos Petits Frères et Soeurs (NPFS), which now has over five hundred children in residence. Faced with the extreme poverty and disease in Haiti, Father Frechette decided spiritual healing was not enough, and he took time off in the 1990s to train as a physician at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine of New York Institute of Technology in Westbury, Long Island. When he returned to Haiti, he put a former pequeño in charge of the home and focused on caring for the country’s sick and the victims of violence. There were times he faced do
wn gangs with guns pointed at him as he tended to the wounded and dying in Cité Soleil, a Port-au-Prince slum. In his trips back to the United States, he raised funds for a hospital with 150 beds in Port-au-Prince, which opened in 2006.22 Father Frechette also developed a healthcare program for all the NPH homes, including immunizations, water and environmental health risk checks, and periodic examinations of all pequeños. Almost all the former pequeño leaders in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Peru, and Bolivia have university degrees, as does NPH’s chief financial officer, Miguel Venegas, who has an MBA, but they need leadership education to sustain the mission, and Reinhart Kohler orchestrates that ongoing process. He says that a common problem with NPH leaders is that they start out with an autocratic style, making decisions without explaining the reasons for them or even trying to orchestrate consensus, just saying, “That’s the way we do things at NPH.”

  As do the leaders in the KIPP inner city schools, NPH country leaders have to be authoritative, to make sure everyone acts according to Father Wasson’s principles. The social character that succeeds in Latin America is hardworking and, increasingly, interactive. But it’s also more respectful, more concerned with dignity, and more identified with family and religion than in the United States and western Europe. The social character shaped at NPH combines elements of the bureaucratic and interactive, with strong sibling ties.

  THE LEADERS WE NEED FOR EDUCATION

  In this chapter, we have seen that it is demonstrably possible to educate disadvantaged children for success. But it’s not easy, and it won’t be achieved just by throwing more money into schools. Rather, it requires exceptional and dedicated leaders who love children.

  These kids with an unformed social character need an authoritative, paternal type of leader with a high level of Personality Intelligence to give them a sense of security and hope. Unlike affluent kids who are ambivalent about authority and arrive at school already prepared for academic competition, disadvantaged children benefit from strong parentlike leadership that cements trust. Father Wasson went further than evoking transference from infancy. He became the real father to thousands of children and a model for the development of a productive social character. The challenge for his disciples, sons, and daughters is to sustain this development without the founding father.

  One of these pequeños grew up to take a job running one of the NPH houses after having worked a few years in a global company, saying, “If God hadn’t put Father Wasson in my path, I don’t know what would have been my life. I would have been a delinquent maybe. I would have been in a jail, maybe I would have lived in misery, or simply maybe I would have been dead.”

  I’ve described organizations I’ve seen and leaders I’ve met and can vouch for. I am sure there are many others that demonstrate similar lessons of leadership. When I asked Dave Levin about other charter schools he’d put in KIPP’s class, he named Achievement First, which has six schools in Connecticut and New York. These schools and NPH present a challenge to governments and foundations. It’s great work to save lives, but what happens to the children who are saved?

  To summarize this chapter:

  A major challenge of our time is educating children. This involves developing not only their intellects but also their personalities.

  Children from different backgrounds have different social characters and need different kinds of schools.

  The schools that succeed in developing disadvantaged kids need leaders with the Personality Intelligence to understand the people they lead and the personality qualities that combine love and authority.

  Schools can learn from the models presented here, even if they can’t copy them. There is no excuse for schools of education, foundations, school boards, and teachers unions to ignore the evidence of what succeeds. We can see the kinds of leaders we need in education. Let’s recognize, support and develop them.

  Sample Commitment to Excellence Forms

  Teachers’ Commitment

  We fully commit to KIPP in the following ways:

  We will arrive at KIPP every day by 7:15 a.m. (Monday–Friday) .

  We will remain at KIPP until 5:00 p.m. (Monday–Thursday) and 4:00 p.m. on Friday.

  We will come to KIPP on appropriate Saturdays at 9:15 a.m. and remain until 1:05 p.m.

  We will teach at KIPP during the summer.

  We will always teach in the best way we know how and we will do whatever it takes for our students to learn.

  We will always make ourselves available to students and parents, and address any concerns they might have.

  We will always protect the safety, interests, and rights of all individuals in the classroom.

