I was floored, gob-smacked, truly impressed, after I read this! In how many meetings do you and I hear words such as Fatal Risks, SimOps or Accountability as being important, yet tangible changes in these areas take forever to make?

This leader has internalized these concepts and is making them happen in a timely way – he is literally animating them on site. He is following through on his commitments and concerns, conducting personal checks on critical topics, bringing relevance and meaning to pre-starts, and perhaps most importantly, building rapport and relationships with workers and supervisors.

Did I mention that this site is in South Asia where it is common for workers to avoid or “clam up” at the sight of a senior manager? On his site, the workers are pleased to see and greet him. No policy talk, platitudes or righteous mottos, blame or bs. Instead: respect, recognition, relationship.

A second example comes from a news article from the United States about Ras Baraka, the current mayor of Newark, New Jersey. Baraka is the son of a radical leader from the 1960s who was jailed repeatedly; the mayor himself is a former community activist.

Newark has been synonymous with urban failure in the USA for many years. It continues to face tremendous challenges – high crime, low budgets, difficulties in educating its youth and more.

Under Baraka’s leadership projects stalled for years are moving forward and new industries are taking root. Indicative of his approach, at a recent rally wearing a T-shirt proclaiming “We Are Newark”, he shouted to the thousands gathered there; “Everybody has a responsibility. The mayor has a responsibility, yes. The police have a responsibility, yes. But so do our fathers, so do our mothers, so do our brothers. The question is – are you living up to your responsibility?”

Baraka’s approach (like the project director in the first example above) is winning over constituents and even critics. Todd R. Clear, the provost and a professor of criminal justice at Rutgers University-Newark, confessed to having been worried about the new mayor coming in. “Now I’m really engaged, I’m all in,” he said, impressed by the mayor’s energy in dealing with crime, his willingness to enlist help and push the police and residents out of their traditional postures.