Ray...John, Ian and others who responded to my earlier post:
The fact that there are many immoral, amoral, sociopathic or evil people
(whatever we want to call them) in our world is one that I am aware of.
The fact that I responded harshly to what seemed to me a fascination with
one of these people doesn't imply that I condone the others. I'm
painfully aware of the atrocities visited on one group of people by
another...and frequently by their own people. Whether it was the
slaughter of indigenous peoples by Europeans during the last 500 hundred
years on the African, Asian, North and South American continents...or the
other "crimes against humanity" that have been done in the name of deities
and beliefs for millennia past, they were all simply wrong. The acts were
wrong even within the context of the ethical principles of their own day
and age.
But we are a learning community, are we not. What are we to learn? To
evoke the names of the men who engineered these brutalities as the leaders
we would aspire to be? Or to search desperately for their "leadership
characteristics" so that we can emulate them? I think not...not for me
anyway.
Our communities and organizations are filled with the people whose
leadership emerges each time that it is needed or appropriate. We often
don't know who will rise to the occasion. But the one characteristic that
these leaders have in common is that their emergent leadership is one that
sustains and nurtures their community through the changes, opportunities
and dangers which beset and challenge them. For each story of brutality
and inhumanity, there are many more stories of courage, love and
leadership. Often the leaders were women and children, for whom few (if
any) statues exist.
It's a sad but truism that the victors write the history to explain what
happened from their perspective. But if we look for those people who
demonstrate the ethical principles that many of us (I'm assuming this)
ascribe to, we may not look to politicians or administrators or managers
or chiefs or bosses or henchman and thugs as the characterizing and
defining standards of leadership. Instead of picking the person and
writing the definition to the characteristics we see in the person or
role, let's define the outcome and performance associated with leadership
and compare the people to the definition (as some others have suggested).
It also seems to me that I've had this conversation too many times over
the last 30-plus years. When one person descries the wrong committed by
one person or group against another, the defense seems to be that someone
else did something worse. There are...at least for me...some things which
are just wrong, without equivocation. The principle of harm is one of
those.
Finally, I want to share the names of a few people who were frequently
picked as "most-admired"leaders in various non-scientific polls and
surveys in the US over the last few years. One was Mother
Teresa...another was Nelson Mandela, and a third was Oprah Winfrey (a
popular American entertainer and social activist). These 3 people are the
antithesis of brutal, intimidating power-mongers. Each exercised
power...but a power of influence over others that came from a source
defined by their own commitment to a transcendent purpose that "humanized"
the people whom they influenced.
sincerely,
Doc
------------------
"Our first teacher is our own heart." a saying from the Cheyenne People
Richard Charles Holloway -
P.O. Box 2361, Olympia, WA 98507 USA Telephone 253.539.4014 or 206.568.7730
Thresholds <http://www.thresholds.com>
Meeting Masters <http://www.thresholds.com/masters.html>
--"Richard Charles Holloway" <learnshops@thresholds.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>