  Failure to adhere to these commitments can lead to our removal from KIPP.

  Parents’/Guardians’ Commitment

  We fully commit to KIPP in the following ways:

  We will make sure our child arrives at KIPP every day by 7:25 a.m. (Monday–Friday) or boards a KIPP bus at the scheduled time.

  We will make arrangements so our child can remain at KIPP until 5:00 p.m. (Monday–Thursday) and 4:00 p.m. on Friday.

  We will make arrangements for our child to come to KIPP on appropriate Saturdays at 9:15 a.m. and remain until 1:05 p.m.

  We will ensure that our child attends KIPP summer school.

  We will always help our child in the best way we know how and we will do whatever it takes for him/her to learn. This also means that we will check our child’s homework every night, let him/her call the teacher if there is a problem with the homework, and try to read with him/her every night.

  We will always make ourselves available to our children and the school, and address any concerns they might have. This also means that if our child is going to miss school, we will notify the teacher as soon as possible, and we will carefully read any and all papers that the school sends home to us.

  We will allow our child to go on KIPP field trips.

  We will make sure our child follows the KIPP dress code.

  We understand that our child must follow the KIPP rules so as to protect the safety, interests, and rights of all individuals in the classroom. We, not the school, are responsible for the behavior and actions of our child.

  Failure to adhere to these commitments can cause my child to lose various KIPP privileges and can lead to my child returning to his/her home school.

  Student’s Commitment

  I fully commit to KIPP in the following ways:

  I will arrive at KIPP every day by 7:25 a.m. (Monday–Friday) or board a KIPP bus at the correct time.

  I will remain at KIPP until 5:00 p.m. (Monday–Thursday) and 4:00 p.m. on Friday.

  I will come to KIPP on appropriate Saturdays at 9:15 a.m. and remain until 1:05 p.m.

  I will attend KIPP during summer school.

  I will always work, think, and behave in the best way I know how, and I will do whatever it takes for me and my fellow students to learn. This also means that I will complete all my homework every night, I will call my teachers if I have a problem with the homework or a problem with coming to school, and I will raise my hand and ask questions in class if I do not understand something.

  I will always make myself available to parents and teachers, and address any concerns they might have. If I make a mistake, this means I will tell the truth to my teachers and accept responsibility for my actions.

  I will always behave so as to protect the safety, interests, and rights of all individuals in the classroom. This also means that I will always listen to all my KIPP teammates and give everyone my respect.

  I will follow the KIPP dress code.

  I am responsible for my own behavior, and I will follow the teachers’ directions.

  Failure to adhere to these commitments can cause me to lose various KIPP privileges and can lead to returning to my home school.

  CHAPTER 9

  The President We Need

  AS DONALD KAGAN NOTES in his study of Pericles: “The paradox inherent in democrac
y is that it must create and depend on citizens who are free, autonomous, and self-reliant. Yet its success—its survival even—requires extraordinary Leadership.”1 Kagan’s observation is an accurate expression of the issues at the heart of this chapter. At the top of government, we need extraordinary leaders who understand the historic changes that threaten us, who are fully aware of the dangers to human life on this planet, and who take the lead in addressing these dangers—nuclear and biological weapons of mass destruction in the hands of people who might use them and global warming caused by human activity. But understanding is not enough. We need a president who the American people will follow, even if that means being pulled out of their comfort zone.

  The president we need can gain followers by bridge building, starting with issues on which there’s potential agreement across party lines: developing alternative energy and freeing ourselves from dependency on Middle Eastern oil, protecting a sustainable environment, improving education, strengthening national security, and supporting the research in science and technology that will keep our economy innovative and competitive in global markets.2 In so doing, the president we need will articulate a sense of purpose that sparks the hope that we’ll use our wealth and ingenuity to enhance the quality of life in America and wherever we can to improve life in other parts of the world.

  As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes, we need political leaders who can explain the forces that are changing the world, are able to educate people about them, and galvanize a creative response. But, Friedman recognizes that the leaders we elect are not always the leaders we need. He writes, “We have way too many politicians in America who seem to do the opposite. They seem to go out of their way actually to make their constituents stupid . . .” He makes an essential observation that “politicians can make us more fearful and thereby be disablers, or they can inspire us and thereby be enablers.”3