Principles of Great Leadership—Can Often Be Thankless But It Is Not Always Invisible
As someone who is hyper-present in every space imaginable, in possession of a trauma-induced hyper-empathy and hyper-vigilance, I tend to be deeply attuned to the behaviors of others—especially of those who have been placed in positions of power, earned or unearned.
Great leadership often moves in silence, but those of us paying attention can tell you that, yes, we can clearly hear and see it, too.
Terrible leadership is all around us.
We read about nightmarish politicians, pastors, CEOs, principals, and bosses—all the time. Often from vague fluff pieces being published in mainstream papers to Reddit, Twitter threads about awful experiences people may have had with them. Glassdoor, for instance, allows ex-employees to anonymously write about the mechanics of certain entities for unsuspecting potentials. Management always comes up. They can either be specific, anecdotal, or generalized, but hardly are both brought up together, forming a cohesive understanding of good and bad leadership.
Some people say it’s extremely easy to criticize, to point out problems, and they aren’t entirely incorrect, but I suspect that if we really looked at the data, if we paid close attention to the numbers, to the culture, to human behavior, we’d know that the squeaky wheel often gets penalized for vocalizing anything that might be misinterpreted as an affront, as insubordination to hierarchies that can possibly upend the peace of any in-group.
Getting along is a must, no doubt, but staying silent when a head missteps often leads to disaster. It happens all the time. People who only commend, recommend, hire and promote yes-people are a scandal waiting to happen. Not to mention, an existential threat to any entity and, ironically, to themselves.
Unfortunately, for the majority, once you’ve been chosen by legacy institutions [most likely through cronyism, nepotism or as a diversity hire because of your proximity to whiteness] you can fail up as much as you want. You will be placed in charge of many people and once you’ve ruined those people and entities, you’ll be given another realm to rule over, to mess up again. You’ve definitely hit the lottery because, as bad as you are, you’ll never be banished to the Ether. You are allowed to fail time after time.
I’ve lost count of the number of heads I’ve seen leaving places they left in shambles. This is a very prevalent thing among Black and Brown folks, too—people who come from marginalized communities. We are at the mercy, the whims of powerful white men and women and if we happen to be blessed by their validation (for whatever reason that can and will be disastrous for all of us in the long run), glory to the gods, you’ll never struggle for the rest of your lives. This, of course, prevents a lot of oxygen from going to our brains, so we become very distant and extremely callous to those we assume can’t do anything for us. We become indifferent, inaccessible, and cruel. Rugged-individualism obviously thrives in a culture that values cunningness above all.
But how does that benefit the collective?
It doesn’t. It never has and it never will. If someone wants to solely look out after number one, that’s fine. To each their own. But, taking on positions of leadership, especially those created because of a supposed diversity and pay gap, to then turn around and walk around like one doesn’t owe anyone a thing, congratulations, you’ve turned into a race pimp and ethnic hustler. You’ve taken tokenism to the highest level. A hollow symbol. Window-dressing. A shallow thing. Look at you speaking on that panel, smiling with that empty, meaningless award. How grand.
Now, leadership doesn’t always have to be or perceived as a bad thing. There are plenty of examples of great leaders and great leadership. I’ve seen many people in and outside established entities stepping up to the plate no matter how high they are.
There are plenty of examples of people I’ve worked with, for, and next to, and have had proximity to, one way or another, in positions of leadership in and outside our communities. For the sake of brevity, I’ll mention one for every character and behavior I break down here. Note that all the folks I bring up possess most, if not all, of these great attributes. The list isn’t exhaustive.
Accessibility.
You don’t always have to be readily available for anyone and everyone. It’s exhausting and, as you know, if you give a helping hand, a lot of people have no qualms with ripping your arm off. This isn’t always the case, of course, and due to a few bad apples, the entire basket usually gets thrown out, but fret not. The fruits of your labor will be your reward. Unfortunately, with good leadership comes blows to the heads and ego, and as much as we love to think that we are great judges of character, this isn’t always the case. Yeah, we may have great instincts, but our instincts can and will mislead us. And, that’s Ok. Nobody is perfect.
