Forrest and Dwight: Why do others follow?

Forrest Gump is one of my favorite movies.  In it, Forrest’s mother dies and so he decides to go running.  What follows is a lengthy clip of him running from coast to coast numerous times.  After a period of time, people start to take notice of this strange Alabamian running around the country.  What follows are several scenes where others begin to run with him, one individual even saying that he would follow Mr. Gump anywhere.  Dozens more join Forrest, who by now is sporting a beard.  The sequence culminates with Forrest, looking like something out of “The Revenant”, stopping on a lonely road in Utah.  Someone in the crowd of runners calls for silence because Forrest is about to lay down some earth-shattering thought, some deep philosophical statement.  Instead, the crowd hears that the one they have been following for days, months, and years, is tired and is going to go home now.  I love what one of them says; “Great, now what are we supposed to do?”  What indeed.  The bottom just dropped out their world.  But Forrest had every right to want to go home.  He had run for three years, two months, fourteen days, and sixteen hours.  I run and I am ready to quit after about an hour.  I cannot imagine running for 28,072 hours.  Of course, he slept, ate, and …went (code word for going to the bathroom), as he tells the elderly woman on the bench.  But still, that was a long time.

No one, not even Forrest, could explain why runners (who apparently had nothing better to do than run around the country with a complete stranger) were drawn to him.  But they were.  Attraction is a curious thing.  Men and women are attracted to each other; newly washed cars attract rain storms; moths are attracted to light; my clothes attract the dog’s hair.  Some things can be rationalized, others cannot.

Leaders attract too.  For some unknown reason, individuals see great leadership and want to be near the action.  There is probably some scientific theory that seeks to explain it.  But in the end, it is likely a combination of things…kind of like a recipe.  Heap in the inspiration; pour in honesty; measure in humility; add transparency and integrity; stir in commitment, hope, accountability, and compassion.  Then, and only then, do you begin to formulate what it is that makes up a leader.

General Eisenhower reflected these same kind of traits.  Now, he was not perfect – no one is, except Jesus.  But, one of my favorite leadership stories has General Eisenhower sitting down to write a letter detailing the beginning of Operation Overlord – the D-Day invasion.  In the letter he outlines his confidence in success because of the past work of the men on the ground, the Airmen overhead, and those on the home front building the tanks, ships and aircraft.  In other words, success occurred not because of his wisdom, strategy, or the stars on his shoulder.  General Eisenhower also penned a second, briefer message in case the operation proved a failure.  In this message, Eisenhower took a few sentences to explain that the invasion failed, not because of the troops, the Navy, nor the Airmen, because they did all they could do.  The blame was all on him.  In other words, the mission failed because he did not lead well enough.  Now that is integrity.  That is the kind of thing that attracts individuals and causes them to want to follow another.

Great leaders know the importance of integrity.  They know that without it, they are on a lonely journey.  In the tenth chapter of the book of Proverbs, verse nine states, “Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.”  It is natural to want to feel secure in your mission, your work, your everything.  Proverbs reminds us that security is unquestionably linked to integrity.

We never really find out why all of those people started to run with Forrest.  I guess the director did not feel it was important to the storyline.  It was, after all, a fictional movie.  One thing that is not fiction though is the relationship between great leadership and integrity.  They go hand-in-hand.  If you become a leader with integrity you will find security.  If you become a leader with integrity, you will find others following you anywhere, coast to coast or maybe even on a road in Utah.