Photo: Albert Schweitzer (14. Jan. 1875년 1월 14일 - 1965년 9월 4일)

알버트 슈바이처 (Albert Schweitzer)라는 의사 분을 아실겁니다.

지금은 프랑스의 땅이 된 알자스 (Alsace)라는 당시 독일 땅에서 1875년 루터 계열 목사 이셨던 아버지의 아들로 태어나 바하 음악의 오르간 연주가로 그리고, 신학과 철학에 상당한 재능을 보이며 27세 이전에 철학 관련 서적 3권을 쓰고, 많은 콘서트에 오르간 연주가로 참가하여 밝은 미래를 보장받고, 많은 사람들로 부터 각광을 받던 이 청년이 30세가 되어 자신의 소명을 다시 한 번 깨닳고는 의학도로 변신하여 아내 Helene과 37살되던 1913년 아프리카 가봉에서 질병으로 고통받던 아프리카 사람들을 구하기 위해 병원을 열고는 평생을 그곳에서 봉사하다가, 1965년 9월 90세를 일기로 사망한 후, 자신이 세운 아프리카의 병원 뒤뜰에 묻힌 분이랍니다.

1915년 슈바이처 박사가 쓴 "생명의 존엄-Reverence for Life"은 이후 생명 윤리에 대한 기준을 제시하는 명저로 남게되고, 20세기 가장 위대한 사상가 중 한 명으로 슈바이처 박사를 자리매김하도록 합

니다. 이후 1953년 78세에 노벨 평화상을 타게 되고 이를 전 후로, 핵 위협에 대한 많은 강연들과 저술 등을 통해 반핵 운동에 적극 앞장 서기도 하였습니다. 이러한 생명에 대한 존중과 인류애를 직접 실천한 슈바이처 박사를 위대한 한 명의 Leader로 꼽는데 주저할 사람은 아무도 없을 겁니다.

하지만 보통의 경우, 특히 Business 분야에서 Leader 라고 하면, 조직의 정점에서 명확하고, 강력한 가치관으로 무엇이 옳고 그른지

를 지시하고, 과감하게 행동하며, 남을 위해 자신을 희생하여 모두의 모범이 되는 사람을 말하며, 그 밑에서 일하는 사람들은 T.S.

Eliot [1]가 말한 투명인간 처럼, 아무것도 하지 않으며, 존재감이 없이 아무런 변화도 이끌어 내지 못한다는 인식을 가지고 있습니다.

하지만, 슈바이처 박사는 자신의 저서에서 세상을 바꾸기 위한 작

지만 위해한 개개인의 역할에 대해 다음과 같이 적고 있습니다.[2]

"이상을 향한 인류의 의지는 오직 '작은 것'들이 공적인 행동으로 전이될 때 실현이 가능하다. 이외의 다른 것들은 이러한 작고 불명확한 행위들과 조화되어야 한다. 이러한 것들의 조합은 한 개인이 대중의 많은 지지를 받는 행동들보다도 천배는 더 강력하다. 작지만 많은 사람들의 명백한 행동은 크지만 몇몇 사람의 행위들 보다도 훨씬 크며, 이는 마치 작은 물결들이 모여 큰바다의 거대한 파도를 만드는 것과 같은 이치이다. - Of all the will toward the ideal in mankind only a small part can manifest itself in public action. All the rest of this force must be content with small and obscure deeds. The sum of these, however, is a thousand times stronger than the acts of those who receive wide public recognition. The latter, compared to the former, are like the foam on the waves of a deep ocean."

이렇듯 조용하지만, 다수의 사람들이 만들어 내는 Leadership이야 말로, 세상을 진정으로 바뀌게 하는 힘입니다.

이에 대하여 하버드 경영대학원의 Joseph Badaracco 교수는 "Leading Quietly: An Unorthodox Guide to Doing the Right Thing (HBS Press, 2002)" 라는 자신의 저서에서 진정하게 큰 변화를 이끄는 조용한 Leadership의 정체에 대해 파악하고자 하였고, 수많은 위대한 리더들의 예를 들어, 슈바이처 박사나, 마틴 루터 킹 목사의 경우처럼 대부분 조용하지만, 인내심있게 무언가를 조금씩 바꾸고자 했었던 사람이었던 것을 밝혀 냈습니다.

그리고 경영계의 많은 위대한 리더들도 요란하게 드러나거나 하기보다는 학고한 자신의 원리, 원칙과 큰 비전을 가지고 조금씩 조금씩 자신의 이상을 조직내의 구성원들과 Communication 해가면서 자그마한 힘들을 모아서 모아서 결국은 큰 변화와 성공을 일구었다는 것을 자신의 저서에서 쓰고있습니다.

지금 현재 우리는 어떨까요?

영웅적인 CEO나 Leader들의 출현이나 그들의 행위를 기다리고만 있지는 않을까요? 정작 자신이 할 수 있는 작은 행동으로 부터 시작하여 결국은 자신이 그렇게도 바라던 이상적인 행위를 만들어 낼 수 있는 조용한 리더인데도 말입니다. 

이제부터라도 깊은 호흡과, 조용한 명상을 통해 무한한 자신의 가능성을 가만히 돌이켜 생각해 봐야할 때입니다. (^^);

J.H.Choi

Albert Schweitzer's View
by Joseph L. Badaracco, Jr.