Nevertheless, being accessible to those who can’t give you anything but the satisfaction of knowing you did a good deed (which doesn’t necessarily make you feel good), communing with “underlings” or those trying to enter your field should be enough for you as a great leader. It’s nice, but you don’t always have to open doors for others that will benefit you in the end. You’re not Thanos. You don’t need to collect mentees like they’re Infinity Stones.
The great leaders I know engage everyone equally, the janitor or CEO, and they do this publicly, too, in front of their “equals”, their friends, their foes, and their stans. There’s no doubt that being like this also helped them get to where they are. How do I know this? Because I break bread with people from all walks of life, I’ve had dinners and intimate conversations with CEOs, executives, and leadership that are highly coveted and respected in their respective fields.
They tend to be accessible, respectful, and friendly with everyone that comes into their path. They aren’t scanning rooms for anyone “more important” and they don’t drop you like a hot tamale as soon as they spot them.
Take Barbara Matos, ex VP of Diversity and Inclusion at CBS, board member of many known entities, among others, is a perfect example of someone in a position of power that has been accessible to actors, writers, filmmakers who aren’t necessarily established.
I have never seen anyone at her level spending time with those who truly need people like her to get into Hollywood, for instance, outside of conferences, workshops, and the like. You don’t even have to be one or two degrees of separation from her. She will take you under her wings, give you invaluable advice, recommend you, and invite you to places that you wouldn’t normally have access to unless you already have a connection there.
Accessibility doesn’t have to be reckless, but it must exist for great leadership.
Humility.
As a person who comes from a historically marginalized group of people, getting validated by a large and powerful entity can do numbers to one’s ego.
I’m all for validating and respecting each other without the need of outside forces that have been built on our backs while gaslighting us into thinking we aren’t good enough, we aren’t smart, professional, courageous enough… If one isn’t grounded enough, though, los humos se nos suben a la cabeza, and we start acting high-and-mighty, forgetting the places and people we come from.
A lot of leadership didn’t necessarily come from the real struggle, but a lot definitely act like they didn’t and can’t be associated with anyone who hasn’t been white validated. What sort of uplifting are you doing when someone else has already given a hand-up to those you’re trying to assist? Nastiness all around, for sure.
Again, it’s fine if you don’t want to be grouped with others, but don’t take on any position of power due to the positionality of your identities in this world—basically, because of that group of others. If you don’t think a street vendor should be treated with the same level of kindness, respect, and consideration as you treat others at your status or higher, then you don’t deserve that position. You’re a poser.
Richard Montañez, the inventor of the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, is a good friend of mine.
He moved up from janitor to vice president of multicultural sales & community promotions at PepsiCo. That type of thing hardly happens to people like us. It’s short of miraculous to come from extreme poverty to occupying a c-suite level at a multinational corporation valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars, especially as a Brown-presenting man.
He came from the struggle and constantly mentions it to encourage and inspire others. He usually brings up not having a formal education but being in possession of a PHD in poverty, hunger, and determination has done him well. He didn’t come from an Ivy League, but PepsiCo’s CEO at the time had the admirable instinct and wherewithal to give this man a chance, to the eternal gratitude of us who enjoy his creations and the bank statements of PepsiCo’s stakeholders.
Opportunities like this seldom come and when they come, few are equipped to deal with them.
Again, he’s also made himself accessible to our communities. Something that many people in positions of power don’t think or see the need for.
Emotional Intelligence.
There’s no way to appropriately navigate this world as a leader without emotional intelligence, without a deep understanding of the feelings and motivations of others, and a healthy dose of empathy to moderate it.
How many people in positions of power do you know whose reputation as a kind, fair, and compassionate leader precedes them? I’ve met many, many, but know few, few.
Leadership without empathy is fascism. Plain and simple. If one doesn’t at least try to understand the emotions and emotional well-being of others, one has no business taking up the mantle to lead. There are plenty of sociopaths and psychopaths in positions of power, to the detriment of all of humanity, but especially to the detriment of historically disenfranchised people. We see this all around us. It makes the news all the time.
