Reflections on Leadership

For my valedictory column, I decided to depart—only slightly—from land policy and offer a few thoughts about leadership and about David C. Lincoln, founder of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and Claremont Lincoln University. As with most reflections on my life, it starts with an adventure.

In the summer of 1979, I was crouching underneath a cargo helicopter in the mountains of western Montana, wrestling an 80-yard choke hitch trying to wrap it around a huge pile of freshly cut fence poles to fly them to the edge of the wilderness. The ground was shaking, the rotors were blasting pine needles and moss into my face, and I remember thinking: this is a strangely entertaining way to make a living.

I was working in range management for the U.S. Forest Service on the edge of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. We were building fences—mostly to keep grazing cattle from wandering into places where overly amorous moose and elk might take too keen an interest. Because power tools weren’t allowed in the wilderness area, we thinned stands of lodgepole pine in the nearby national forest, cut posts and poles, and staged them for helicopter lifts to build a jackleg fence across a two-mile canyon.

Among the dozens of jobs I’ve had, building fences may have been my favorite. It was hard work—exhausting in the best possible way because the results were immediate and tangible. At the end of the day, you could stand back, look across the landscape, and see proof that you had done something real—you didn’t need KPIs to measure impact.

When setting choke under a helicopter, trust isn’t theoretical. You trust the pilot not to drift, the crew not to rush the lift, and yourself not to get cleaved by steel cable. I trusted those crews completely, which says something about my judgment back then. Given the era, most of them were Vietnam veterans—pilots and door gunners who had spent their twenties flying into places where the stakes were unimaginably high. They were funny, irreverent, generous, and occasionally reckless. Every now and then, we’d hear about a crew that didn’t make it—a rescue flying too close to a cliff face, a water drop caught in thermals over a fire. It was a sobering reminder of the thin margin between routine and risk.

Forest Service work is seasonal, and in the autumn we drifted back to Missoula. I returned to school; they picked up odd jobs or collected unemployment. Every few weeks, we’d meet to share pitchers of beer and five-cent philosophy. Years later, when we had a name for it, I realized we were all managing PTSD—theirs from a misguided war, mine from a chaotic upbringing. Inevitably, somewhere between the second and third pitcher, conversation veered into metaphysics.

I wasn’t particularly religious, but I’ve always liked a good story. These guys were trying to make sense of a lot, and the Bible seemed like a good place to start. We debated the Book of Job—why would God wager with the devil and make his most loyal servant pay the price? —and other puzzles that arise when amateur scholars interpret ancient texts.

One night we landed on the New Testament. I remember saying, “There’s a lot to like about Jesus, but I always get hung up on the miracles—turning water into wine, conjuring loaves and fishes. It feels like science fiction.”

One of the guys shrugged and said something that stayed with me: “Maybe the miracles aren’t the point. Maybe they’re stories to get us to imagine what’s possible.”

We never resolved it, but I carried that question with me. Life moved on. I left Montana, finished graduate school, and about a decade later found myself on the academic job market. During an interview with Bard College, I met with Bruce Chilton, a renowned biblical scholar. For reasons I still can’t fully explain—curiosity, or perhaps poor impulse control—I told him about the conversations with helicopter crews and my skepticism about loaves and fishes.

Bruce surprised me. “In the original Aramaic,” he said, “it doesn’t say that Jesus created food out of nothing.” He explained that the text says that people came to get food, and when they left, there was more food on the table than when they arrived. Then he said, “Think about it, if you’re following a guy into the desert for who knows how long, what are the chances you wouldn’t bring some food along? What if, instead of taking food from the table, people chose to leave some of their own food for others?”

I remember replying, “Well, that is a miracle—getting people past narrow self-interest to embrace spontaneous generosity.”

Those conversations stayed with me for decades, the time it took me to realize that this habit of carrying questions—letting them sit, turning them over, letting them shape how you see the world—would eventually shape how I understood leadership. And it’s one of the reasons I felt instant kinship with David Lincoln.