Do we really need a broader perspective? Don't the great leaders teach us what we need to know? These are important questions, and the answer to them isn't simple. Stories of heroic effort do teach us indispensable lessons in courage and dedication. They also show us the highest human ideals and help parents and teachers pass on important values. And these are not merely stories: Without the efforts of great individuals, our world would be an emptier and meaner place. We owe these men and women our admiration and gratitude.

The problem is that the heroic view of leadership looks at people in terms of a pyramid. At the top are the great figures. They have clear, strong values and know right from wrong. They act boldly, sacrifice themselves for noble causes, set compelling examples for others, and ultimately change the world. At the bottom of the pyramid are life's bystanders, shirkers, and cowards. These are T. S. Eliot's "hollow men," afraid to act and preoccupied with self-interest. 1 They inspire no one and change nothing.

But where does this view leave everyone else? Most people, most of the time, are neither saving the world nor exploiting it. They are living their lives, doing their jobs, and trying to take care of the people around them. The pyramid approach, by saying little about everyday life and ordinary people, seems to consign much of humanity to a murky, moral limbo. This is a serious mistake.

Consider the view of Albert Schweitzer, a man who, by any standard, was a truly heroic leader. In his late twenties, Schweitzer abandoned two promising career paths—one as a musician, the other as a theologian—that would have led to a comfortable, settled, and secure life. Instead, he became a medical missionary and spent most of his life serving lepers and victims of sleeping sickness in central Africa. His decades of hard, lonely, and sometimes dangerous work were rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952, and Schweitzer used the funds from the prize to expand his hospital. He worked there until his death at the age of ninety.

Schweitzer changed many lives and inspired countless others. Yet, in his autobiography, he wrote these words about the role of great individuals in shaping the world: "Of all the will toward the ideal in mankind only a small part can manifest itself in public action. All the rest of this force must be content with small and obscure deeds. The sum of these, however, is a thousand times stronger than the acts of those who receive wide public recognition. The latter, compared to the former, are like the foam on the waves of a deep ocean." 2

This is a remarkable, almost radical statement. Here is Albert Schweitzer, a great man, telling us to rethink and even devalue the role of great figures in human affairs. He compares their efforts to "foam" and instead praises "small and obscure deeds."

Schweitzer's view represents a profoundly different way of thinking about leadership. Consider, for example, the Tylenol episode of the early 1980s—probably the most famous tale of responsible business leadership in the last twenty years.

In 1982, someone put cyanide into a number of Tylenol capsules, resulting in the deaths of seven people. The national media seized the story and wouldn't let go. Millions of Americans panicked, fearing their medicine cabinets contained a deadly poison. Instead of hunkering down, Johnson & Johnson's chairman, James Burke, took immediate and bold steps to lead the company though the ensuing crisis. He cooperated swiftly and fully with public authorities and the media, defining the crisis as an issue of public health, not corporate profits. He immediately withdrew all Tylenol from the market, costing his company millions of dollars. Johnson & Johnson then quickly introduced triple-seal packing for Tylenol, and the industry soon followed its example. Burke received enormous credit for his efforts and surely earned it.

This story is dramatic and inspiring and has been told and retold countless times. Yet, from Schweitzer's perspective, this chronicle of leadership can easily mislead us. Is the Tylenol episode the real story of responsible leadership at Johnson & Johnson during the 1980s? What was everyone else in the company doing during this period? Were the thousands of managers, supervisors, and other employees just cranking out Tylenol capsules, Band-Aids, and other products—all the while enjoying a nice moral holiday?

The answer to this question is clearly no. Like people in organizations everywhere, they were dealing with the difficult everyday challenges of life and work: making sure the products they sold were safe, helping coworkers with personal problems, developing new drugs and medical devices, and making sure their employees were treated with fairness and respect. The "non-heroes" at Johnson & Johnson did all this without the resources and support available to the company's executives, and they did these things day after day and year after year. In the grand scheme of things, their cumulative effort made the world a much better place. In fact, from Schweitzer's perspective, their efforts were the grand scheme of things.

To understand and learn from what these men and women did, we have to take Schweitzer's perspective to heart. This means looking away from great figures, extreme situations, and moments of high historical drama and paying closer attention to people around us. If we look at leadership with a wide-angle lens, we can see men and women who are far from heroes and yet are successfully solving important problems and contributing to a better world.

Excerpted with permission from Leading Quietly: An Unorthodox Guide to Doing the Right Thing (HBS Press 2002: Copyright 2002 Joseph L. Badaracco, Jr.)

Footnotes:
1. T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men," in The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), 56-59.

2. Albert Schweitzer, Out of My Life and Thought (New York: New American Library, 1963), 74.

The Quiet Leader—and How to Be One

Q&A with: Joseph Badaracco
Published: February 11, 2002
Author: Martha Lagace

Editor's Note: It sounds almost paradoxical. A quiet leader? Yet quiet leaders—managers who apply modesty, restraint, and tenacity to solve particularly difficult problems—are more common than we think, says Harvard Business School professor Joseph L. Badaracco.

In his new book Leading Quietly: An Unorthodox Guide to Doing the Right Thing (HBS Press, 2002), he describes what quiet leaders do and how they make their workplace, and their world, a better place. Badaracco recently sat down with HBS Working Knowledge Senior Editor Martha Lagace to talk about quiet leaders.

source: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/2766.html