GREAT LEADERSHIP TOP TEN
Great Leadership Top Ten #1 Secret Super Power
A little boy and his mom were on a morning walk. They passed a bush where 3 abandoned wild cats hid. The boy ran to one of the cats and bent down to pet the wild guy. The mother whispered, “Be careful…the cat’s been abused and has wounds all over him. He might scratch you!”
The cat let the little boy pet him. When he stopped petting the cat…it swiped it’s claws down his arm. Despite a long bleeding scratch, the child was smiling from ear to ear. As his mom inspected the scratch, another one of the wild cats appeared. The cat went straight to the boy. Then another stray hiding in the bushes emerged and went to the kid. The mother recognized that the innocence of such a young person was special. The cats swirled about the child’s legs joyfully and he petted and received them all. The mother asked her son if he was ok from the wound. The boy said: “The cat was just trying to get my attention…he doesn’t have thumbs, so he has to use a claw. He knows I love him now, so we’re friends. We’ll always be friends.”
The boy and his mom started walking back to their house around the corner…with the three cats following behind. These Cats don’t follow anybody….except a boy with a secret super power. The power of love. Love that produces a joy that can’t be contained. Love that does not consider injury or offense. Love that is so real it’s contagious and draws its recipients out from wherever they are. Love that lifts everyone and everything it touches. Love that makes you want to follow someone everywhere they go. This little boy had a quality we all desire in our leaders –
Great Leadership Top Ten #2 Humane
“IN MY JOB, I’M ALWAYS SEEING HUMANS AT THEIR BEST, AND THEIR WORST. I SEE THEIR UGLINESS, AND THEIR BEAUTY. AND I WONDER HOW THE SAME THING CAN BE BOTH.” DEATH, “The Book Thief”
Playwright Eugene O’Neill explored what symbolizes an American tragedy. The ruthless pursuit of wealth at the expense of deeper human values. According to O’Neill we are all liars. Creating illusions. Deceiving ourselves. Events in our lives that humiliate us. Failure at romantic love. Our anxieties of the desire to achieve what society labels success. The car we drive. The house we live in. The clothes we wear. The body we inhabit.
Author Andrew Klavan states, “Materialism strips humans of the logic of their humanity. Humanity being the whole point of Western liberty.” Political disappointments and religious disillusionment have challenged man’s moral sense. Questions arise on what principles form the foundation of the West’s freedoms. Klaven observes: If a person is simply a chemistry set crossed with a computer whose actions are governed solely by a series of discharges and sparks, then morals are empty. The difficulty is learning how to cope with, make sense of, and endure the often-painful moral longings and experiences that define Western civilization. There are no easy answers, but in more ways than one, our lives depend on getting the answers right
Great Leadership Top Ten #3 Caged Canary
A mysterious and untraceable odorless gas plagued the coal mines of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The gas, which was simply known as “miner gas” was a colorless, odorless and tasteless, being produced by much of the activity taking place deep within the mountain’s mines. Improperly ventilated mine shafts exasperated these problems leading miner’s gas to buildup and reach dangerous levels.
Miners started to carry a canary in a cage with them down into the mines. The reason was that Carbon monoxide can build to deadly levels, and it has no smell. Normally quite vocal, the silence of the canary when they stopped singing signaled danger. Miners knew to get out of the mine — and quickly. If the canary died, they knew that they were soon to follow if they didn’t run. A simple and unassuming small bird saved thousands of lives.
Today, we need to recognize the silenced canaries all around us. President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that the alliance of money, technology, and government power could corrupt public policies. This was an early warning. 80% of Americans state they do not trust their government. Last year it was estimated that a minimum $300 Billion was lost by our government to waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement. Who is the watch dog? Our Senators? Who have to raise over $14,000 per day, every day for 6 years to run for re-election.
“Canary in the coal mine” described a system that was trusted by miners and their families. A Canary is an example of great leadership because the canary in the coal mine is always the first to go. They signal that something terrible is about to happen. They detect the poison before something bad happens. They smell danger and if we do not do something soon, things will get worse.
Great Leadership Top Ten #4 Say NO To Junk
In a lifetime, a human body will process 100,000 pounds of food. That equals to spending five years of our lives eating. It starts with the stomach. It is the leader. Besides digesting food, the stomach protects the entire body by killing food toxins.
