Greetings!
Great leaders go through a process of growth and awareness. However, I do not agree that all leaders are automatically on a path of achieving this type of growth. I like to make the analogy between a medieval pilgrimage and our personal leadership awareness. We all must embark on something akin to a pilgrimage; a sacred journey of self-discovery, development and self-mastery where we strive to achieve a greater level of consciousness and personal effectiveness as leaders. However, to suggest that every leader is automatically on the path of self-awakening and evolution that eventually brings them to a state of leadership nirvana strikes me as an overly simplistic and naïve view of leadership. Experience and history shows that this ideal state may actually be the exception and not the norm.
Consider these examples: both Mother Teresa and Hitler were leaders; as were Abraham Lincoln and Richard Nixon or Sam Walton and Jeff Skilling. Even though we all agree that the first set of these leaders showed qualities of servant leadership, the other group focused mostly on self-aggrandizement and spent their careers attempting to gain more power, fame and fortune. Still, both sets were leaders because they influenced thousands or millions to take a specific course of action for good and for ill.
These examples demonstrate that not all leaders are created equal and not all leaders are on the same path of development toward an ideal state of leadership. Great leaders are remembered not only for achieving their goals, but for how they went about doing it. After all, for many years, Hitler was considered a great leader by millions of people. He was extremely effective in meeting his goals and mobilized an entire nation in an attempt to exterminate those who disagreed with him and to establish a pan-European totalitarian system based on National Socialism. Still, no one today would consider him a good leader. Likewise, Jeff Skilling, of Enron fame, who was reported to have argued in Harvard Business School classes that the role of a business leaders was "to take advantage of loopholes and regulations and push beyond the laws wherever he could to make money," did just that for himself and his organization. For many years he was considered a great business leader and a great philanthropic leader. Few would recognize him as such today.
To evaluate leadership, we must look beyond effectiveness and examine whether the leader is, simple put, good or bad. In order to do that, we have to identify a moral reference of what good and bad is. The Bible tells us to judge the goodness of a tree by whether it bares good or bad fruit and that "a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil." (The Holy Bible, Luke 6: 44 - 45).
I suggest that some of the "good treasures" of effective leaders include: a clear focus on what is important; a solid anchor of core ethical values that holds them firmly in place in times of turbulence; a moral compass that guides their actions at all times and all places; a recognition that their role is to serve others; the ability to inspire and motivate others; and the ability to adapt and persevere.
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Kind Regards!
James Gehrke |
A Practical Guide for Leading Teams in Times of Change
Workshop
