By Dennis A. Rondinelli, Kenan-Flagler Business School, UNC Chapel Hill
and Timothy M. Maniccia, Policy Innovation LLC

About the Authors: Dennis A. Rondinelli is the Glaxo Distinguished International Professor of Management at the Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill. Timothy M. Maniccia is the founder of Policy Innovation LLC, a policy and strategic-management consulting firm based in Albany, New York.

INTRODUCTION

Leadership often emerges in unexpected places from unexpected events. A stunned nation marveled at the multitude of heroes and leaders among New York City police and firefighters and among ordinary people going about their business in lower Manhattan on the bright, clear, warm morning of September 11, 2001. Charismatic leadership, quiet leadership, and servant leadership were all manifested by police and firemen who risked their lives to lead others trapped in the burning World Trade Center to safety, and by those who treated the wounded in hospitals and makeshift clinics. Those who comforted the anxious and calmed the confused as smoke and ashes covered them on streets surrounding a collapsing World Trade Center were also leaders. Unexpected leadership always seems to emerge in disasters, but it is even more urgently needed as the immediate horrors of disaster fade in the face of continuing challenges of readjustment and rebuilding.

A true test of leadership will be given to government officials and executives of civic and business organizations who participate in rebuilding the site of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. Will they have the vision to see beyond the rubble of the destroyed WTC -- and, indeed, beyond New York City -- and rebuild lower Manhattan into a national monument to those whose lives were sacrificed there and to the hopes of those who survived?

Much will depend on the leadership abilities of those who take up the task. Nearly all concepts of leadership include the ability to articulate a vision and mobilize the resources needed to achieve widely shared goals. (Footnote 1) Vision is one of the most enduring characteristics of leadership. Its importance was identified as early as Biblical times. Proverbs (29: 18) warns us that "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Modern pundits and academics alike identify vision as an essential element of leadership. James MacGregor Burns emphasizes that "successful leadership points in a direction; it is also the vehicle of continuing and achieving purpose." (Footnote 2) Warren Bennis contends that leadership provides a vision of meaning and direction. (Footnote 3) King and Cleland note that leaders forge unanimity of purpose and provide a focal point for action through the articulation of vision. (Footnote 4)

True leadership in the wake of the World Trade Center disaster calls for rebuilding lower Manhattan with a vision that engages the support and enthusiasm of the American people. Over the next few years the United States Congress will appropriate billions of dollars to help rebuild lower Manhattan. If national funds are used in the rebuilding effort, should not the rebuilding be done with a national vision? Restoring enough confidence in the area so that investors will commit the substantial amounts of money that will be needed to replace infrastructure destroyed on September 11 requires more than plans for just constructing new buildings.

Government and business leaders in New York will find their tasks increasingly complicated by parochial, fragmented and conflicting interests. Policy makers will need to reconstruct one of the most valuable and symbolic pieces of real estate in the world to take advantage of its strategic business location while at the same time honoring those whose lives were sacrificed there.

The debate thus far seems to be over the type and size of buildings to replace the twin towers. Federal, state, and local political leaders should be thinking about a broader vision for how Manhattan and the New York metropolitan area will compete in the global economy. Replacing infrastructure, constructing needed office space, and creating a memorial at "ground zero" may be necessary but they are not sufficient. Governor George Pataki has announced the creation of the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation and Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed numerous projects, but no one has yet articulated a compelling vision that is the mark of great leadership.

A NATIONAL VISION FOR REBUILDING LOWER MANHATTAN

Despite the destruction of the World Trade Center, the New York metropolitan area remains one of America’s most important centers of global commerce, trade, and finance. The New York State Assembly Ways & Means Committee points out that the area surrounding the World Trade Center accounted for 99,200 private sector jobs and $13.8 billion in wages in 2000. The finance, insurance, and real estate sector made up close to 58 percent of those jobs and 82 percent of those wages. This sector, so vital to the competitiveness of the metropolitan area and to the nation as a whole, was clearly concentrated at ground zero.

The rebuilding of the World Trade Center site should attract and accommodate economic activities that strengthen the role not only of the New York metropolitan area but of the entire nation, in international trade and services. That is what the World Trade Center symbolized and that is one of the most important roles that New York City plays in the American economy. (Footnote 5)

As federal, state and local policymakers and business leaders struggle with the issue of "what should replace the World Trade Center," the debate should extend well beyond arguments over the type, size and height of structures to replace the Twin Towers. Rebuilding lower Manhattan offers a unique opportunity to reconstruct a strategic area of the city in ways that will attract and nurture economic activities that strengthen the role of the entire New York metropolitan area in global commerce. In so doing, New York would reinforce Americans' abiding belief in the values of international trade, economic opportunity and social progress that the Twin Towers symbolized and that the terrorists tried to profane.

