How to be a Leader

Written by Carol Brzozowski Sunday, November 22 2009

Marty Evans, acting commissioner, LPGA

Spend a few minutes talking with Marsha “Marty” Evans, who’s been a consummate leader throughout her life, and one realizes she is in the company of a woman who is confident, affable, and accomplished. That’s just for starters.

Evans is preparing to hand over the reins as acting commissioner of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), a position she has held since July 13, to Michael Whan on Jan. 4.

Her position with the LPGA is one step on an extensive journey of leadership and female advocacy Evans has walked throughout her life.

And what a journey it has been. Evans spent nearly 30 years in the U. S. Navy, and her military résumé includes attaining the rank of rear admiral, chief of staff at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, and being the first woman to command a U.S. Naval Station, at Treasure Island in San Francisco.

She also chaired a task force to develop a strategy for gender-based issues after the Tailhook incident. She has held top positions at the Navy Recruiting Command and Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.

Following her 1998 military retirement, Evans was named executive director of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America, serving through 2002. She then became the president and CEO of the American Red Cross.

In January 2009, Evans – who had served for two years on the LPGA Commissioner’s Advisory Council ‒ was appointed to the LPGA board of directors by then-LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens. She would come to replace Bivens within months when other board members asked her to be the acting commissioner until a new one could be recruited following a leadership crisis at the organization.

Evans says she never mapped out a plan to achieve the top organizational positions in which she has served, but simply took advantage of opportunities that came her way.

The foundation was laid during her school years. Evans holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Occidental College and a master’s degree in international security studies from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. She attributes her decision-making philosophy to a college professor who mentored her.

“This very wise professor always encouraged me, when I had to make life choices, to think about the roads opened and the roads closed – to not consider choices that were closed to other options,” Evans says.

“He also encouraged me to think about how you could be cautious and never have any real adventures or be less cautious and step out without knowing what the future holds,” she adds.

Evans prefers to not plan life out to the nth degree, but to enjoy that which has unfolded in her path. A turning point in Evans’s life came in the 14th year of her Navy career.

“At that point, I had primarily been a staff officer,” she says. “I had had a little bit of leadership responsibilities, but in 1982, I was assigned to be second in command of the boot camp in San Diego.

“All of a sudden, I had 500 people working for me and it was a 24/7 operation. I felt less prepared than anyone could imagine. But things came together. I loved the mission. I loved working with people. It was very exciting to be part of a team and to accomplish the things we were accomplishing.”

She discovered she enjoyed serving in a high position in a large organization, which set the course for the rest of her civilian life. Hard work has propelled her to top positions, says Evans.

“You shouldn’t be embarrassed to say you work hard,” she says. “You should be open to new possibilities. Over the years, I’ve been asked to take on this or that. Sometimes I’ve done things where I didn’t have the right background, but at least I gave it a try.”

Ironically, Evans, 62, did not take up golf until she was 59. She had taken an interest in golf when the Girl Scouts and the LPGA joined together to expand the golfing program of the Girl Scouts.

“That’s how I was introduced to the LPGA and golfing,” says Evans. “You’re never too old to try, but you may be too old to become really accomplished. But it’s so fun.”

Through leadership, Evans learned much about herself as she stepped out to embrace new possibilities.

“I’ve had a fair amount of CEO experience and much less golf experience,” Evans points out. “My experience has been that people want to do a good job ‒ they want leaders who let them do what they do best and they generally don’t disappoint you. If you work hard and depend on people who have a great deal more knowledge than you do, then it works out very well.

“I found that in the LPGA that even though I don’t have the sports marketing background, there are some who do in the LPGA and it’s a matter of letting them get on with doing their jobs.”

Evans sees every past experience she’s had in more than 30 years as a building block.

“In LPGA, I’ve drawn from every experience I’ve had as a CEO ‒ strategic planning, budgeting, legal matters, public speaking,” she says. “You are the sum total of all of your different experiences. I believe people should have more confidence sometimes. If they’ve had a number of years of experience, they just have to draw on that experience to help them today.”

Does Evans view luck as playing a role in attaining her top posts?

“It sounds trite, but the harder I worked, the luckier I got,” she quips. “I’m a fairly spiritual person, so I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s as much luck as things coming together by some guiding hand.

“I am a Christian, and I believe that we’re not totally in control of our destinies. There is a higher power, but with that said, it’s not totally predestined. We have a responsibility to work hard, develop the gifts we’ve been given, and to give back.”

Evans says it can be lonely at the top, especially for a woman.

“There have been challenges of being at the top,” she concedes. “You believe the nice things people say about you, and they say those things either because it’s the truth or there’s another reason why they are saying nice things to you.”