When we look in a mirror, we see a body that we desire to improve. The reflection shows parts of the body that impacts how we see ourselves. A poor self-image can make us challenge our values…our behaviors…beliefs… and our sense of right and wrong. For example…the stomach promises our body that if you eat sweet and fatty foods you will believe you have what you need. But the satisfaction is only temporary. You are seduced… and that comes with great costs.
Getting rid of the fat is essential. The federal government, our body, owes over $125 Trillion in debts, liabilities, and unfunded obligations. That equals a debt of $378,000 for every person living in the U.S. Changing both lifestyle and diet requires eliminating or reducing fatty foods and empty calories. This leads to a leaner, healthier, more efficient body.
What if …various parts of the Body, the arms, legs, eyes, feet, and hands held a meeting to discuss a stomach that only consumed junk food. What if…by expressing their unhappiness, the body parts decided to stop feeding the stomach until it accepts better food. After three days, the Body would start to starve. Hands would not be capable of lifting anything. The legs would not be able to walk. The body would malfunction. The Stomach would need to consume healthy food that allows the body to grow and to prevent sickness.
A stomach that consumes only junk food kills the body.
Great Leadership Top Ten #5 Little Brain
“For who can stop the heart from beating”. -Cry the Beloved Country
The Heart is known by doctors as a little brain. It has 40,000 neurons. It can feel, think, and decide for itself. The Heart and Brain dialog, analyzing and responding to each other’s signals as if considering things. The heart serves as an engine room, using 60,000 miles of blood vessels to maintain life.
Each day, that heart will beat 100,000 times. In an average lifetime it will beat 3 billion times. The heartbeat represents life. A voice. Empathy for others. America has 328 million hearts divided along political, economic, racial, and religious lines. Conflicts are breaking the American heart. You can die of a broken heart. It compromises our democratic values. The disease of the heart is the leading cause of death in the U.S. A healthy heart is essential to our survival. America needs hearts of compassion, wisdom, and courage.
Cry the Beloved Country was written to showcase inequality and injustice. It spoke of the “…voices crying what must be done, a hundred, a thousand voices.” The conclusion was “The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that things are not mended again.” A beating heart becomes a voice, a voice that can and should be heard. That small voice can be a bandage to heal a nation’s wounds.
Great Leadership Top Ten #6 An Elephant
Long ago, four blind men encountered an elephant. They touched the elephant to learn what it was. The first blind man touched the side of the elephant. “How smooth, an elephant is like a wall.”
“Oh no! It is like a rope,” argued the second after touching the tail.
The third touched the trunk of the elephant. “How round, it is like a snake.”
The fourth blind man grabbed the leg. “How tall, it is like a tree.” Each of the blind men were correct and wrong. They only had a partial view. If they put their views together, they would have had a better idea of what an elephant is.
In the animal kingdom, the Elephant is a symbol of physical strength. In their own communities, the Elephant that demonstrates wisdom, reliability and compassion is the leader. Elephants have great love for one another. To remain in their group, each must be slow to anger and trustworthy. The young can walk under the adults, never worried about being stepped on. Babies are carried over obstacles. The leaders provide shelter and guide the young. When there is danger the entire pack follows the leader to protect the weak and show courage in crisis.
In a world where issues are not just black or white, good or bad, ethical or unethical, an elephant leader cannot just be a side, a tail, a trunk nor a leg. The sum of the parts makes a complete leader.
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader”. President John Quincy Adams
Great Leadership Top Ten #7 Kevlar Helmet
Every generation is faced with warnings of government calamity and foregone collapse of civil liberties, yet, history has proven that the individual person has an enormous capacity to survive the worse and build foundations that are strengthened by those we birth and raise to govern among the broken.
Authenticity of truth and character will replace the hardened political process that rewards hypocrisy, narcissism, insincerity, and love of money. A generation of leaders will move beyond the superficial and become sensitive to the things that pollute us as a country.
The generation to come will be the creators and the designers of private initiatives that will have a profound impact on the economic, political, and cultural decisions of a refreshed government. Technology has now changed our awareness in public forums of our sense of duty to others.
Stories that need to be told…stories that must be told. A goal of informing, educating, and engaging the public. Years ago, 22-year-old Marine Corporal Jason Dunham signed up for an extra two months in Iraq so he could stay with his squad, a promise Dunham made to the band of brothers that we stay together until all make it home alive.