Lots of times, especially for Black and Brown people, we don’t hear a thing because people are terrified to call out our own abusive Black and Brown leaders. Leaders who make sure that that never happens so they can attain and retain power, I suspect. White leaders certainly don’t give a shit about the treatment we get from our own representatives.
Animal Farm comes to mind when this happens. Forming a big club but you ain’t in it, as George Carlin would say.
Communities, businesses, companies, corporations can be perilous places, no doubt. If one is unable to balance and rein in our emotions, disaster is around the corner for everyone involved, in all those places.
Don’t get me wrong, we are all created with an empathetic brain, and we should be allowed to publicly and privately express the same range of emotions as others, but they need to be regulated. It’s Ok to be upset. It’s Ok to be sad. It’s Ok to be disappointed. It’s Ok to show that. It’s not Ok to let ourselves be consumed by our emotions at any given moment. Letting them pass through us is always a good framework to operate and lead from.
There are plenty of people in positions of power that as soon as they perceive you slighted them (in any way, shape, or form) retaliate or become deathly indifferent. Both huge No-Nos for great leadership. You don’t have to put up with abuse, you don’t have to become a push-over, but you don’t have to turn into a Galactus, some callous world-eating entity. Those are very palpable signs of immaturity. As a pillar, you must, though, be the bigger person in any given situation and not just be a master of your own feelings, but also be a conduit, a moderator, a diffusor of the feelings and behaviors of others.
I recently had a private conversation with Gary Acosta, co-founder and CEO of many powerful and influential entities such as NAHREP and L’Attitude. I have known Gary for a couple of years now. I’ve met his teams and his family. I have nothing but great things to say about them.
There was one thing that always struck me about Gary (besides being a great orator, highly skilled at anything he sets his mind to, and bringing people together): he’s highly emotionally intelligent.
Why do I say this? Because I’m deeply attuned to everything happening around me, but especially the feelings and behaviors of others, online and offline. I absorb it all. But I’m also a very combative person with the behaviors of those I may perceive as corrosive to us all, to a fault, but in the end, I never get into the fray with the intention of harming or destroying others. I’m just not built like that.
Gary knows this. He knows where my heart is. He’s told me so. We agree on a lot of things and there are others that we don’t—which is normal, expected, even. Like calling out publicly those from our communities who may or may not intentionally say or do something hurtful. I’m of the school of thought that if something is spoken and done publicly, it should be addressed publicly. Neither of us are wrong and I completely understand where he comes from with his line of thought. We have little to zero champions and allies and are in great need of freedom of expression, something he’s brought up before.
I also tend to treat everyone equally when it comes to public discourse. It’s not that I don’t care about what position of power any person holds. It’s that I truly care about the impact of what they say and do because it can potentially hurt others tremendously. Our words are gifts for good or weapons for bad. I call in and out and that can be perceived as disrespectful, as someone who has never learned to stay in their lane, and sometimes one needs to be disrespectful to get a positive reaction out of people, but I understand this is a thought that not everyone holds and that’s Ok. We need all hands and thoughts on deck.
Anyway, the few disagreements we had never tarnished our friendship.
Although I have gone on an apology campaign here and there for my past transgressions, not everyone takes it like Gary does. Plenty of leaders I’ve had run-ins with stopped speaking with me completely. That is a very clear sign of immaturity, lack of humility, and an obvious telltale of poor emotional regulation and intelligence. Awful leadership. I highly encourage therapy for that.
And, again, I get one mustn’t put up with abuse, disrespect, and toxicity, but none of us in this weird simulation are perfect, so we should act accordingly with others, especially with those who aren’t in the same position of power as us. Punching down is a cardinal sin. Run and tell that to your favorite comedians.
Audacity.
What’s leadership without courage? It doesn’t exist. Great leaders aren’t afraid to get in the ring with their equals and call them out for inequality, no matter the platform and place. I haven’t seen one leader do this except for one.