David was, by all accounts, intensely curious—the kind of person who could hold a question for years without rushing to resolve it. Over time, I came to see that this willingness to live with uncertainty is fundamental to both scholarship and leadership.

Because leadership—at least the kind worth practicing—isn’t about certainty. It’s about asking questions that help others see new possibilities. It’s about creating conditions where people can do their best work together. It’s about leaving behind institutions, ideas, and relationships that are stronger than when you found them.

When I think back to that kid building fences in 1979, trying to keep a snakelike cable from dismembering him while a helicopter hovered overhead, I realize he was learning something he wouldn’t fully understand for decades. The most important parts of our lives aren’t always the jobs we hold or the titles we earn. Sometimes they’re the questions we carry—the ones that follow us quietly until, one day, they click into focus. For me, that question began in the mountains of Montana, in conversations about Jesus with helicopter crews, and it eventually found its language in scholarship and leadership.

Two lessons stayed with me.

First, there is never a bad time to ask a question in good faith. It may have been opportunistic to corner a global biblical scholar to resolve a puzzle that had nagged at me for a decade, instead of talking about my résumé. But afterwards, the department chair told me that Bruce—a notorious curmudgeon—had become my strongest advocate. For the next eight years, Bruce and I talked religion almost weekly during squash matches, when I might or might not have taken the Lord’s name in vain.

Second, the measure of good leadership is leaving more on the table than you found. And the measure of great leadership is inspiring others to leave more on the table than they found when they arrived.

I can say without reservation that I met the former during my tenure at the Lincoln Institute. Whether I met the latter is for others to decide. I know I created space—for new ideas, new leaders, new possibilities. I tried to nurture a culture of inquiry and experimentation. And I hope the community is more generous, more curious, and more hopeful than the one I encountered.

Looking back with enormous gratitude, I realize the real through-line of my career isn’t any single accomplishment. It’s the privilege of carrying questions for a long time—and of encountering people who not only help answer them, but welcome both the inquiry and the inquirer with generosity.

Whatever I’ve accomplished, I certainly haven’t done it alone.

I owe a profound debt to my wife, Tootie. Like Penelope, she waited patiently while I wandered through this Odyssey. She didn’t just keep the home fires burning, she performed miracles mostly behind the scenes: rebuilding homes, welcoming guests, and charming even the prickliest Cambridge neighbors—charm, not my strong suit. Suffice it to say, neither the President’s House nor Lincoln House would be the treasures they became without her.

I’m deeply grateful to the staff of the Lincoln Institute for their patience while I clumsily grew the organization—bolting on centers, launching new initiatives, and even “acquiring” a university. They adapted gracefully to new colleagues, new ideas, and the oppression of more structured policies and procedures.

I thank the Board of Directors for the extraordinary trust they placed in me. They gave me room to imagine the institute as the global powerhouse it is becoming and indulged more than a few of my wacky ideas along the way. Special thanks to Katie Lincoln, my partner in crime. Without her persistence, we would not have the Center for Geospatial Solutions, the Babbitt Center, or Claremont Lincoln University (CLU). And I thank Lynn Priddy and the staff of CLU for their aplomb while braiding together two fiercely independent organizations on an abbreviated time scale.  It will be worth the effort.

And finally, my thanks to David Lincoln. When we met, we talked about ethics and the possibility of building a university devoted to preparing ethical leaders. He was already pursuing the bold vision of fostering scholarship and dialogue across the Abrahamic traditions. Although David did not live to see the eventual partnership between his two institutional progeny, I believe he would be proud of what they are becoming together—and of the audacious goal of improving a billion lives by equipping leaders with the tools, knowledge, and values to transform their communities.

In the end, leadership feels a bit like standing under that helicopter—noisy, uncertain, exhilarating, and utterly dependent on trust. But when it works, it lifts far more than any of us could carry alone.

If I’ve contributed anything, I hope it is this: a culture where curiosity is safe, generosity is contagious, and there is always just a little more left on the table for whomever comes next.

George W. McCarthy is president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Lead image: Lincoln Institute CEO George W. McCarthy in conversation with board chair Katie Lincoln at Lincoln House in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2022. Credit: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.