“Unify”: What MLK’s Letters Taught Me About Startup Leadership
I started reading the letters of Martin Luther King Jr. in 2018 while Morgan and I were on our honeymoon. My intention was to learn more about the civil rights movement, and to study MLK as a leader by way of his writing. Surprisingly, two thoughts, both relevant to leading a startup, immediately struck me:
1.) As much as MLK fought an external battle, he had perhaps as difficult a challenge to tackle in unifying his own people towards a single path of execution for the civil rights movement.
2.) By way of studying MLK via his writings, I learned a ton about writing itself. I remember thinking, as I was still only a day or so disconnected from the startup grind, that “holy crap, MLK should be taught in every creative, persuasive & business writing course in America, on the sheer quality of his writing”.
I decided a long-form article would be the appropriate medium in which to express my learnings. In this article, my intention is twofold:
1.) Share my observation of MLK’s unification & objection-handling battles on two fronts; internally & externally.
2.) Analyze passages from two separate letters, observing how MLK’s writing style achieves that goal of unification (and, naturally, can be studied by all leaders as exemplar communication).
While this article will scratch the surface, my ultimate recommendation is to also read along straight from MLK’s written letters, which can be found here: “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, “Malcolm X”
As it pertains to startups, I latched on to the observed theme of “unification” because it’s perhaps the #1 factor that I personally under-estimated in TwentyX’ing a startup team size from 4 → 80+.
It’s the part you don’t think about when planning to build a company. At the nascent ideation stage, it’s all about turning concept into reality with a small founder team. In the scaling stage, it’s still about the external path but then also about recruiting talent to build the best possible team. It’s not as obvious that the more you bring on talented & passionate people, the more challenging the task of unifying those immensely talented & strong-willed folks into one focused path up the foggy mountain. Yea, I’d here the old sayings, “you gotta get everyone rowing in the same direction!” but it didn’t quite register until experienced.
Now that I understand this ever-present and evolving unification task, as well as the countless forces of “opposition” that a start-up faces externally, I can read MLK’s writing with immense appreciation for how he graced these challenges in a much tougher situation than I face. Let’s dive in.
Letter #1: “Malcolm X”
In this letter I want to explore, not a debate on Martin Luther King Jr. vs. Malcolm X, but rather the grace of language and framing with which MLK addresses Malcolm X as an “internal opponent” on the same side of the Civil Rights Movement.
As mentioned, something I’ve experienced in startup leadership is the challenge of “leading through the fog”. The fact is, in any strategy debate, there isn’t necessarily a right answer. And there’s certainly not an answer book to cite. You point toward comparable examples as much as you can but at the end of the day (especially the early days), nobody knows if the thing is really going to work. The greatest danger isn’t even that one path or the next is wrong, it’s that the mountain is so perilous as is, that you cannot afford to have the team’s focus split into two paths. In the case of MLK & Malcolm X, Malcolm X’s more force-prone strategy was already so out-resourced by the opposition, that he couldn’t possibly win with just half an already-underdog army. While on the flip-side, MLK’s nonviolence strategy was a delicate one that could not afford to any instance of civil rights activist violence that could be used by the opposition to dis-brand the nonviolent movement’s purpose.
This is a letter written after the tragic passing of Malcolm X via assassination. As I put myself in MLK’s shoes as the leader, I figure this is what he’s facing: I still have heavy internal opposition to the nonviolence movement. A key leader of an alternate “path up the mountain”, Malcolm X, has been killed, no doubt inciting the human tendency in some to react with force. I need full alignment to the nonviolence movement in order for this strategy to work.
With that challenge in mind, observe in this letter how MLK artfully distinguishes:
1.) Respect for Malcolm X personally
2.) Disagreement on strategy
3.) Hints at how Malcolm X’s perspective was potentially evolving closer to MLK’s nonviolence strategy (a key nuance to recruiting & welcoming Malcolm X’s followers).
1.) Respect for Malcolm X personally:
Right away, and throughout the brief letter, MLK establishes alignment of purpose with Malcolm X, honoring his opponent (and therefore, his opponent’s followers) while respectfully calling out the tactical separation between them:
“He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems that we face as a race. While we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problems, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had the great ability to put his finger on the existence and root of the problem.”
