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#Post#: 23--------------------------------------------------
The Focus of Leadership by Michael Mckinney
By: IMPACT360 Date: November 28, 2014, 4:13 am
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By Michael McKinney
American newspaper commentator Walter
Lippmann defined leaders as "the custodians of a
nation's ideals, the beliefs it cherishes, of its
permanent hopes, of the faith which makes a
nation out of a mere aggregation of individuals."
Custodians . The word means a keeper, a guardian,
or a caretaker. It is a proactive word that implies
action on the part of the bearer. Custodians hold
something in trust on behalf of others. It is not a
behavior motivated out of self-interest.
A custodian then, is an individual who upholds
what is best for all people even if it may not be in
their own interest to do so. A custodial role must
be approached as a temporary role, preserving
something greater than the self—principles of
enduring and lasting value. This is an attitude of
mind that focuses on the task at hand and not on
what the leader may gain from the position. It
implies a caring and concerned relationship
between leaders and followers; individuals
motivated by their constituents' best interests.
This idea seems at odds with what we see
happening around us today. In all too many
arenas, we see many of our leaders holding
nothing in trust for those they purport to serve but
advancing only their own ideals and hopes.Today,
it is often difficult to tell if our leaders are serving
themselves or us. And it is all too common to find
leaders simply helping themselves to privilege and
power. Mismanagement, deceit, greed, and frying-
pan-into-the-fire problem solving all beg the
question, "Where are our leaders leading?" "To
whom can we look to for the direction we need?"
Is Lippmann's statement merely an idealistic,
unrealizable dream?
Choosing Service Over Self-interest
Throughout time, leaders who have exhibited the
proper kind of custodianship —leaders who have
sought service over self-interest—have been held
in high regard. We gladly look to them for direction
and guidance in times of indecision, turmoil and
trouble.
One such custodian stood out in the Fifth century
BC. The Roman army was surrounded. The country
was in need of a leader who would seize the
moment and turn the situation defeat into victory.
They called upon a man who was out plowing his
field, a farmer. He came. He saw. He conquered.
He went home. Cincinnatus gained fame for his
selfless devotion to his country. This half-
legendary hero of the Roman Republic gave his all
in a time of crisis and then gave up the reins of
power when the task was done and went back to
his plow.
In more modern times, America's first President,
George Washington, considered "the Father of his
Country," provides a paramount example of this
same kind of custodial leadership that Lippmann
espoused.
Washington was an aristocratic gentleman farmer
of distinctive character. When called upon to
defend the interests of a fledgling nation as
Commander in Chief of the Revolutionary Army
during the American War of Independence, he rose
to the challenge and persevered against all odds.
Then, after eight and a half years of being the most
powerful man in America, he resigned his
commission and returned to his agricultural
pursuits.
Not surprisingly, he became the reluctant, yet
automatic and unanimous choice for the first
president of the United States. He served two
terms. His final and perhaps greatest act of service
to his country was that like Cincinnatus, who he
had often been compared to by his
contemporaries, he stopped serving and retired
back to his Mount Vernon estate in Virginia.
Washington is remembered for his strength of
character and discipline, his loyal patriotism, his
principled leadership and selfless devotion to
public duty. He held in trust for the American
people the very values and beliefs that made their
nation possible without regard for his own gain.
In reality, true leadership is and has always been a
selfless action. It involves taking yourself out of
the picture and considering the needs of others. It
is a way of thinking that takes other people into
account even when your own needs are pressing.
It asks what is right or best in the wider interest.
Few would doubt the need for more leaders like
Cincinnatus and George Washington today. Leaders
who will complete the job they were asked to do
without regard for themselves; leaders who will
lead and not merely register the popular will of the
people. Yet it would be difficult to build a
consensus as to how a leader might do that; how
a leader might be a custodian of or hold in trust a
nation's or a groups values and beliefs.
How might we answer this question in a world that
has seemingly grown unmanageable? Today our
world is faced with serious, even life-threatening
problems of a global nature. Where will we find the
wisdom necessary that might be applied to
modern civilization's most pressing dilemmas?
