Symbolic Leadership

As I continue to contemplate the interview with the owner of the print media I realize that she best portrays leadership through the symbolic frame.

First she describes her job as a balance where she is responsible for making her staff know and feel great pride in their work and at the same time help them understand that just because they had a good year that they should not be content, that they can’t get too confident.

She shows passion for the work as she describes what they do at the company, which each and every other staff person we interviewed felt, by saying “journalism can be a source to defeat the modern thinking, that sense of alienation.” She sees the real power of the media and wants to be that paper that provides entertainment and at the same time meaningful information.

She is sensitive to the history and culture as she was asked to lead the paper when it was created. The vision of the paper was to be a progressive, liberal voice. She didn’t want it to be just preaching to the choir but more where the feeling of Santa Barbara comes from the paper. This tradition continues to drive the paper today.

And although the sense of what to expect from the paper continues, she also wants to not be content and welcomes change. A big change or something new happened with the paper when the community experienced a series of serious fires at the same time that the local daily paper was going through trouble times with their employees. The paper wanted to stay a weekly paper but they expanded their on-line presence with daily reporting of the fire. The community responded to this new addition positively and was thankful for on-going coverage of what was going on. She is currently looking to move the paper into a new direction by creating more space for news.

Finally, as for using dramatic symbols to get people excited, this the paper excels at! Their first addition as the paper was the local heroes edition and to this day they continue the tradition. They have also started regular yearly additions for weddings, back to school, non-profit work, and a few other yearly features. As a staff, they have bagel Wednesday; if the paper exceeds 100 pages they get lunch on Thursdays, a St. Patrick’s Day stroll (instead of a parade as you need a permit for that), and numerous other moral and fun events. For the community they established the best of section for the community to vote on, the Foodie awards for the restaurants, and the Indies for local theater.

The owner is one of those leaders that through her experience in the business over the years, she worked for the New York Times, Forbes, Rolling Stones, and the Village Voice, she paid attention to the type of environment that she liked working in best and what she felt created an environment to produce the best work from talented people. This is what she brought to the paper and it has worked for the paper for over 23 years!

Meeting with the owner!

Today Monica and I met with the owner of the print media we are observing. It was a fascinating interview! Interviewing the boss last worked for us as it solidified much of what we were expecting after interviewing and observing several of the staff members.

"Is this good for the COMPANY"is a quote for the movie office space and it hangs on a banner in large letters in the production office over Megan and Sarah's desks. The owner seemed to resemble this statement as she talked about supporting staff taking time off to take advantage of professional opportunities (the CFO, who I also call the suit, calls this a benefit), how she doesn't care about the hours of the staff, they can come and go as they please as long as the work is done and excellent, and she encourages the staff to bring in their children and dogs. She recognized as the paper was getting bigger that she should no longer be the center of control and what was best for the company was for her to have them take responsibility of their own sections.

I shared with her that the interviews of her staff, which she notes that she considers them staff versus employees (the CFO calls them employees) that they express loyalty and pride for the product. She wasn't surprised and indicated that this is what she expects.

She was certainly a woman of experience and wisdom. She worked for Forbes and the New York Times in her early career only to move to The Rolling Stones and then the Village Voice where she was a managing editor that reported directly to the owners. She came to Santa Barbara with a philosophy and work ethic that she developed by paying attention to how things worked and what she felt worked best, including how the work place ran. She noticed that a rigid work week was not conducive to a creative environment and her goal was to create a progressively liberal paper.

Now it's time to sift through all my notes, come up with common themes and work with Monica to make sense of it all visually!