September 11's horrendous terrorist attacks may have been on New York and Washington, but all of America suffered the consequences. Governor George Pataki appropriately declared not only Manhattan but also a surrounding ten-county region a disaster area. The fifty thousand people who worked in the World Trade Center commuted from Northern, Central, and Southern New Jersey, Southern Connecticut, Eastern Pennsylvania, the northern suburbs, and Long Island. The rebuilding of lower Manhattan must, therefore, be a symbol for the New York metropolitan area and for an entire nation that was profoundly affected by the World Trade Center disaster.

The facilities built on the site of the World Trade Center should attract and accommodate economic activities that strengthen the role of the entire metropolitan area in international trade and services. The vision for reconstruction should focus on what must be done to strengthen New York as a global center of commerce. The mission should be to provide the resources and infrastructure that allow the New York metropolitan area to continue to attract internationally competitive firms, generate technological innovation, develop better-educated and higher-skilled workers, and provide modern transportation and communications infrastructure.

Contrary to popular opinion, the intensive use of advanced information and communications technology has not undermined the importance of geographic location for businesses and face-to-face interaction for business leaders. It is now widely accepted that the rapid advances in telecommunications and the worldwide use of the Internet will not liberate businesses from the necessity of geographic proximity and interaction. (Footnote 6) While everyone knows of a business that has closed to reduce costs by moving from an expensive area to a cheaper one, this has not dramatically changed the geography of economic activity. Why? Because information and communications technologies make information easier and cheaper to share, but do not necessarily generate knowledge. Knowledge creation and distribution often take place through personal interaction, and they are at the core of the kinds of economic activity that public and private sector organizations need to support.

The assertion that innovation -- the use of knowledge in economically useful ways -- is the key to the success of firms and metropolitan areas in a global economy is no longer controversial. Technological innovation accounts for more than 80 percent of the recent productivity growth in advanced economies. To maintain its world-class status and a crossroads of American trade, the New York metropolitan area must provide the services and facilities that attract and sustain innovation-enhancing investments -- modern transportation and communications infrastructure, high technology businesses, internationally recognized educational institutions, and world-class service providers.

Facilitating innovation involves complex interactions between firms and their external environment, means constructing new facilities that provide the services and support needed by firms seeking to create and develop the next generation of technological advances in all of the areas of commerce and services in which the New York metropolitan area excels.

New York faced complex regional challenges, including transportation of people and goods, air quality, a shortage of affordable office space, and opportunities for world trade and commerce, long before September 11. Disaster provides government and business leaders in New York a new chance to address these regional problems in proposals to reconstruct an area that has become known around the world as "ground zero."

THINK GLOBAL CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Despite the destruction of the World Trade Center, New York remains one of the world's most important centers of global commerce, trade, and finance. The facilities built on the site of the World Trade Center should attract and accommodate economic activities that strengthen the role of the entire metropolitan area in international trade and services. In order to remain a global center of commerce, the New York metropolitan area must continue to attract internationally competitive firms, generate technological innovation, develop better-educated and higher-skilled workers, and provide modern transportation and communications infrastructure.

AN INCUBATOR OF TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION

Innovation is an essential characteristic of leadership and a driving force for the creation of a new vision. Innovation is also the key to the success of firms and metropolitan areas in an era of globalization. (Footnote 7) Technological innovation accounts for more than 80 percent of the recent productivity growth in advanced economies. To maintain its world-class status, the New York metropolitan area must provide the services and facilities that attract and sustain innovation-enhancing investments. Innovation involves complex interactions between firms and their external environment.

Why not rebuild lower Manhattan as a regional incubator of technological, financial, and managerial innovation? Why not construct new facilities that provide the services and support needed by firms seeking to create and develop the next generation of technological advances in all of the areas of commerce and services in which New York excels?

Notwithstanding the incredible advances in information and communications technology over the past decade, the most important factor driving the development and exchange of knowledge remains face-to-face interaction. The new center of global commerce should be designed to create public and private spaces where people dreaming of the next generation of technology can meet, interact, and exchange ideas.

A TEST-BED FOR ADVANCED TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

A global center of commerce needs modern and efficient physical infrastructure. Rebuilding lower Manhattan must be done in a way that overcomes the metropolitan area's increasingly serious shortcomings in transportation and communications infrastructure. Proposals to dredge New York harbor so it can remain competitive with deeper natural harbors in Halifax and Virginia, building a cargo tunnel to make better use of the Brooklyn waterfront, and extending the PATH train to make it easier for people to work in downtown Brooklyn should all be reconsidered as part of redevelopment plans for lower Manhattan. Why not make this area the test-bed for intelligent highway systems that will be so essential to move goods and people among the emerging multimodal transportation hubs along the East Coast?