Leadership Is Everyone's Business
Clearly, leadership is an issue that affects all of us.
Not only are we impacted by it, but also, we are all
called upon to exercise it. Whether we are called
upon to be involved in leading government or
business, guiding young minds, leading a family,
standing for what is right, or organizing a dinner, a
carpool, or a household, everyone has a leadership
role to play. We are each thrust into many different
leadership roles again and again, throughout our
lives. We are each called upon to be custodians of
what is right and good, lasting and of value, for
those in our care.
Surprisingly, this idea of custodianship even runs
through the writings of the Renaissance writer
often thought to be one of the most cynical yet
most observant political thinkers of all time,
Niccolò Machiavelli. Machiavelli insisted that
leadership was virtuous only if the good of the
community was sought out and achieved above all
else. A good leader, in other words, was a steward
of the community.
When we are called upon to lead, what kind of
custodian we will be depends greatly on what we
understand a custodian to be, on how we think
about other people, and on how we determine what
is right and worth holding in trust.
The word custodian as we are applying it here is
the same as the word steward that we find in the
pages of the Bible and used throughout history. A
custodian or steward performs the task of watching
over that which is placed in their trust by the one
who owns it or for those who will benefit by it. It is
a service performed for others. It is not about
ownership or control. It is not a technique. It is
who the leader is . It is an attitude—a state of being
—a way of looking at the world. But it is not the
passive, hands-off leadership that some have
attributed to this way of thinking. It is a component
of leadership that leaders were not intended to
function without.
In the context of what Mr. Lippmann is talking
about, it means not only maintaining the vision of
and faith in those ideals, beliefs and hopes but,
living those values as a model and example for
others to follow. It means raising the sights and
holding the focus of those we lead such that they
are empowered to reach their potentials. It means
enabling people by getting the roadblocks out of
their way and often out of their thinking. To do
this, of course, the leader must grasp the larger
picture at all times and hold the course for the
benefit of all.
Understanding Servant Leadership
In the widening chasm between what we want and
expect from our leaders and what we are getting, it
seems only natural to take a hard look at
leadership itself. And many do. Finding the
leadership we see around us lacking, our
traditional views of leadership might seem to be
archaic. Out of what can only be frustration, we
often find many traditional ideas tossed out for new
and myopic ideas of what leadership is all about.
Due to real and perceived problems with what we
have seen leaders doing, the faults of the old views
seem sufficient to float the new. The self-serving
nature of many of the leaders we have looked to in
the past, have led some to call for more passive,
follower-driven leadership.
One such version has called for replacing
leadership with a concept called "stewardship."
Although this might look at first blush to be what
Mr. Lippmann was referring to, it is not. Neither
does it refer to the biblical concept. Stewardship
cannot replace leadership because indeed it is an
integral part of it.
This nouveau-stewardship , as we will refer to it
here, has as a guiding principle, the belief that
others have the knowledge and the answers within
themselves. As such, there is no need to manage
other adults. No need to teach others how to think,
behave or conduct themselves. While this sounds
very appealing, democratic, liberating and almost
mystically primal, it is naïve. We know from
experience that people do not always act in their
own best interest.
The first responsibility of a leader is to define
reality. The last is to say thank you. In between,
the leader is a servant.
— Max DePree
All of this might sound arrogant to an age that has
placed in higher esteem personal knowledge over
external guidance. As the structures and
institutions that have traditionally provided us with
external guidance are dissolving—the family,
schools and religion—the desire to believe that we
are our own best source of wisdom and will act in
our own best interest, is strong. Theoretically, it
would seem to make sense. Practically, it has
never worked in any sustainable way. Human
studies have shown that we all take our cues not
from the realities of the environment, but from our
own biases, desires, perceptions, and distractions.
A function of leadership then, should be to help
followers create a more accurate and constructive
view of reality by painting the larger picture.
What Is Stewardship?
The nouveau-stewardship model is based on a
myth that leadership—where direction, vision and
guidance comes from the top of an organization—
creates a dependency on the part of the followers
and removes personal responsibility and
satisfaction. But does it really?
