'There is no smaller package than a person all wrapped up in himself'

 GEORGE TEMPLETON 

       COMMENTARY        

'No leader can make us great.  That can only come from us.'

Leadership and the Tao Te Ching

“The United States doesn’t have to lead the world; it has first to join it.   Then, with greater humility, it can play a wiser leadership role.”  William Sloane Coffin

I can identify with the right-wing Christian fundamentalist who was torn between religion, politics, friendship, and the Constitution.  He discovered his two best friends were gay when they asked him to bake their wedding cake.

I’m guilty of destroying blue collar American manufacturing jobs by automating them and exporting them.  But two of us lit a spark that created a new business and preserved more than fifty high paying technical jobs here in the states.  The Chinese did not close our factory.  They kept it open and made more jobs.

China Nights

It was a balmy night.  We were there to persuade the Chinese to engage in our small business.  It required special manufacturing processing that was incompatible with modern products.  American companies had no interest in a mature, but complicated technology that could not provide a two year return on investment.

My colleague and I walked along in the hustle and bustle of the night life, midst hundreds of parked motor scooters that took up more than the available space in the sidewalk and on the street.  The mild smell of stir fried garlic filled the air.  I felt rather out of place, more because of my difficulty with the alphabet than with the language.  One has to copy what others are doing and look at the pictures.

It was then that we heard in the distance, calling us, the sound of Hoagy Carmichael’s 1929 song, Stardust.  The most beautiful song ever written was playing, outdoors, on a saxophone.  A feeling of warmth replaced my foreboding.  We rushed toward the music.  Suddenly, we belonged, felt welcome, on the opposite side of the earth.  The Chinese had learned from us, but could we learn from them?

Science Arose

Two thousand five hundred years ago the big questions were “why” and “who”.  The ancient Greeks worried about God’s will.  Their society was based on a supernatural view of the world.  It wasn’t fallen mankind and his estrangement from the divine that would shake their world and destabilize their society.  The fundamental questions were about to change because of the observable world that surrounded everyone.  These questions seem simple, but they remain controversial.

Recently, the television pundit spoke about a campaign of leaks and the deep dark state.  Those words suggest the existence of a well-organized conspiracy.  We don’t know who they are.  Their intentions have been inferred.  But leaks depend more on leadership style than on rebellion.  When you don’t trust other people, they won’t trust you.

Tao means “how”.  Lao’s fifth century B.C. book claimed that leaders should shift to asking “what” and seeing “how” things work.  This change was the precursor to scientific management. 

Political Leaders

We don’t want a politician as a leader, but how are politicians and leaders different?

Politicians say they will make us happy, healthy, prosperous, and powerful.  But no one can make us happy.  That comes from within.  Politicians who boast and try to impress us are insecure.  They are deeply superficial and weak.  Their mistake is their fixation with ideology.  Utopian models have always failed because common sense and wisdom does not depend on them.  Political speeches do not need to antagonize and make ridiculous promises.  The problem is that the wise leader appeals to very few followers.

We find leaders in the family, church, school, business, and military.  When they do not brag they are impressive.  The strong leader’s concrete results, not measured by them, speak for themselves.  A concise principal underlies all of life.  The song goes, “You don’t always get what you want, but you get what you need.”  Does that mean that we ask for too much?  The Tao says that when we desire nothing, much is given to us.  The empty space is filled.

Newsworthy

They admonished our president to remain strong and powerful.  Don’t let anyone try to influence or control you!  Use force instead of finesse.  Fight and win.  Peace is permanent pre-hostility.  Harmony is feckless.  Ad hominem attacks are truthful.  Propaganda is policy.  Angry love must be proclaimed.  An Arizona legislator claimed that this was our “western ethos”.

In any complex undertaking, there are conflicting goals.  You should never fight when it can be avoided.  When you pick a fight you should expect your adversary to defend themselves.  Orders measure a leader’s impotence.  When they let go of what they are, it opens the door to what they could be. 

Friends

Are a project’s objectives better served by fighting back against everyone who has a different understanding?  Are friendships transactional?  Should we make friends thinking that in the long run they are assets?  Do you want them to be on your side, even though they are flawed?  There is a fundamental tension between power, authority, and persuasion.

