In his resignation memo Bruce Gordon discusses two plans stemming from what I call his “can-do leadership ethos”, or what also can be called Gordon’s “outreach-to-Black-crises-ethos.” One plan responded to the horrific Katrina Hurricane crisis and especially to massively incompetent response by President Bush’s Republican administration to the Katrina crisis, a crisis that ravaged the lives of thousands of Black families, and White families too. As Bruce Gordon informs us of his plans in his memo:
I convened a meeting of national high profile [black]leaders from across the country. The purpose of the meeting was to develop a unified position on post-Katrina government response.
Bruce Gordon also mentions in his memo a second plan that stemmed from what I call his “outreach-to-Black-crises” leadership mindset. Namely:
We initiated a Medicare Part D enrollment effort and enlisted Bill Crosby and Danny Glover to create public service announcements…
However, Bruce Gordon mentions that neither his plan for a “unified position [by black leadership groups] on post-Katrina government response”, nor his plan for a “Medicare Part D enrollment” ever got off the ground. Why?
With regard to Gordon’s first plan, he informs us that “I was faulted for attempting to ‘set policy’.” This response by elements on the NAACP National Board strikes me as bizarre because what else should an executive officer of the NAACP with first-class managerial skills like Bruce Gordon do but “set policy”? His policies or programs-of-action may prove effective or ineffective, but surely it’s his basic function “to set policy”, or at minimum “to propose policy”.
With regard to Bruce Gordon’s second plan (“Medicare Part D enrollment”), Gordon says that he was “told that this was a service initiative and we are an advocacy organization.” Furthermore, some members of the NAACP National Board even sought to influence day-to-day operation in the executive’s office. As Bruce Gordon put it:
Some Executive Committee members want to be directly involved in how I manage the staff. They want to approve organization structure. They want to make hire and fire decisions. They want to influence the vendor selection. I view that as micromanagement.
Clearly, the former NAACP executive officer experienced what might be called a “condition of systemic disarray” during his two-year tenure. Something equivalent to micromanagement-run-amok generated this “condition of systemic disarray” during Bruce Gordon’s brief reign as executive officer of the NAACP.
When reading Bruce Gordon’s resignation memo, I took special interest in how the former NAACP executive officer evaluated his sometimes quite testy policy battles with the NAACP National Board. In this regard, I was quite surprised to encounter in Gordon’s resignation memo evidence of something I would call “high-order gentlemanliness” about the man. Rather than enter a kind of face-off defense of his policy initiatives and thus a face-off critique of the opponents of his policy positions, Bruce Gordon reports in a non-judgmental manner on the policy-fissure between himself and a majority on the NAACP National Board. Here’s how Gordon put it:
I have come to accept that my view of my role and the association’s role is not aligned with the board. I am willing to accept that our points of view regarding governance and strategic direction are in conflict. This is not about right and wrong…this is about difference.
After this fair-minded and even-handed reporting of a serious policy fault-line between the NAACP executive officer and presumably the majority on the NAACP National Board, Bruce Gordon’s summary observation in his resignation memo sustained a fair-minded argumentative posture, one that was even self-critical. Here’s how Gordon put it:
We can agree to disagree. We also could have found a way to blend the best of our respective points of view but in 19 months that did not happen. It could be said that this is all about a failure to communicate. I agree. Maybe we can all learn something from this experience. I have written more than I intended. Hopefully you now know more about what happened and why.
The concluding section of Bruce Gordon’s presentation of policy differences between him and the NAACP’s National Board reinforced my view of him as a fair-minded administrator. First, he told the NAACP National Board that his “public statements [following his resignation] have not involved any “finger pointing”. He then made reference to his interview on the PBS Television Tavis Smiley Program, an interview which I saw and considered resplendent with evidence of what I view as Bruce Gordon’s “high-order gentlemanliness.” Here’s how Gordon characterized his Tavis Smiley interview:
My public statements [since resigning] have not involved finger pointing. I have been consistent in my position that this decision is about “lack of alignment" and not about “right and wrong.” My interview with Tavis Smiley and Soledad O’Brien have been balanced and accountable. My assessment was validated by an e-mail from Chairman [Julian] Bond regarding the Tavis interview that said: “By all reports, you were magnificent on the [Smiley] show tonight.”
The evaluation of Bruce Gordon’s interview with Tavis Smiley by Julian Bond (BC Editorial Board member), chair of the NAACP National Board, was right-on-target. I saw Bruce Gordon’s interview with Tavis Smiley and I can report that his performance and comportment were supremely magnificent. There is another aspect of Bruce Gordon’s fair-minded leadership persona worthy of mention. Namely, nowhere in his resignation memo did Gordon identify the NAACP chairperson, Julian Bond, as part of the National Board members who opposed his policy initiatives.
