Michael Johnson laughed at the notion that a mid-life crisis prompted him to write a book, because any examination of his life would tell us that the most challenging part of his life occurred in his first 25 years.
Johnson simultaneously launched his new book,“The Audacity to Lead: From the Projects to the C-Suite: 7 Mindset Lessons on Love, Family, and Turning Adversity into Impact,” and celebrated his 50th birthday Oct. 16 at Spare Time Madison.
The book combines the leadership lessons Johnson learned while growing up in public housing in a rough neighborhood in Chicago, his path to an MBA and the executive suite at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Dane County, and guidance from those who helped steer him in the right direction.
In “The Audacity to Lead,”the seven leadership lessons he identifies build a roadmap for leaders in any environment, and they help explain why he’s so focused on making sure young generations in Madison have a smoother path on their own journey. They include lessons of perseverance, turning adversity into triumph, purposeful leadership and more.
Johnson said the book had been in the works for several years, but he hesitated to tell his story because he was worried about being judged harshly.
With the encouragement of people like Chris Fortune, the retired CEO of Saris who reassured Johnson he had an inspiring story (and wrote the book’s forward), he decided the time was right.
“Sometimes you just don’t know,” Johnson said. “People who don’t live in that kind of environment sometimes judge you, and I struggled with telling some of it. But it is not who I am, it’s how I grew up.”
Some of the names of the people in the book were changed to protect their privacy and their family’s privacy.
Chicago roots
In the book, Johnson recounts how he grew up on the west side of Chicago in a neighborhood he called a battleground. He has survived everything from self-doubt to a shooting.
Born in Chicago on Oct. 16, 1975, he lived in the housing site known as The Village, run by the Chicago Housing Authority. It was a crime-affected, roach-infested, impoverished background.
He saw death firsthand more than once. His best friend was imprisoned due to a revenge killing. Johnson could have become an unwilling accomplice in a murder when he was carjacked and forced to drive to the destination the gunman demanded.
When attending college in Minnesota, he was the victim of a horrific incident of racial hazing that was passed off as a prank by the guilty parties.
Yet at every stage of his early life, he seemed to overcome environments or situations that could have broken him.
Those first years of life taught him valuable lessons and gave him a stronger sense of what works and what doesn’t.He found role models in his mother, who was suffering from mental illness while trying to raise a family against the odds; in his siblings, who were dealing with their own struggles, and in mentors who cared enough about him to set him straight.
He was helped along with sound advice by good-hearted people like Pete the grocer, as well as a no-nonsense sister and her dependable husband who lived in a Chicago suburb and exposed him to a different world than the one he knew.
And there was Toya, his future wife who made him want to become a better man — “raise his game,” as he put it. She never gave up on Michael, and they’ve grown together, earned MBAs together, chased their dreams together, raised a family together, and made a difference together.
Lessons in bridge-building
Once Johnson got to Madison, he established connections with community-building friends and partners such as John McKenzie, Mary Burke, Tim Metcalfe, Pleasant Rowland and Jerry Frautschi, Henry Sanders and Diane Ballweg. All of them taught him the value of quality associations grounded in shared values.
Through it all, he’s thankful for the people who kept seeing leadership potential in him, whether they were college professors or those he worked with in the nonprofit sector.
These transformative experiences helped him in future challenges such as his leadership in directing $21.6 million to local high schools for the AVID/TOPS program, and spearheading the fundraising campaign for the McKenzie Regional Workforce Center, the largest workforce center in the history of Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
Yet no situation challenged him more than the COVID year of 2020, when he was rocked by more than a pandemic. The police-involved murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the ensuing nationwide unrest tested his leadership and his bridge-building instincts — in Madison and beyond. Some of his efforts were challenged by a determined group of young activists.
“I’ve always tried to be a bridge builder and what I’ve learned is when you’re a bridge builder, you get walked on from both sides of the bridge,” Johnson said. “So I was trying to balance how we hear the voices of these young people while at the same time trying to guide them in a way that they’re not catching federal cases by tearing down statues or by breaking into businesses.”
Following demonstrations that caused property damage to businesses and monuments in communities across the country, Johnson very publicly hired peacekeepers, raised $300,000 to replace broken glass in the downtown section of his native Chicago, and took some 1,500 volunteers there to help with recovery.
In his hometown and in Madison, he was accused of prioritizing businesses over Black lives, he was attacked on social media, and he became the subject of a petition calling for his termination.
“They were at those rallies encouraging people to sign it,” Johnson said. “So when I saw that, I was very discouraged. I was like, ‘God, I’ve given my life to this community.’”
The activists challenged Johnson to meet with them and, putting his ego aside, he realized that was exactly what he needed to do. They were impressed that he showed up and it was a turning point.
“While they were bashing me publicly, I marched with them, but I told them even while marching with them that I could not support them tearing down statues,” he said. “I couldn’t support them breaking into businesses and that my value system was just different, and there were some people that just were not happy with that.”
When they demanded a Black monument at the Wisconsin State Capitol, his initial response was, “I’m not the governor. I’m not the mayor. I don’t have that kind of authority.”
But then Johnson had an epiphany. He realized he had a platform and he had built enough credibility in the community to leverage it. It involved getting the Republican-controlled Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to commission a statue in honor of Vel Phillips, a liberal Democrat known for a long list of firsts: the first Black woman to graduate from the UW Law School, the first woman elected to Milwaukee’s Common Council, the first woman judge in Milwaukee County, the first Black woman judge in the state judiciary and the first female elected secretary of state for Wisconsin.
The result was a long-overdue representation at the Wisconsin State Capitol, where a statue of Phillips now stands. It was unveiled in 2024, the first monument recognizing Black contributions at a state Capitol in the U.S.
“And I credit those young people for challenging me to do something,” Johnson said.
Doing the right thing
As he reflects on his life, Johnson thinks about how his things could have turned out differently, and he’s learned not to flinch in one particular area.
“My wife always tells me that if you do the right thing, God will cover your work,” he said. “So I’ve always tried to do the right thing, and I believe if you do the right thing, most of the time good things will come back to you.
“And sometimes, when you do the right thing, you might become a casualty for doing the right thing,” he said. “I’ve just learned to not be afraid.”
Editor’s note: A portion of the proceeds from the sale of “The Audacity to Lead” will be donated to nonprofits such as the Bike Parks for Kids Foundation, which is dedicated to investing in bike parks — spaces where every child has a safe place to ride a bike.
