In a single day, three leaders in their fields revealed serious health problems that posed tough personal choices and potentially devastating challenges to their careers. All three described how they had taken bold steps to deal with their problems and then offered revelations that could have proven damaging. They demonstrated great courage and leadership through their openness, using their public stature to draw attention to issues that warrant public scrutiny.
In a New York Times op ed yesterday, superstar actress Angelina Jolie, 37, described how she carries the BRCA1 gene which, her doctors said, put her at an 87% risk of developing breast cancer, and a 50% risk of getting ovarian cancer. Having lost her mother at age 56, Jolie took the bold and controversial step of having both of her breasts removed. This was a striking move for a woman who has built her career on her physical beauty. She described her surgeries in some detail, including how “the breast tissue is removed and temporary fillers are put in place . . . You wake up with drain tubes and expanders in your breasts.” Jolie wrote that her chances of developing breast cancer have now dropped to less than 5%. “I do not feel any less of a woman,” she said. “I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.”
Also yesterday, Christine Quinn, speaker of New York’s city council and candidate for mayor, gave an interview to the New York Times’s Kate Taylor where she described her history of bulimia and alcoholism. As a teenager trying to cope with her mother’s illness and then death from breast cancer, Quinn, in an effort to gain a sense of control over her life, forced herself to vomit after nearly every meal. To further dull the pain, she drank, developing a problem she later realized was alcoholism. Quinn eventually sought help, going into rehab, getting therapy for her bulimia and ultimately quitting drinking altogether. “All of that helped me put the pieces back together,” she told the Times. For a candidate seeking a post as demanding and unrelenting as mayor of New York City, it took courage to reveal what had been weak and broken about her personality.
Page is a somewhat different story, since his health problems, vocal cord paralysis and a condition called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, are much more rare than breast cancer, bulimia or alcoholism, and not life-threatening. But his health problems did threaten the career of a very public CEO, who must frequently speak publicly as the leader of one of America’s biggest companies. His audiences had been wondering for some time why his voice was so thin and soft. Now Page has stepped up and explained, in a Google+ post, how over a period of 14 years, vocal cords on both sides of his throat became paralyzed and he was diagnosed with a thyroid problem. Like Jolie and Quinn, Page is upbeat about his prognosis, saying his vocal cords have healed and his voice is getting stronger. He’s bringing public attention to a relatively rare health problem and also funding an institute that will try to come up with a cure for the malady.
What leadership lessons can we learn from these revelations?
1. Deal with your problem bravely and conclusively. Jolie, Quinn and Page all confronted their health problems and got treatment.
2. Come clean and be forthright about what could be perceived as skeletons in your closet. Instead of leaving the public and the media to speculate about what might be wrong with them, they explained their conditions in detail and described their treatment. In Quinn’s case, her bulimia and alcoholism are well in the past. A skeptical observer might suggest that she was trying to get ahead of issues before they surfaced in a rough campaign. If that’s true, it’s still laudable that she was so forthcoming about her weaknesses.
3. Invite a public discussion. This is the most valuable lesson. Jolie points out that for most women, the $3,000 cost of getting the test for the breast cancer gene is prohibitive. She is sparking a conversation about how less affluent women can get the test and become more informed about their choices. Quinn’s revelations are stimulating more discourse about eating disorders and alcoholism. Those topics, especially alcoholism, have been much discussed, but a compelling personal narrative always makes the conversation more meaningful. In today’s Times, Quinn’s interviewer, Kate Taylor, published a piece about her own struggle with an eating disorder, anorexia. (Taylor has also edited a book about eating disorders, Going Hungry.)
In the past, public figures hid their maladies. Franklin Roosevelt, crippled from polio, tried never to be seen standing or being pushed in a wheelchair from one spot to another. John F. Kennedy was in constant back pain from Addison’s disease but kept it mostly private.
Betty Ford pioneered a shift to public disclosure in the 1970s with her very public revelations about her alcoholism and her honesty about her mastectomy.
Nowadays we are not surprised when public figures go public with their illnesses, like Good Morning America host Robin Roberts’ battle with breast cancer and then the MDS (myelodysplastic syndrome) that resulted from her therapy. After bluster and defensiveness about his weight, New Jersey governor Chris Christie has been refreshingly honest about his lap band surgery and his commitment to shed pounds. Yet there are also plenty of public figures who keep their illnesses under wraps, like Steve Jobs did as he succumbed to cancer. Jobs’ decisions stirred plenty of controversy, of course, since the fortunes of a public company were at stake. Though I think he was entitled to his privacy, I also believe we are all made richer when public figures take their health struggles public.