Seeing Vulnerability Through Blindness
“True leadership is not about standing above others, but walking beside them—willing to guide, and just as willing to be guided.”
I have been spending more and more time with a military friend of mine, Steve Baskis, who is blind. Steve was a soldier on my security detail during our deployment to Iraq and was permanently blinded in a roadside bomb attack in May 2008. He’s in his late 30s now and has been living without sight for 17 years. He is also the founder of the Blind Endeavors Foundation, and I was recently asked to sit on his board. The mission of Blind Endeavors is to empower the blind and visually impaired through inspiring storytelling and immersive media to build awareness, deepen knowledge, and encourage meaningful action. Having Steve over for dinner, spending time with him and going out with him in public all have reinforced to me just how many challenges he faces each day doing things most of us take for granted.
What amazes me most is how Steve navigates the world with such positivity, dignity, grace, and courage. When we’re walking together, as he handles his walking cane he also rests his hand on my shoulder so I can guide him. That simple gesture of his has become a powerful metaphor for me: we all need a shoulder to hold onto, someone to help us find direction when life strips us of our bearings. It takes vulnerability to ask for and accept help, and it takes vulnerability to offer it.
Steve’s blindness means he must function in a society built for sighted people, one that constantly requires him to ask for assistance, to wait, to trust strangers, and to adapt. Yet instead of bitterness, I see in him such remarkable strength and resilience. His demeanor and attitude repeatedly reinforce to me that vulnerability isn’t weakness—it’s the ability to keep moving forward when the world is uncertain, to trust others enough to place a hand on their shoulder and follow.
I realize as well in my interactions with him that there is vulnerability in play on my part. To guide him, I must slow down, pay closer attention, describe what I’m seeing, and place his needs above my instinct to push ahead at my normal pace. This requires me to be present in a way that challenges my own habits. It reminds me that leadership isn’t about charging forward alone but about creating space for others to move forward with you. As I wrote in my book Large and In Charge No More—A Journey to Vulnerable Leadership, leading is less about control and more about connection, less about projecting unbending certainty and more about embracing the humanity we share, flaws and all.
In many ways, walking side by side and spending time with Steve is a living lesson in vulnerable leadership. It shows that strength lies not in pretending we can do everything alone, but in admitting we cannot. True courage is found in the simple, human act of leaning on each other—whether in a war zone, at the dinner table, or in the everyday moments of life.
If you’d like to learn more about the Blind Endeavors Foundation and what Steve is doing on behalf of the blind and visually impaired, please use this link. Thanks.