It’s Yours for a Season
This article is part of Finding the Words, a newsletter that delivers practical insights on the day’s issues.
Ike Anand spent roughly two decades in technology, fifteen of them at Expedia, before joining ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. So, when my recent conversation with him on the Mission Forward podcast turned to AI, I expected he'd tell me all about how he uses the technology.
Instead, he started with how he won't use it.
Ike stepped into his seat as president and CEO of ALSAC about a year ago, just as every institution was scrambling to make sense of AI in the workplace. He's embraced AI adoption for his team, where it makes the work better. But he's also drawn a clear and deliberate line around the areas where AI won't show up, such as in donor engagement and interaction. Simply put, the everyday human aspects of their mission are sacred, and AI has no place in them.
Listening to Ike, I picked up on a conviction about AI usage that I haven't heard from many other mission-driven leaders in recent months. Maybe it's his tech background, or maybe it's how he has chosen to apply his leadership principles to this season of life.
Because if you look closer, you'll find that my interview with Ike, while focused on AI, wasn't really about AI at all. It was about the organizations we carry, sometimes for a season and sometimes much longer, and how we choose to hold them while they're in our care.
As Ike shared with me, "I am carrying the load of this brand for a period of time...I want to deliver it in good condition to the next person."
That sentiment is one he takes very seriously, and it comes through in how he chooses to lead through AI adoption, or any issue that emerges, for that matter.
Ike doesn't change how he leads by issue, day, or season. Instead, he leads consistently through a set of four principles, which are, as he shared with me:
Get a little bit better every day, because as he puts it, you're not competing against anybody except yourself, and the race is long.
Data-driven decision making. Decisions are made better through the lens of data. At ALSAC, they test, learn, and apply what they're learning to "get a little bit better every day." (See Principle 1!)
Freedom within a framework can help you define what people are responsible for and then trust them to lead in ways that are best for them within that framework.
Lead with context, not control. It's a line he borrowed from Netflix's co-founder, Reed Hastings, as a reminder to give people the whole picture, not just the narrow slice you think they might need to do their job well.
Truth is, we're all carrying something for a season: a role, a team, a relationship, a mission. And what we do while it's in our care really matters.
Leadership principles don't make the hard seasons easier, but they can make them navigable. They can also keep us grounded, human, and intentional when so much around us is in flux.
When it comes to Ike's principles, he also made it clear that they are his alone. He doesn't ask his team to live by them as he does, but by using them as his tool to inform his leadership approach, he creates a healthy space for others to lead and show up with their own principles, too.
Get a little better every day.
Carry it well.
Hand it off in good condition.
And whenever possible, as one of my own core principles goes, leave it better than you found it.
Bottom Line: We rarely own the things we lead. More likely, we're stewarding them forward for a season. So, look closer at what’s in your care right now. Then, name the principles that have guided—or will guide—how you choose to lead. Because the measure of how well we carry our organizations forward isn't in what we take, but in what we leave behind.
Many thanks to Ike Anand for the thought-provoking conversation. If you'd like to listen to the full conversation, you can find it here.
This post is part of the Finding The Words column, a series published every Wednesday that delivers a dose of communication insights direct to your inbox. If you like what you read, we hope you’ll subscribe to ensure you receive this each week.