Not everyone is built to be courageous under fire, but everyone has the capacity to be. Not everyone gets the opportunity to show the world, but especially those in positions of power, that we have what it takes to make things better for all of us.
As my esteemed and distinguished professor, el difunto and possibly the greatest translator to have ever lived, Gregory Rabassa, used to exclaim: “To the victors, the potatoes!” It’s a quote from Quincas Borba, a realist novel by Brazilian writer, Machado de Assis, and translated by Professor Rabassa. The book is a parody of social Darwinism and its survival of the fittest tenement. I bring this up because we’ve been artificially confined to nasty levels of oppression, and left with no choice but to fight back to regain the very spoils that have been taken from us. We are literally fighting, time after time, for our lives, at any given space. But how many leaders have you seen putting their money, their reputation on the line for the benefit of entire communities? We win them victories, but they go home with all the potatoes.
I saw one man do the opposite of that and his name is Sol Trujillo. I saw, incredulously, with my very own eyes, and heard, in awe, with my very own ears, Sol call out incredibly influential fortune 500 CEOs in front of thousands of people. Sol respectfully put them on very hot seats. I have never seen such a thing. He’d tell them what we’ve contributed to their powerful entities and what we deserve from those entities: decent numbers, positions of influence, and financial recompense.
He didn’t beg and he didn’t stutter. Instead of solely thinking about his positionality and what he can gain for advocating for Latinidad like many shameless leaders have done (all for money, power, and fame), he batted for us to be invested in, to get hired, to be given the opportunity to succeed at every level, without becoming milquetoast or kissing up to these powerful individuals, like many shameless leaders have done. Sol doesn’t need the money, the power, the fame. He can retire till our sun shrinks into a white dwarf. But choosing to step up to the plate and unapologetically advocate for our material well-being is something to behold.
It takes great leadership to bring us all up when it matters. It takes great leadership to put our communities before ourselves, above self-interest and self-aggrandizement.
It takes audacity to make a real change happen for us.
We need leadership in possession of all these principles to really move us all forward.
That’s how we truly make America great.
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César Vargas is a distinguished writer, advocate, strategist, and social critic, celebrated for his influential voice in modern Latinx America. His insightful social criticism spans a broad spectrum of topics including geopolitics, race, ethnicity, immigration, and culture. His work resonates across various platforms and communities, engaging editors, writers, journalists, celebrities, activists, artists, executives, politicians, professors, students, and more.
Recognized as one of the '40 Under 40: Latinos in American Politics' by the Huffington Post, his writings have been featured in prestigious publications like the 'Bedford Guide for College Writers' and 'Caribbean Latino Perspectives in the Second Decade of the 21st Century'. His essays and articles have been published and quoted in NBC, Fox News Latino, Voxxi, Okayafrica, Okayplayer, The Huffington Post, Sky News, Salon, The Guardian, Latino Magazine, Latino Rebels, Vibe, The Hill, BET, and his own widely-followed online magazine, UPLIFTT, reaching millions globally.
He is known for creating content that goes viral, thanks to his unique perspective on documenting contemporary issues. His work, which played a pivotal role in bringing Afrolatinidad to the mainstream, is taught in high schools and colleges and shared widely, including in state prisons. His contributions to the arts were acknowledged with two awards from Fusion and the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts for his short films 'Some Kind of Spanish' and 'Black Latina Unapologetically'.
As a Salinas Scholar at the Aspen Institute's Latinos & Society, he continues to push boundaries and inspire change. His academic background in Film Studies from Queens College, CUNY, underpins his diverse skill set.
Beyond his professional achievements, Vargas is deeply committed to philanthropy. He has raised and distributed funds for various causes, including supporting Haitians in Sosúa, his birthplace. This commitment to social good has piqued the interest of publishing houses, MacArthur Fellows, and major foundation leaders, leading to the ongoing development of his personal memoir.
Currently residing in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, Delmy, and their son, Omari, Vargas continues to be a dynamic voice and advocate, championing diverse causes and shaping the narrative around Latinx issues in America and beyond. Black Latina Unapologetically. He attained a degree in Films Studies from Queens College, CUNY.
