Leading by Example After the Votes Are Counted
The Power of Role Modeling at Home and Work
There’s little doubt that most of us will have strong reactions—ranging from relief and joy to fear, anger, and despair—when the election results are announced.
In fact, the stakes in this election are so significant that many people say they are unwilling to let themselves think about a scenario in which their favored candidate does not win.
The tension is, of course, underscored by how close the polls suggest the race to be.
But I have an anticipatory bent. For example, I’m the kind of person who processes a milestone birthday months before it occurs, and I find this helps me be at my best on the big day.
In a similar albeit far more substantial spirit, I’ve been imagining the moment the results come and (while continuing to work like hell for the best outcome) reflecting on how I want to be able to respond if the worst occurs.
After all, how we respond to significant events—as leaders, parents, educators, friends, family members, and colleagues—affects others. Put another way:
Personal modeling shapes the character development of those around us—colleagues, children, friends—more powerfully than any public figure ever can.
Research reveals several reasons for this, including the power of proximity, relatability, and consistency. The people we are in regular relationships with may not have more influence over the state of the world than people in positions of great power. But they do have a greater influence on the state of our character—our values, ethics, emotions, and more.
The trick, as Christy Guleserian, executive director of principled innovation at Arizona State University, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, recently wrote in Greater Good Magazine, is to be intentional about our influence on those around us—and about the impact those around us have on us.
“It’s essential to have exemplars in our lives who model the individual practices that contribute to the development of character and who also demonstrate the type of honesty and humility that authentic self-reflection requires,” she writes.
Why personal role modeling matters—arguably now more than ever
None of this suggests that the very real consequences of this unprecedented U.S. election will not matter greatly. We know the state of our democracy, women’s health, the planet, and more are on the line. But I do want to suggest that after the votes are counted, we still have a powerful role to play in our own circles—especially if the results do not go our way.
In workplaces, how we respond as leaders can affect the ability of those around us to process the fallout, reconnect with purpose, and re-imagine the next steps.
It also matters deeply and perhaps most poignantly in families, especially where young people just voted for the first time or are old enough to be aware of the stakes in this election.
After all, the benefits of positive role models for young people are clear.
In a 2022 study, physicians from the Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and other institutions found that adolescents who reported strong, positive role models within their personal lives had higher self-esteem, resilience, and a stronger sense of purpose than those primarily inspired by public figures.
And in times as uncertain as these—when most young people are already worried about the state of the world—it is all the more important to model a healthy, loving, resilient way of being.
Ways to be a positive role model in challenging times
How, then, do we do this in the context of this momentous election? Here are three things to consider.
1. Anticipate your response to the potential for an unwelcome result.
As a leader, it is especially important to do this in the context of your particular team or organization. Are they as polarized as the nation? Then, you must find a way to help them come together around a unified purpose. If they are uniformly disappointed, there will be different work to do.
Please DM me if you’d like to receive my new white paper or chat about my facilitation offerings to help with this in 2025.
As a parent, giving some thought to this in advance can also help you prepare and, to the greatest extent possible, be a safe harbor for your children. I don’t mean to imply we should hide our emotions. (See #2 below.) But with children, it is important to be both real and resilient.
2. Allow for the authentic expression of emotions.
As psychologist Miriam Greenspan observes in her book Healing through the Dark Emotions, we have less reason to be afraid of reckoning with our “dark” emotions than we do of avoiding them. Fear, anger, grief, and despair will lead us somewhere better if we give them space. Squashing them will not.
3. Think about a role model of your own.
A role model could come in the form of an extraordinary person from history, such as Harriet Tubman, who freed some 70 enslaved people as conductor of the Underground Railroad, or Sir Nicholas Winton, who saved 669 children from the Nazis.
It could be an ordinary hero in your own life.
Or it could be a grounding idea that inspires you. This one from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks to me now: “We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.”
In the end, I sincerely hope that these reflections prove wildly unnecessary, that we do turn the page, and that we get on with the vital work of solving the challenges before us and leaving the next generation a better world.
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