Charm School

The hierarchy of command looks different from where one sits within it, worker, boss, or leader.  Straw-bosses are the small group supervisors who lack authority and power.  During the Chinese Qin Dynasty supervisors whipped and starved workers who made mistakes.  Good performance allowed you to continue doing the same repetitive task until you died.

Punishment disrupts behavior temporarily.  Its “law and order” is quick and easy, but not permanent.  Rewards make lasting changes.  Opportunities are what increase productivity, not limitations and obligations.  Laws create outlaws.  If the world were right, they would not be needed. 

Seeing Clearly

Is tough really smart?  Knowing that you don’t know is more important than thinking that you do.  The effective leader must take care to not see what he believes and then subsequently believe what he sees.  Prejudiced leaders see only what reinforces their bias.  This disconnects them from reality.  It begins with distortion and ends with lies.

The real leader is not rigid, dominating, and unwilling to admit error.  He must enjoy being wrong when it is in his favor.  He never strikes back.    

We used to select leaders who were elegant.  What makes something good or bad?  What is the ideal form of true justice?  Our leaders should ponder these deep questions.  The price is not just “tremendous”.  Words are never perfect.  They are always incomplete and at the root, self-referential.  What are the facts that warrant the application of emotional labels?  A privatized voucher funded school advertised that every child in their program is a “genius”.  We have heard that public education would leave “no child left behind”.  How do the curriculums in these schools contrast?

A great leader is quiet, contemplative, deep, inscrutable, philosophical, and professorial.  He helps others understand themselves.  The strong leader has empathy because he has been in that situation himself.  He comes from what he manages over.

Listening is part of communication.  The trumpet player, Miles Davis, had amazing phrasing.  He understood that his silence was more important than his playing.  Say it once and then move on.   It allows time for the mood to develop.

Sometimes it is necessary to choose between wrong and wrong.  The burden of decision falls on the leader’s shoulders.  His decisions should be based on facts and truth.  In contradiction to politics, leadership is not a popularity contest with voter polls.  Weak leaders try to walk both sides of the street.  When they have no policy, whims will govern.  Fortunately, their experienced experts will find a way.

Patience

Creativity does not come from deliberately manufactured crisis and duress.  The leader rewards his team when things turn out his way, but shouldn’t outcomes be the best possible?  Is his way the best?

A helpful leader allows the process to unfold instead of trying to force it.  When people are pushed, resentment builds.  They shove back.  Force creates a team that is unable to decide and act.  It divides instead of bringing people together.

Tact

The effective leader does not publically critique his colleagues in a shallow personal way.  They are not simply good or bad people.

The good manager does not brag or explain to his team members about how he is better than them, they are not made of the right stuff, and that they should try harder to emulate his values.  It divides the team and can detract from its common purpose.  Some team members might conclude that they are being asked to carry “dead weight”.  Others will fear being labeled unfairly.  Criticism lowers their status in the team.  An atmosphere of competition could come to replace the cooperation that is necessary to achieve objectives.

Winning Responsibly

When a leader is interested in himself, he teaches selfishness.  It is paradoxical that the self grows when one is selfless.  William Sloane Coffin captured this when he wrote:  “There is no smaller package in the world than that of a person all wrapped up in himself.”

To be free is to be responsible.  No one can decide for you.  External courage kills.  Internal courage keeps people alive.  When a leader commits to nothing and takes no responsibility other than to personally make choices, the door is left open for vacillation.  He will have no grounding in reality, no center, and will be easily excited and subject to whims.  The stability of society depends on a well-grounded center.  Only war requires decision and command.

A leader cannot mediate when the world consists of good or bad people instead of controversy.  A coercive leader listens only to friends.  When people are afraid to be honest to them, the truth dies.

Public servants are willing to sacrifice themselves for the public good.  They have a calling, not just a job.  Their influence is more important than their fate.  They don’t make excuses or blame those who came before them.  They don’t take all the credit.

We want to make America great, but chance, growth, and decay are present everywhere at all times.  Winning is not enough.  Everything comes and goes.  We must accept that.  It is O.K. to lose, to make mistakes.  It sets you free to try again.  Winners are losers who keep on trying.  They have a common public interest, not just their personal beliefs and desires.  No leader can make us great.  That can only come from us.