When the concept of nouveau-stewardship is
presented, it most often claims to have roots in the
Bible. Perhaps so. But then proponents of this
nouveau-stewardship go off on a tangent that the
Bible never intended. When the concept of
stewardship is first presented in the Bible, in
Genesis 1 and 2, Adam was instructed to "dress
and keep" the physical creation God had made. Not
a passive hands-off approach. Adam was to apply
God's Laws and thinking to the physical realm he
created. Adam was expected to do something. In
living with it, he was to make changes in
accordance with higher laws and thinking other
than his own.
In the same way, when we are given any other
leadership responsibility, we are responsible for
maintaining a set of standards that is line with
higher laws. Again, we are not to impose our own
thinking, wants and desires on those we lead, but
to apply those standards that are the best for the
whole as authored by God. Naturally, this is
implemented with respect for and two-way
communication with those the leaders serve.
True leadership, not to be confused with
dictatorship, does not take away an individual's
freedom, choice, accountability, or responsibility.
Just as the leader is to be serving and taking into
account the ideas and needs of those they lead,
those following that lead are to be doing the same
thing. In doing so, they, along with the leader,
practice self-restraint, develop character, integrate
discipline, and practice love and respect for other
people. This creates a kind of self-leadership at all
levels of the group. It promotes a self-leadership
environment where all are empowered and working
toward the good of the whole because it is in the
best interest of all.
Daniel Goldman, author of Emotional Intelligence,
refers to this kind of concern for others feelings,
ideas and opinions, as empathy. But, he cautions
in a Harvard Business Review article, that
"empathy doesn't mean a kind of 'I'm okay, you're
okay' mushiness. For a leader, that is, it doesn't
mean adopting other people's emotions as one's
own and trying to please everybody. That would be
a nightmare—it would make action impossible.
Rather empathy means thoughtfully considering
employees' feelings—in the process of making
intelligent decisions." In other words, true
stewardship or custodianship means taking others'
ideas and feelings into account while holding in
trust—keeping as boundaries or guardrails—the
groups ideal's, beliefs and hopes. Ironically, an
attitude of service keeps the leader aware of
other's needs while in turn enabling them to
become better leaders.
The nouveau-stewardship model sounds right on
the surface, but it plays out more like a defense
mechanism than a constructive method to get
leadership thinking back on track. As Mr.
Lippmann correctly defines, leadership is truly
about choosing service over self-interest.
Leadership properly performed is not a consensus-
building exercise but an exercise in outgoing
concern for others including defining and setting
boundaries as needed.
Leadership's Firm Foundation
What is critical to the leadership process and its
success, is where those values come from that
determine those boundaries. They can't come from
a single individual. Nor can they come from the
collective whole. Where do we get the ideals, the
beliefs and the permanent hopes that Mr.
Lippmann wrote of, that define the boundaries—
those guides that mold and shape us?
George Washington believed that those values and
boundaries came from God. In his first Inaugural
Address he asserted that "we ought to be no less
persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can
never be expected on a nation that disregards the
eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself
has ordained ."
Again, our boundaries must come from something
outside of ourselves. An effective leader has an
agenda designed to produce results, but is guided
by a core of values that come from outside and not
from within. This process is maintained by means
of the leader's integrity or custodianship of those
values.
Stressing the need for integrity to an outside core
of values in the performance of proper leadership,
John Adair, Visiting Professor of Leadership
Studies at the University of Surrey and Exeter in
England, states, "Although it is impossible to prove
it, I believe that holding firmly to sovereign values
outside yourself grows a wholeness of personality
and moral strength of character. The person of
integrity will always be tested. The first real test
comes when the demands of the truth or good
appears to conflict with your self-interest or
prospects. Which do you choose?"
Perhaps it is time to apply those "eternal rules of
order and right", those values, to the leadership
roles we must perform and lives we do lead.
Everyday activities are opportunities to
demonstrate and illustrate the values and beliefs
for which we must be custodians. Thus, the
element of empowerment is introduced into our
lives. Every person becomes in some sense a
leader.
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