Portrait of a Peacemaker: Frances Hesselbein

“Leadership is a matter of how to be…not how to do.”

“To serve is to live” is the motto of one of the most highly respected experts in the field of contemporary leadership development, Frances Hesselbein. Her extraordinary accomplishments have established her as an iconic nonprofit leader. In her late 90’s, she is still an active leader in numerous organizations, recipient of multiple prestigious awards and continues to share her gift of leadership with others through her books and publications.

In her birthplace of Johnstown, Pennsylvania Hesselbein learned her most defining lessons. Her greatest role model was her grandmother whom she had often spent time with during her childhood. Hesselbein’s grandmother taught her to respect all people, this advice says Hesselbein is what determined the person she is today and the leader she has become.

In the 1960’s Hesselbein was asked to volunteer as a leader for a local Girl Scout troop. She reluctantly accepted the position, having no daughters of her own, not knowing that this would begin the transformative journey of her leadership within the Girl Scouts of America. From 1976-1990 Hesselbein served as CEO of Girl Scouts of America. Under her leadership membership quadrupled to nearly three and a half million and she more than tripled the Girl Scouts racial and ethnic membership. She was able to transform a once failing organization into what Peter Drucker, management guru and her mentor, described as “the best-managed organization around.”

Hesselbein switched roles in 1990 to serve as the president and chief executive officer of the Leader to Leader Institute. The institute was later renamed as The Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute of which she still serves as CEO today. In 1998 Hesselbein was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, for her leadership as CEO of the Girl Scouts of America and her service as “a pioneer for women, volunteerism, diversity and opportunity.” President George Bush, Sr. also honored Hesselbein with two Presidential Commissions on National and Community Service. She has received multiple Lifetime Achievement Awards and has served on many nonprofit and corporate boards including West Point Military Academy, Volunteers of America, the Bright China Social Fund and more.

As a pioneer for women, diversity and inclusion Frances Hesselbein has been a model of what leadership should look like. In an interview with a New York Times reporter when describing organizational structure she put a glass at the center of a table and using plates and cups she created a set of circles going outward connected by silverware. Pointing to the glass in the middle she said, “I’m here. I’m not on top of anything.” Try implementing Frances Hesselbein’s leadership philosophies in your own roles and see what a difference respect for all can make.