2.) Disagreement on strategy:
King then articulates empathy for those who have opposed MLK, and brings the conversation to the less-emotional tactical level:
“When they threw eggs at me in New York …My feeling has always been that they have never understood what I was saying. They did not see that there’s a great deal of difference between non-resistance to evil and nonviolent resistance. Certainly I’m not saying that you sit down and patiently accept injustice. I’m talking about a very strong force, where you stand up with all your might against an evil system, and you’re not a coward. You are resisting, but you come to see that tactically as well as morally it is better to be nonviolent”.
I interpret this from a negotiation standpoint as MLK saying: we share the same goal. We are alike. My approach is indeed one of force and brave resistance, as is yours. It’s the tactics that we disagree on. Now why is it so important to establish that?
In my personal experience experience, I find that intra-team debates and even external sales negotiations are much more effective when we can first (and continually) level-set on a shared purpose/objective, then progress the dialogue into the less personal aspect of tactics. The conversation becomes more logic-driven than emotion-driven, and thus breaks down the emotional barriers to mutual reasoning.
“Malcolm X was a victim of the despair that came into being as a result of a society that gives so many Negroes the nagging sense of ‘nobody-ness’ …A man who lived under the torment of knowledge of the rape of his grandmother and murder of his father…”
Obviously, King’s internal strategy-debate opponents, in this quote represented by Malcolm X, have much more deeply rooted — by way of pain & suffering — viewpoints than the tactical debates I routinely encounter in startup leadership. So if King can bring his dialogue from emotion-driven to logic-driven, so can I when sitting at the round table.
3.) Hints at how Malcolm X’s perspective was potentially evolving closer to MLK’s nonviolence strategy.
For MLK’s effort of uniting his people, in which he needed to gather Malcolm X’s followers, he respectfully describes how Malcolm’s strategy was forged in the trials of oppression, yet was still forming. He’s cracking the door open for perspective change. I interpret this (and certainly I could be wrong) as MLK hinting to the followers of Malcolm X who may resent MLK that just as Malcolm’s perspective & strategy was still evolving, theirs could as well. He subtly suggests this in at least three separate lines:
“Malcolm was still turning and growing at the time of his brutal and meaningless assassination”
“…he spoke at length to my wife Coretta about his personal struggles and expressed an interest in working more closely with the nonviolence movement”
“I could not agree …but I could see in them a capacity for leadership which I could respect and which was only beginning to mature in judgement and statesmanship”
In startup context, this reminds me of how Northwestern Kellogg professor Craig Wortmann teaches companies of all sizes to speak of their competitors. It’s more effective & respectful to highlight an opponent’s strengths, while educating about their differences, than to verbally bash the opponent (and, by connection, bash the followers / product users of that opponent).
Letter #2: “Letter From Birmingham Jail”
Now let’s explore how Malcolm X addresses the external opposition, in this case represented by 8 white male priests who had authored an open letter (titled “A Call for Unity”, ironically) for MLK to stop his protests. King is in jail at the time of writing. Remarkably, having been initially denied a notepad, King begins drafting this letter in the margins of a newspaper dropped into his jail cell (how about that for resourcefulness & internal locus of control!)
This is a lengthy letter, at the time his longest, so I’ve narrowed my observation down to a few samplers on how MLK uses written verse in a continuous loop to achieve the following:
1.) Aligning with the opposition under a higher shared Purpose & Authority (both secular & nonsecular).
2.) Anticipating the opposition’s objections, re-framing them into question form, and dissecting the parts to depict a crisp outline of his reasoning.
1.) Aligning with the opposition under a higher shared Purpose & Authority (both secular & nonsecular)
“Since I feel that you are men of genuine goodwill and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statements in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms”
He’s not agreeing. He’s establishing, just as he did in the Malcolm X letter, that he and the opponent share a higher purpose. He also does not pull punches. He’s willing to confront. When he does confront, however, he does so strategically in this threefold manner:
1.) He first thoroughly explains the objective reasoning for why he is there:
“…here because I was invited here.”
2.) Then he confronts, calling out the injustice directly without sugarcoating:
“But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.”
3.) Immediately, in the next sentence, he ties his confrontational statement to the aligned religious authority/parable that he knows the priests share:
“Just as the prophets of the eight century B.C left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their hometowns. …Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid”.
He’s constantly reinforcing to the audience & opposition that he and they are alike, not different.
2.) Anticipating the opposition’s objections, re-framing them into question form, and dissecting the parts to depict a crisp outline of his reasoning.