Why not develop new road systems in and around lower Manhattan with sensors and communication devices that link with vehicles and guide them along fully automated highways. Automated highway systems can accommodate larger numbers of vehicles by standardizing traffic speeds and vehicle distances, improving safety, and eliminating hazards of poor weather. Why not develop new high-speed railway trains from Manhattan to all of the regions from which people will commute to the new global center of commerce?

The communications equipment damaged or destroyed by the September 11 attack should be also replaced with the most advanced technological systems available. Manhattan will remain a national and world center of finance. Processing financial transactions is now largely a function of information and communications technology, and New York will require the most advanced systems of communications to remain competitive.

A CENTER FOR DEVELOPING HUMAN RESOURCES

Finally, to reconstruct a center of global commerce at the site of the World Trade Center will require a new emphasis on facilities that provide education and training. The new center of global commerce must have educational facilities that will give all of the region's population the chance to improve their livelihoods, and their lives, in a complex international economy.

Why not ask the nation’s colleges and universities to pull together in a cooperative effort to make available their best and brightest professors -- and New York's largest and most global firms to provide their most experienced executives -- to create and teach in a new American institution of higher education that prepares the next generation of young Americans for leadership roles in global commerce and diplomacy? Why not make the educational facilities of lower Manhattan a beacon of international knowledge that shines as brightly as the Statue of Liberty?

LEADERSHIP, VISION AND NATIONAL PURPOSE

Management theorist Peter Drucker’s observation that the inadequate thought given by business leaders to their organization’s mission "is perhaps the most important single cause of business frustration," certainly applies to metropolitan and national economies as well. (Footnote 8) The public and private sector leaders working together to rebuild the WTC site must articulate a vision of how the New York Metropolitan Area will compete in the global economy. But they must also see clearly the real and symbolic roles of New York in the American economy. Articulating a vision is often the starting point in the leadership process. (Footnote 9) Without a vision -- a sense of purpose and direction -- leaders lack the motivators to convince special interests to see the mutual benefits of embracing a larger mission. (Footnote 10) Kotter tells us that successful transformations require leaders who know how to engage their followers in the tasks of articulating and participating in pursuing a vision of the future, translating the vision into a mission, and mobilizing the resources to achieve their objectives. (Footnote 11) The lack of a broader vision will lead to the same frustration in New York City -- and indeed, in the nation as a whole -- that Drucker describes for businesses. And that frustration, in turn, could lower living standards for many people in New York City, the New York Metropolitan Area, and the American economy.

The old Chinese proverb that "every crisis brings opportunity" should be the driving force for the vision of reconstructing lower Manhattan as a center of national and global commerce. New York should construct a monument to those who perished on September 11 by rebuilding the area around "ground zero" in ways that will pay tribute to the city's historic role as a national center of global trade and as the crossroads of international commerce. In doing so, New York will confirm America's enduring values of economic and political freedom and international leadership.

References:

1. J. Thomas Wren, (ed) The Leader’s Companion: Insights on Leadership Through the Ages, New York: Free Press, 1995.

2. James MacGregor Burns, Leadership, (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1978): 45.

3. Warren Bennis, "The Leadership Advantage," Leader to Leader, No. 12 , Spring 1999.

4. W.R. King and D.I. Cleland, Strategic Planning and Policy, New York: VanNostrand Reinhold, 1979.

5. Dennis A. Rondinelli, "Making Metropolitan Areas Competitive and Sustainable in the New Economy," Journal of Urban Technology, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2001): 1-21.

6. Dennis A. Rondinelli, "Metropolitan Areas as Global Crossroads: Moving People, Goods and Information in the International Economy," in Richard E. Hanley (ed.) Moving People, Goods and Information, New York and London: Taylor & Francis/Spon Press, 2002): in press.

7. Dennis A. Rondinelli, "Technology Policies and Regional Economic Development: Strategy for the 21st Century," in P. Conseicao, D. Gibson, H. Heitor, G. Sirilli and F. Veloso (eds.) Knowledge for Inclusive Development, Westport CT and London: Quorum Books, 2002): Chapter 11.

8. Peter F. Drucker, The Essential Drucker, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001: p. 24.

9. Gill R. Hickman, (ed.) Leading Organizations: Perspectives for a New Era, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998.

10. James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, The Leadership Challenge, San Francisco, CA: JosseyBass Publishers, 1995.

11. John P. Kotter, What Leaders Really Do, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999.