County Commission | The Magazine August 2017 | Page 6

THE COUNTY LINE
S
Sonny Brasfield
Executive Director
Leadership in
unexpected
places
In times of stress, we
need leadership –
not panic and
finger pointing
6 | COUNTY COMMISSION
ometimes it takes a little
leadership – even from
unexpected places.
Time was ticking away on
a sidewalk in Columbus, Ohio.
Escambia County Commissioner
Larry White and I were pacing
around, watching a gathering mob.
Our luggage was inside the trunk of
a taxi, with the engine running and
the keys locked in the ignition. After
just a few short minutes, a dozen
taxi drivers had stopped to help with
the situation.
The usual approach to solving
such a problem – using a twisted
coat hanger to unlock the driver's
door – had failed miserably. Failed,
in fact, over and over. The guys
with the coat hangers had finally
given up and driven away. And the
opportunity to make it to the airport
in time to get home before midnight
was slipping away too.
Then the driver of another taxi
decided that if he untwisted the
car's radio antenna, it might be stiff
enough to push the "unlock" button
on the armrest of the driver’s seat.
This effort, too, proved unsuccessful.
The shouts of ideas grew louder.
Call the police. Break out a
window. Find a locksmith.
Each idea was screamed in the
direction of the driver, who was
clearly at the center of a problem he
was unprepared to solve.
All the while, Larry and I
wondered if anyone understood the
real problem. We were simply two
guys from Alabama, minding their
own business, who wanted to get
home. And, to be honest, both of
us had decided that we’d leave the
luggage in the trunk if someone
would get us to the airport on time.
Then, some leadership
showed up.
An Alabama county engineer
and a friend we've made over the
years from Minnesota strolled
down the sidewalk and calmly took
over the project. The fella from
Minnesota sized up the situation and
took the antenna from one of the
screaming taxi drivers. He refocused
the efforts to the passenger side
of the car, altered the approach of
his plan and, somehow, tuned out
the screaming chaos around him.
Within three minutes, the car was
unlocked and the crisis was over.
It just takes a little leadership.
For more than 30 minutes,
several taxi drivers (and other
passers-by) had frantically tried to
solve the problem by shouting out
ideas, directing traffic and blaming
the driver who had locked the keys
in the car. Trouble is, in times of
stress, we need leadership – not
panic and finger pointing.
Today, many objective observers
would say communities in Alabama
face the same kind of crisis that
Larry and I encountered in
Columbus. The leaders of Alabama
have frantically searched for some
easy solution that does not require
any of us to invest very much in our
communities. We’ve finger pointed,
shouted obvious ideas and created
discord among folks that should be
allies. And, like the gathering crowd
of taxi drivers, we have quickly
proven ourselves to be ineffective.
What we need now, of course,
is for some leadership to stroll down
the sidewalk. The kind of leadership
that sizes up the problem, discounts
the usual solutions and gets us all
on the road to the airport.