“In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action”
In establishing that a logical process exists, and clarifying that this process has indeed been followed, MLK earns himself the intellectual authority to conclude that the injustice, indeed, does exist. On that foundation, and knowing that his audience for this letter serves the dual purpose of continually rallying/unifying the people he leads, MLK has positioned himself to take the more aggressive punch:
“We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community…”
Now here’s another example of King going back to aligning his intention with that of the priests. Throughout the letter, you’ll notice a much more prevalent theme of King using the verbiage “you’re right” or “we agree on…” than blunt statements of “you’re wrong”. This is graceful, in both his command over his own composure (given the intensely frustrating situation) and his understanding that in order to influence behavior change in a person, he must connect with that person; in this case, the priests as well as the wider audience whom King knows will read the letter.
“You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.”
He’s telling them: hey friends, we’re saying the same thing. Agreed. This is simply a step along the process. Oh and here’s the process.
Now he’s drawn the opposition into a dialogue not about demonstration vs. negotiation, but rather into the sequential details of “how to reach the stage of negotiation”. MLK has sound logic and an established project plan for how he approached those steps. Furthermore, he clarifies that while the scary word — tension — represents a logical step in the process, tension does not equate to violence:
“…there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth”.
Then, once again, he reaffirms his purpose:
“The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation”.
Wow! That’s a mic drop line. He’s radically transparent. Openly admits that he did intend to cause, nonviolently, a state of tension and crisis, all en route towards their shared goal of negotiation. As the opposition, if you’re truly in agreement that negotiation is the goal, your only two options are to either show up at the negotiating table, or propose an alternative 4 step process. Now, if the opposition did propose an alternative process, granted unlimited time, King’s next chess move might be to go ahead and explore their process. If it didn’t work, great, he’s established that he tried and now it’s back to his turn to pursue his proposed method. BUT…
…and here’s where any startup can relate, that’s exactly what the opposition would want: endless loops of lengthy 4 step processes that simply delay and delay and delay. King knows that he can’t fall into that trap. He needs to address this anticipated objection head on, by performing the hardest part of any change management or sales endeavor: establishing the sense of urgency.
To do this, King swiftly pivots from appealing to logic, to appealing to the heart, using a narrative depiction of his people’s harsh reality to pull on the heartstrings of all audience members:
“Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait”. ..But when you have seen the vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers and drown your sisters and brothers at whim …curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters …airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society. …seek to explain to your six-year-old-daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park. …tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children …then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. …I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.”
Sense of (and logic for) urgency established, King brilliantly addresses another objection: the fact that he is knowingly breaking some laws. He handles this one by appealing to the higher authorities shared by both he and the priests, outlining them into a frame of logic:
“You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us to break laws. …I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all”.
In a single concise paragraph, King 1.) addresses the objection, 2.) aligns with the viewpoint of abiding by laws, while also level setting that both sides are being choosy with which laws to abide by, 3.) appeals to the larger common authority he and the priests share, both secularly and spiritually: U.S Supreme Court and St. Augustine.
This was a masterful paragraph! Then, leaning on the higher spiritual authority, he anticipates the next objection that his opponent may counter with, by way of framing it in a question: How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust?
“A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas: an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.
Now he uses this foundation, in the medium of addressing the priests, to further rally the individuals on his “team” forward to continue pursuing the personally costly tactics of the mission:
“One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to around the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.”
Once again, he immediately couples this statement, which he knows will be either controversial or confrontational to the opposition, with yet another appeal to the higher shared authority. In this instance, via a story about the early Christians:
“Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. …practiced by early Christians …rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire.”
When the masterpiece (of which this article has highlighted only small snippets) is complete, he ties the bow of clarity on his intentional messaging with one final reiteration of his purpose:
“Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,
Martin Luther King, Jr.”
Conclusion:
It’s a testament to the immense challenge the Civil Rights Movement faced that it took all of MLK’s empathetic leadership and command of diction to even crack the rigid surface of structured oppression. MLK faced challenges in unifying both his “internal” people (team), as well as external opposition. His writing is a stellar example of leading with purpose, establishing frames of logic, and focusing first & foremost on where he and his opponents are alike, not different. In startups & beyond, the task of unifying people internally & externally is an ever-present element of the journey. In honing this leadership trait, there is much we can learn from revisiting MLK’s vast collection of writing.
