As we ease into the New Year, I’ve been reflecting on family. A story on CBS Sunday Morning yesterday took me back to a post from the first year of our blog written in honor of my grandma “Honey,” Martha Roberts. The broadcast story centered on the artist and sculptor Hank Willis Thomas, who spoke of his grandmother during a segment about his huge bronze sculpture, “The Embrace,” scheduled for unveiling in Boston Common on Friday, 1/13/23. Thomas won a city-wide competition to create a monument to racial equality and chose an image that represented the love between Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King Jr. The moment commemorated in the sculpture, when Dr. King and Coretta Scott embrace after hearing that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize, represented to Willis Thomas the teamwork possible when we embrace with shared commitment and love.

This monument in the public square, a rare public dedication to love, is full, says the artist, of the spirit of his late grandmother, Ruth Willis, who recently died at the age of 100. “She lived a masterful life. She was and is a divine spirit, who has been my guide,” he said. As Bill Withers song, “Grandma’s Hands” played during the segment, associations arose . . . cultural psychologist Resmaa Menakem’s My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies . . . and Dianne Reeves’ “Better Days,” in honor of her grandmother.

*Hank Willis Thomas and his grandmother, Ruth Willis*

Now for my own tribute to my grandma, Missionary Martha Roberts.

Tribute to Grandma: Quilting Leadership

Self-leadership is like being a quilter.

Like threading a needle, developing yourself, growing your sound to sing your unique song, takes focus and practice. Thread by thread, patch by patch, you weave together yourself as a leader.

In my ancestral tradition, folks like my Grandma Honey quilted, generation after generation, from slavery times through Jim Crow to the days of the Civil Rights Movement. My grandma, whose married name was Martha Roberts, was a woman sanctified in dedication. “You must have faith,” she’d emphasize. Be patient. As Dianne Reeves says in her poignant song: “Better Days” are ahead.

Holy=Becoming Whole

As well, my grandma strove for holiness.

Holiness ain’t just about “purity,” a desire for perfection, becoming “white as snow.” No. Holiness is also about becoming whole. To become whole, when broken by trauma, when kicked, rebuked and scorned by injustice, and when harassed by the blues, isn’t easy.

Neither is great leadership.

Great leadership is like designing patterns of the good, the true, and the beautiful into a harmonious whole. That’s what true leaders strive to do.

Self-Leadership

Self-leadership is the first pattern of the quilt, the first step on the road to leadership. I happen to know from (smh) experience that trying to lead others when you can barely lead yourself is a path to dysfunction.

Mind you, it takes much time and effort to weave the pattern of self-leadership to attain the quilt of self-mastery. Sometimes you gotta speak up when you’re shy, or listen deeper from the heart when the habit is yap, yap, yap from the ego. Peter Drucker, a grandmaster scholar of modern management, once said that “Listening (the first competence of leadership) is not a skill, it is a discipline. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut.”

Touch, taste, patient practice, perseverance, and close listening are necessary to cultivate the (so-called) soft skills of emotional intelligence. These also ground self-leadership in these times of peril and possibility.

Missionary Martha Roberts

My Grandma Honey was a missionary in a holiness Pentecostal church based in Brooklyn, with branches down South, including Ludowici, a very small town where my mom was born in Long County, Georgia. After grandma’s husband, my grandaddy Kermit Roberts, died from a heart attack in 1973, her elder peers called her Miss Martha or Sister Martha. Her missionary work was her leadership service on behalf of the church and the Lord. But she wasn’t a big proselytizer. She mainly let her life and light shine as an example for others.

She spoke softly and lived modestly. Grandma loved gospel groups and singers such as the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Soul Stirrers, Shirley Caeser, James Cleveland, and, most of all, Mahalia Jackson, who inspired hope in an entire people when she sang “Move On Up A Little Higher” and “How I Got Over.”

When she, my mom, Ida Thomas, and the young me would take walks on streets near Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, they’d hold my hand tightly so I, a young ball of energy, wouldn’t run off into the traffic. Grandma Honey would substitute the Southern vernacular word “hockey” for feces when steering me, leading me, away from stepping in dog poop. When exasperated by some secular or racial nonsense she’d intone shuurr when what she meant was the profane word for excrement.

As a woman of the church, she was disciplined with her tongue and speech. As a quilter, she was patient with her fingers and her hands to weave patches of beauty and memory. Her faith and her craft served her well on the road to wholiness.

Quilting Warmth

*Example of a quilt designed by Grandma “Honey”*

To this day my mom has quilts, bedspreads, and pillowcases made by Grandma Honey, mementos of creativity, form, and function. She even made dresses for my sister, Angela. Her designs weren’t a hodgepodge, an incongruous patchwork with no intent. No. They were reminders of family, community, culture, and love to keep you warm amid storms.

Our words and thoughts are like quilts. Will they keep those around you, at home and work, warm? If so, continue weaving words to edify and encourage. That’s what true leaders do.

Thanks and Another Gift for You

As always, Jewel and I thank those of you who consistently read our posts. Over the past year, our open rate has doubled, allowing even more people to discover our perspectives on the qualities and practices of leadership in various dimensions of life, from business to teamwork, from civic life to interpersonal relationships. We especially appreciate those of you who both read and share our messages with others.

In that regard, a big shout out to Dr. Gregg Henriques, author of the recently published work, A New Synthesis for Solving the Problem of Psychology: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap. Some of you may recall that in 2021, Gregg and I co-hosted a five-part series at The Stoa, “Body and Soul: The Mind of Culture.” Anyway, Gregg leads a private email group of professionals who discuss, in conversations on a range of themes, topics related to Gregg’s grand Tree of Knowledge (ToK) system. At least a few times each month, Gregg highlights our Tune In To Leadership writings with the group. That’s where your gift comes in.

After Gregg shared my post from last Monday, “Musical Gifts for 2023 & Beyond,” with the ToK group, two members took the initiative to put my list of my 25 top jazz albums on Spotify and YouTube as single playlists featuring all the songs!

Now the sounds of jazz that serve as equipment for living in my life are readily accessible to you in one fell swoop. Just click the hyperlinks in the paragraph above to see and listen. Thanks again to Gregg and the ToK group, of which I’m a proud member.

Embracing Love, Honoring Grandma