Results tagged “leadership” from Marilyn Sewell

In institutional affairs, as well as in affairs of the heart, we do well to "speak the truth, in love."  This promise was part of the covenant which ministers typically make when they are installed in a church.  It is not an easy covenant to keep.  Leaders of all kinds of institutions tend to think that fudging the truth from time to time will keep the institution stable and whole; they tend to believe that transparency is just threatening.  Well, truth-telling is messy, yes, but necessary--necessary for the integrity of an institution, and necessary for its long-term viability and strength. And it must be done in love.  That's the clincher. 

Romantic partners also tend to shy away from truth-telling.  We will hold back our true feelings, even deny these feelings altogether, in the name of holding onto the "togetherness"--or at least the peace of the household.  But this denial of our own emotional reality never works.  As one friend once reminded me, "The unconscious always wins."  So we push those hurt feelings under, over and over again, and then all of a sudden we lash out--or worse than that, we just decide we don't want to be with this person any longer.  We may not even know why.  For some reason, we just don't like ourselves when we are with this partner. 

In affairs of state, the same principle holds: speak the truth, with respect and compassion.  President Obama beautifully illustrated how this might be done in his speech in Cairo, on June 4.  In a world in which posing and posturing are the order of the day, resulting in seemingly endless hostilities and shameful human loss, Obama simply said: "So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity.  This cycle of suspicion and discord must end. I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world . . . ."

Obama doesn't skirt the specifics: the Arab world heard about extremism, about nuclear arms programs, about a poor record in human rights.  On the other hand, Obama spoke with equal passion about the suffering of the Palestinians due to the Israeli occupation, about the injustice of Israeli settlements in the occupied territory.  He quoted from the Holy Koran (a holy scripture rarely heard by U.S. citizens): "Be conscious of God and speak always the truth."  He went on to say that he will try "to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us . . . ."

Obama is showing the world--and most especially his own country--what leadership is all about.  He may not be able to heal the ages-old rift between Palestinians and Jews--which after all, goes back all the way to Jacob and Esau--but the truth of his words moved people all over the world, ordinary people who understand on a very viseral level that violence multiplies upon itself and that peace makes possible lives of hope and prosperity, for us and for our children and for our children's children.

Courage is required to speak the truth, whether it's in regard to institutions, or intimate relationships, or foreign affairs.  There are always those who are ready to condemn, or to take advantage of any weakness shown.  But the fact is that there is health in the truth, and people are drawn to health when it is given as an alternative.  Honesty has a way of opening up possibility, because a clean field emerges where previously obfuscation made everything blurry and confusing. 

Yes, truth-telling takes courage, but when it's done for the right reason and when it's done in love, it leads to new life.  Ways open that have been shut.  Dreams that never could be imagined suddenly appear. Nothing seems impossible.

 Share this

On the front page of the NY Times today is a picture of three S.U.V's--great white behemoths--sitting on the altar of Greater Grace Temple, a Pentecostal church in Detroit. Worshipers--including hundreds who work in the automobile industry--are surrounding the vehicles, some with upraised hands in supplication, asking for the miracle that it would take to save their companies.  Officials from the United Automobile Workers union were invited to speak at the service, followed by a sermon by Bishop Charles H. Ellis III, entitled "A Hybrid Hope."  (The S.U.V.'s were all gas-electric hybrids on loan from various dealerships.)

Well, I guess that's the way we usually run our lives--we screw up, and then we beg God to DO SOMETHING and bail us out.  Really, God, I'll never hit my little brother again, I promise!  When do we grow up and begin to take some responsibility for the consequences of our actions? 

Let's talk about General Motors, the biggest baddest auto company.  G.M.'s chief executive, Rick Wagoner, earlier chastened and turned away by Congress, upon his return testified   that "G.M. has made mistakes in the past."  Wagoner named three of those mistakes: agreeing to expensive union contracts, not investing in smaller cars, and failing to convert plants so the company could build more than one kind of vehicle.

