The musings of Peter

Sort of the same but decidedly different

Leadership, to me, is a joint activity. A group of leaders seems to be more adept and efficient at discerning the path forward than an individual. I say that as a generality, but there are few exception where the dynamic energy of an individual can set them our from the crowd. Now true leadership produces continuity while individual leadership, if not followed by group leadership tends to fail.

So if I get the smartest people in the world together, put them in a room, shouldn’t they be able to come up with solutions to all the worlds problems. The answer is resounding.. apparently not. Which is puzzling. We claim to follow leaders because they are smart, typically dynamic, because they are brave and willing to follow what we perceive to be the truth, even if the cost is high. We want our leaders to be firm, but compassionate. To be ethical, moral, people who are not greedy. Altruism is favored over ego. Yet we rarely get that from a leader. Instead we get someone with some of that, enough for us to justify our allegiance. Probably not enough to justify our death.

Soldiers die for leaders. Or maybe they die for the soldier next to them, for the family at home, and they die because of a leader. In 2025 you would only have to ask any of the warring faction, all of whom have experienced widespread bloodshed, what inspired them, why they followed leaders who have required the ultimate sacrifice. Death for claim to land, to heritage, to the changing boundaries of historical claim. Or is it death rather than tyranny and oppressions. Either way it is death that is the price of the struggle and once dead you can not enjoy your victory here on this Earth. You are forced to recon with a God to decide if He was on your side or not.

God is the ultimate leader. I am not going to pick a God for you. I have mine, I am a Christian and so I look at the historical Jesus who became the Eternal Jesus, or was that but was officially recognized in His debut on the Earth. You may have chosen Buddha or Mohamed or Moses or another God that has won your heart and your allegiance. I would point out if you are not willing to die for your God, not because of them but proactively for them, than you may want to rethink your choice. While God as an eternal leader is eternal, an earthly leader is finite and we certainly don’t hold them to the same litmus test.

So the finite versus the infinite causes us to look at leadership differently. In the infinite we seek perfection. We look for the unchanging, the ever present, the Truth that is the same today , yesterday and tomorrow. Love you neighbor, do not steal, forgive, these are eternal and apply today, yesterday and in the future. They will always be the right thing. We don’t require the eternal from the finite. We expect our mortals leader to accomplish goals, and cut corners if necessary. Love you neighbor becomes, make money and when we have amassed enough we can acknowledge the survivors as neighbors and take care of them. On our path to wealth there will be neighbors who will suffer at our hands. Do not steal becomes, make money by cutting corners, beating the tax regime, justifying the gray area, doing things that my not be right but won’t get you caught. Once you have success, donate to charity, preach ethics and morality and highlight the good that your wealth has brought into the world. We justify our iniquity by holding on to the future promise of our sanctity. That is what we look for in our finite leaders and those people are who form the leadership team.

We will never actually succeed unless we look for leaders who are dedicated to eternal leadership. Who view the finite as a stepping stone to perfection. The only obstacle any leader has to this, is themselves. Speaking in the contemporary. You would not want our present leaders, for the most part, running the community pool or our local civics organization. They would cause decisiveness. They would polarize a room. Yet we, at least enough of us to win an election, are okay with them leading the masses. Very flawed people, leading very gullible groups. Yes, i said gullible. We are a gullible lot. We will point fingers at biased news, while reading other biased news. We will hold on to conspiracies which point to domination of the world by unseen forces, but live like they don’t actually have control just yet. Or that their control is tenuous and by our action they are being held at bay.

If we want the world to improve we need to pick leader that meet a non historical criteria,. Historically we have chosen poorly for the world, although it may have benefitted us locally. The world is a mess, your household my not be, but surviving is not living. We need to sit back and establish that our requirement for divine leadership, should be something that we look for in our finite leaders. Once we do that, than we see leaders in a different way. We see a good leader whose personal ambition have created wealth at great cost to others, and we pause and think… Why should be promote a greedy person to leadership, they will only feed their greed. Even if they say they won’t, well that is what a greedy person would say. They will lie to gain. … We know that a persons past points to their future. This is true even of the redeemed. I find that leaders who are discovered after coming through the crucible of affliction, whatever that struggle is, will battle that affliction moving forward. You may have been addicted to drugs or alcohol or sex or exercise or ego etc. You may have conquered those addictions. But you will struggle to keep those dragons in a cage till you die. Pressures of life will make that cage’s walls weaker. Which means that promoting someone, who has redeemed themselves from some adversity, requires that we provide them 2ith a support group that acknowledges the past and will help them safeguard their future. We will always have flawed leaders, we are not perfect. We need to look for strong character, committed to do good, and build a system that supports the character of those who will live a committed life.

I believe that the strongest attribute of a leader, is humility. Recognizing that the role of Chief is really the role of Chief Servant. A role that can only be accomplished by a humble person. Humble people are hard to find. Humble capable people even harder. Humble capable honest true and loving people are the diamond we must search for. Most good leaders are unwilling to lead. Not because of prior commitments, because they do no deem themselves as the best choice. They recognize the gravity of leadership and it effects on other, and being so consumed by love of others and humility, they fear and mourn the ill effects of a decision that may have been good for all. In the Christian sense, if Jesus at his last supper, would have stopped when Judas left and said, Brothers Judas is going to go get some men to come and arrest me, have me crucified and than he is going to commit suicide, I just can’t let that happen, so someone run after him and lets see if we can work things out with him. I know I have to do this to save mankind, but we have been hanging with Judas for a coupe fo years and he is our friend. So I just would feel bad if things went down this way,… The world would be a different place. True leaders mourn the cost of decisions but make them for the good of all. A leader who can not mourn, who cannot be humble, who cannot hold on to the truth, is probably not the right leader. If we look harder we can find better leaders. We will have to drag them into the open, promote them unwillingly, but we will benefit. Commit yourself to finding leader in the rough and encouraging them to step forward. It is the only way we move into a better future.