Monthly Archives: November 2023

What the world needs is good leadership.

Good leadership? What do we understand by “good leadership”? The many books on administration would define it as a managerial activity that produces gains in terms of the objectives of the enterprise. Leadership is reduced into managing. As I understand it, management and leadership are different. Stephen M. R. Covey (in his book Trust & Inspire) makes a great point about the difference based on the idea that management is about physical resources and leadership is about people. (Understanding that people are not physical resources.)

At present, the world is in crisis and many countries are turning to right wing personalities to lead their lives. Recent elections in Argentina and The Netherlands two populist won elections based on the message that they are the ones that can manage the country. Superficially, people voted for them in the hope that they will solve their country’s problems. The message of these populist is pushing the idea that their government will command and control the situation. Not aware that when dealing with human activities the paradigm if command and control is ineffective. In today’s culture a more open paradigm based on human values is what is needed.

Society is becoming more diverse. Diverse in many ways, chronological, ethnic, sociological, etc. Leadership need to be an emerging force that brings all these diverse factors into consideration and play. The best example I have in my mind now is how Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft) was able to transform a company with more than one hundred thousand employees to regain it place in the market and the world. For sure this success was not accomplished by command and control, it has to be through tapping to the deepest of human values, inspiration. Where everyone was free to collaborate in the effort to innovate and transform what was a decaying company. A company that many business analysts have said that its time has passed! Now Microsoft’s value is in the trillions of dollars.

Is good leadership important at small scale? Family? Yes, of course! More so there because in this highly interconnected world the small and the large are part of the same field. Flourishing family members are flourishing members of society. Therefore educating good leaders in every aspect of our society is crucial for the wellbeing of all.

“Trust & Inspire” by Stephen M. R. Covey is a book that everyone has to read. Do not miss it!

There are many overlapping principles between different philosophies and traditions. Being a good citizen appear as one of those ideas that spreads across ideologies and cultures. The difference might be in the detail of what it means to be a good citizen. Similarly is the idea that actions are more important than intentions. If we want to be good we need to act accordingly in order to be consistent.

Easy to say but difficult to accomplish. Many of us have good ideas about how to solve a problem, how to improve a dire situation but lack the skills to act accordingly. It is known that there are leaders who are explicitly open to advanced ideas about leadership but in practice lack the human touch to communicate with their subordinates what the path should be. Stoicism is one philosophy that helps to put in practice what we preach.

For more that 2000 years Stoic philosophers like Seneca have been giving advice about consistency. Starting with oneself, being critical of one’s feelings and thoughts. Reflecting on the reality of life and on the permanence of change. The only constant in life is change. Even Jesus of Nazareth told his disciples that one is known by one’s actions and that we should avoid “praying in public” to show one’s righteousness just like the hypocrites do. Good actions are, normally, unseen. The way that these good actions are known is by the effects that they cause. It is always that we know of goodness by what is produced. Peace of mind is the product of having been acting virtuously.

For me, it is during my evening meditations that I do an assessment of my daily tasks and evaluate my actions based on what I am supposed to achieve. All in the framework that I am just another member of society, just another human being.

Many intelligent authors have mentioned that in order to do good in the world you need to be “you”. Trying to be someone that you are not, will not work. One needs to know oneself in order to act and perform in a way that has no contradictions to what one says and to what one appears. I would call this an integral way of being.

In his book The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer mentions how good teachers are authentic, and how good teachers base their pedagogical techniques on some knowledge of who they are. I can extrapolate that idea to every single walk of life. A good mechanic is one who is grateful for her/his skills and happy to do the job; as a good baker is too. And so on.

Of course, there are cheaters who can take advantage of people by pretending that they are someone they are not. In general, these cheaters don’t last long as their lack of integrity sooner or later will throw them into ruin.

Integrity, like all the other virtues, is not isolated. There is always an overlap between virtues. You can’t have kindness without integrity or integrity without courage. All require a deep sense of self and an understanding of our limitations as well as the limitations of our relationships. After all, when we think of being an integral human we see it in relationship to the others in that humanity. The is no sense in talking about the integrity of an isolated individual.

Considering that the goal in life is to live with peace of mind, in the pursuit of happiness, being an integral person is indispensable. False, hypocritical personalities are always in conflict as they can’t have a single undisputed baseline, a reference to which adhere. Having an integral life means that one has a set of moral references that are unchangeable. Even though in some cases these reference frames may have complex definitions. For example, when we say “Liberty and Justice for All” Although it sounds simple, we will find deep complexities when we think about it.

One can change opinion, without breaking one’s integrity. In fact, it might happen that because of one’s integrity, we have to change our opinions based on new evidence, new circumstances, or because we learned that one had the wrong opinion. People without integrity often stick to their opinions, even when facing the reality of being wrong, even when presented with the truth that doesn’t support their opinion, because they want to appear as if they were “integral”. People wanting to appear integral is the first indication of their lack of integrity. Integrity is not an appearance. When someone starts a conversation by saying “Let me tell you the truth” you can be suspicious because that sentence indicates that the normal situation is that they do not tell the truth”.

Like when someone tells you: Believe me! Do not believe it!