But G.M.'s biggest failing, according to some analysts, is the company's refusal to invest in innovation and to support those inside the company who were pushing the company to innovate.  Instead, they allowed the finance executives to carry the day, the guys in the company who were more interested in short-term returns on investment than in making products appropriate for the 21st century.  Their excuse?  "We were giving the public what they wanted."  Well, yes, by pushing hugely expensive ads and lobbying Congress to set fuel standards criminally low.  And the result of taking this direction?  Inflated stock values for investors and fat checks for executives.  Oh, and yes, now bankruptcy.

Let's talk about leadership, shall we?  When a person leads a business or an institution of any kind, that individual should consider his position as a sacred trust.  People will be depending upon that leader for their livelihood, and the company itself must remain not only viable but trustworthy, in the eyes of the public.  It is a public trust of sorts.  Of course a company must make a good profit in order to flourish, but the core mission of the company should never be solely to make a profit.  The core mission should include creating the best possible product for the most number of people at the lowest cost to them and to the environment, while ensuring that the line workers are respected and compensated apporopriately. 

The problem with G.M is a values problem, not a business mistake. Their executives went after the money, disregarding environmental issues and the quality of their product.  A business mistake can be rectified--but a values problem?  That will be more difficult to deal with.  I would suggest that a good beginning might be for Congress to insist that the current executives be relieved of their positions.  These are the leaders who made the decisions that fattened their own wallets and ran the company into the ground.  The leopard has shown its spots.  Should we now trust them with billions more?

 Share this

One of my congregants read a passage from the late Walter Lippmann today at a meeting, and I found his words both moving and relevant to our current political/financial crisis.  The passage is from Lippmann's essay "The False Gods," Today and Tomorrow, May 20, 1932.  In part, it reads: 

"What is it that has shaken the nerves of so many?  It is the doubt whether there exists among the people that trust in each other which is the first condition of intelligent leadership.  That is the root of the matter.  The particular projects which we debate so angrily are not so important.  The fate of the nation does not hang upon any of them.  But upon the power of the people to remain united for purposes which they respect, upon their capacity to have faith in themselves and in their objectives, much depends.  It is not the facts of the crisis which we have to fear.  They can be endured and dealt with.  It is demoralization alone that is dangerous.

"A demoralized people is one in which the individual has become isolated and is the prey of his own suspicions.  He trusts nobody and nothing, not even himself.  He believes nothing, except the worst of everybody and everything. He sees only confusion in himself and conspiracies in other men.  That is panic.  That is disintegration.  That is what comes when in some sudden emergency of their lives men (sic) find themselves unsupported by clear convictions that transcend their immediate and personal desires."

We have a situation now in this country in which nobody knows what to do, and nobody trusts the good will of our leadership.  In the face of the current financial meltdown, no more do we believe that "actually, someone is in charge; somebody knows more than I know about how things work--I need not worry."  Instead, it has come down to our "immediate and personal desires."  How does this crisis affect me?  Or, in the case of some people, "How can I profit from this crisis?"  Or in the case of some of our Congress people, "What must I say or do to be re-elected?"

We see conspiracies everywhere.  We fear that power given will be power misused.  What seemed perfectly clear a few weeks ago is no longer on the radar screen at all.  Hardly anyone is thinking like a citizen; many seem to being thinking how to gain advantage, rather than how to help and to heal.

The remedy?  Try honesty and trust.  Try integrity.  Try being sensitive to the needs of the poor.  "The world is flat," Thomas Freidman says, and all of us are one. All of us are one, yes, but not only in terms of our flow of money and goods, our fast-food joints, and our pop music--we are also one much more more literally, much closer to the flesh.  We cannot be separated, one from the other. What is good for one is good for all; what hurts one, hurts all.

We know that withdrawing honesty, trust, integrity from any relationship destroys that relationship.  We also know that whatever we do for ourselves alone is not enough, it is never enough.  We move through each day of our lives only with the support and care of many others.  The complex systems of families, communities, institutions, and governments that hold us are there only because of the common faith and trust of many who are present now and the many who came before. 

The power of the people depends upon our faith in something larger than our immediate needs and desires.  We need leaders of integrity and vision who can bring us together.  We need leaders who can summon us to a future that is worthy of our lives.

 Share this