During a rescue mission, a suicide insurgent leapt from his vehicle removing the pin from a grenade to kill as many people as possible. Without hesitation, Jason took off his Kevlar helmet, dropped to the ground and covered the explosion with his body. Jason saved his fellow Marines and laid down his life for others. In the end, this man proved to be selfless and absolutely committed to his fellow men. Leaders that embrace platforms that lay down their identities for the sake of saving others is the ultimate selfless sacrifice.
Great Leadership Top Ten #8 A Locksmith
77% of people say our moral values are getting worse. When a person witnesses an action that is wrong, and fails to stand up for what is right, they often suffer a moral injury. It is an injury of anger, guilt, and shame that scars the soul. It is painful. Every day our generation is confronted by moral and ethical dilemmas.
Our country suffers from the pain of a moral injury. The general decay of basic human decency. It’s no secret that we Americans don’t like pain. Each month, we medicate ourselves with 39 million prescriptions to battle anxiety.
Desmond tutu stated: “Until we can forgive, we remain locked in our pain and locked out of the possibility of experiencing healing and freedom, locked out of the possibility of being at peace.”
If a nation’s suffering comes from a moral injury where leaders avoid the truth, our generation will remain slaves to anger and resentment.
Novelist Edith Wharton described the wounded soldiers that had suffered extreme injuries in World War I. She noticed they were “calm, meditative, strangely purified and matured”. Wharton observed: “It is as though their great experience had purged them of pettiness, meanness and frivolity, burning them down to the bare bones of character.”
Our founding documents of freedom, equality, and justice were built as a dam to hold back the flood waters. One injustice becomes a small leak. A leak that can lead to a disastrous flood. When something is broken, it needs to be repaired.
Great Leadership Top Ten #9 Bridge Builder
In 1969 Paul Simon wrote the song Bridge Over Troubled Waters. The song tells of a bridge that will get us thru the hard times we all have. It’s about hope and transformation. The waters are turbulent. The bridge is in need of repair. Crossing is a challenge. A Roman citizen and traveler, assuming everyone knew the world is in chaos, wrote 2000 years ago that “the whole creation is groaning,…”
In 1978, the political writer Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn confronted Harvard students about their lost faith in America, its institutions, its principles, culture, traditions, and way of life, recovering from a war no one understood, Vietnam. He faulted America for abandoning its own moral and, especially, spiritual ideals and identity. Solzhenitsyn viewed the West’s weakness as the fruit of materialism, consumerism, self-indulgent individualism, immorality and narcissism.
There are more than half a million bridges in the United States that are used to cross obstacles. A bridge is one of those things that are often taken for granted until you don’t have one. Without the bridge, the landscape cannot be connected. Bridge-builders start with a foundation that includes understanding what is on the other side and how to get there. Great leaders build bridges that connect cultures and communities.
The Bill of Rights outlined a land of opportunity by establishing justice, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…a bridge for the people. Great Leaders aren’t born. They’re Built. Building a bridge…Leadership or Chaos?
Great Leadership Top Ten #10 Warts & All
Frogs come in all shapes, colors, and sizes. They can jump what would be compared to a human jumping 100 feet. Their leap is a study in power, distance, and accuracy. Their vision field is almost 360° so they can see all that is around them all the time! They say that if you put a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will leap out right away to escape the danger. But, if you put a frog in a pot that is filled with water that is cool and pleasant, and then you gradually heat the pot until it starts boiling, the frog will not become aware of the threat until it is too late. The frog’s survival is to detect sudden changes.
This illustrates how our generation must be careful to watch slowly changing leaders. We must pay close attention to what is going on around us, so that we can notice when the “water” is getting hot. What a leader says is like the water. The words are slow to heat, but the actions can kill. Like a magician, they use something called misdirection in order to fool us. They wave a shiny colorful handkerchief and wand in one hand, so we don’t see them producing the illusion with the other.
Here are 3 things why a leader should be a frog.
#1: Being a frog means admitting and accepting you have warts. Appearances can be deceiving. Many frogs have smooth, glossy skin. A leader who fabricates the truth creates a fake image that isn’t base on reality.
#2: Frogs care about the water temperature. A leader who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, and principles that they do not actually possess, is a hypocrite. Funny but the word hypocrite in ancient times meant “an actor”. Helping those in need requires honesty about existing problems, not act as if no problems exist.
#3: A Leader Grows from a tadpole to a frog, an amazing transformation.
A leader recognizes the reality of their faults, failures, and weaknesses. They understand their shortcomings and those challenges help make them who they are. They are honest with themselves about the difficulties they face in life. It can be the time they grow their character the most.
“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” Abraham Lincoln