One can thus get lulled into a sense of infallibility and become isolated from what’s really happening from inside the organization, Evans adds.

“For a woman in particular, I think there is a certain isolation because sometimes you don’t have peers who have shared some of the same challenges as the only woman in the whole group,” says Evans. “There is a special challenge from seeing it from a woman’s perspective.”

That perspective often includes having to balance family and work responsibilities, says Evans, who does not have children. “It’s an important issue women have to deal with. I have seen the very natural desire to have a family and also be a 100-percent team player, particularly in the military where work is not so clearly defined from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ‒ it’s much more 24/7.

“It’s really tough, and I don’t think there’s any way to get around it. My heart goes out to single parents because they really do have an unusual challenge to balance with family life.”

Then there’s the issue of “fitting in,” she says.

“You want to fit in sometimes, but you also don’t want to compromise your values,” she says. “If the organization tolerates sexism, it’s very hard to be a woman at the top because you want to change that, yet there’s a delicacy about how much you can assert yourself to change it and go against the grain.

“I’ve found women are in those types of binds where they have to decide whether something is an issue they’re going to take on or not,” says Evans. “I don’t think anybody can criticize a woman for her choice. It’s a very personal thing how much you’re willing to risk at any time in an organization.”

Women also face the challenge of not being “bitchy” because “it just plays into those negative views,” notes Evans. “I don’t think we necessarily have to. One of the reasons I’ve been reasonably successful is I’ve tried to respect people along the way. You have to make tough decisions. Sometimes you have to fire people, and you try to give them some dignity and respect. I think for most successful male leaders, that’s their perspective as well. I would say I have to wield power differently. I’m just very conscious of trying to be respectful of people.”

Being a CEO can be a heady experience, and Evans credits her father for giving her advice that has carried her through the periods following various positions she’s held.

“My father, who was a wonderfully wise man, was a realist,” she says. “I remember before I joined the Navy, he said to me, ‘When you retire from whatever you do, you pack up your things from wherever you’re working and the next day, they will have forgotten about you, so make sure you value and keep up your network of family and friends. That’s who is going to be there for you when the fancy office is closed and you no longer have the position.’”

From her perspective of having ‘retired’ a few times from jobs, Evans says nothing has been truer than her father’s advice.

“When all is said and done and you don’t have the fancy title and nobody wants to return your phone calls, it’s your family and friends who are there for you,” she says. “You’ve got to invest in that network. It’s one of Steven Covey’s ‘seven habits’ – to make sure you take care of what’s important.”

Evans credits her husband, Jerry, a retired Navy jet pilot, for helping her maintain a “normal” life.

“I have a husband who nags at me about taking vacations,” she says. “He recalls a wonderful gift I was given in 1983 when my boss at the time took a three-week vacation through the national parks.”

It was a time before cell phones and the internet, so Evans’s boss was truly out of touch.

“He left me in charge. That was the biggest growth experience I could ever imagine. I had to make all of the decisions. It was pretty scary, but pretty exciting, too,” Evans says.

Jerry Evans reminds his wife how important it was in her own leadership development to have a trial period of being in charge and has encouraged Marty Evans to take a few weeks off to let the second-in-command be in charge to prepare her or him for stepping into the top spot.

“As leaders, one of our most important responsibilities is planning for ourselves to be dispensed with,” notes Evans. “If your plane goes down or you move on, your organization doesn’t miss a beat. There should always be a succession plan, and you should always be grooming people to replace you.”

This fundamental responsibility of leadership “also fits in nicely with the idea that you have to take time off to recharge, regroup, and get your energy back and be ready to go back into the fray,” Evans adds.

Evans sees herself as a mentor for other women.

“Coming up in the Navy, I didn’t have any women mentors because there just weren’t that many women and at a certain point, I became one of the most senior women in the Navy,” she says. “I think it’s important for women to pass along their stories. I’ve been inspired by women like Billie Jean King – people who weren’t in the Navy but in other walks of life, and I realized the lessons they have shared are as applicable to me as those few stories of women in the Navy.”

Following her departure from the LPGA acting commissioner post, Evans plans to go back into “retirement” and spend more time serving on the other boards on which she sits. Evans has served on the boards of Office Depot, Weight Watchers International, Huntsman, and the U.S. Naval Academy Foundation.

Evans also likes to ski, play golf, and read in her spare time. The most recent book she’s read: Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words by Douglas L. Wilson.

Carol Brzozowski is an award-winning veteran freelance journalist. She is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Society of Environmental Journalists, and the Association of Health Care Journalists. She lives in south Florida.