Influential Leaders Go First!
‘You pinched me!’
‘Yes, but you took my pencil!’
‘Ouch, you’re pulling my hair.’
‘Because you pinched me.’
‘No. That’s sore. You can’t kick me!’
‘Sure I can. You pulled my hair.’
‘But you started!’
‘No, I did not. You did…’
‘I’ll burn your room down!’
‘Then your room will burn too?’
No matter these two people’s ages, their behaviours are childish and stupid and dangerous.
These sorts of interactions happening amongst adolescents will be put to an end right away with a lecture from adults about tit-for-tat being childish and unproductive.
Sadly, and frustratingly, such infantile behaviours happen all the time and in every walk of life, from families to schools, sports, businesses, governments and countries.
The fundamental and far-reaching problem is that adolescent adults think and behave in such unproductive ways.
These sorts of behaviours are devoid of self-efficacy, Social Agency and Influential Leadership.
I have watched a great many adults behave in churlish, childish and destructive ways, since I was an adolescent. They teach the young these ways… the ones they admonish for the same behaviours.
In recent times (since February 2022) we have seen people with immense destructive power at their disposal apply such behaviour in the Russia / Ukraine dispute.
War – mass murder – has been their answer.
During the past six months we have seen Hamas and Israel (with their various backers) tear into each other as if the other is not human, neighbour, kin or inhabitant of the same planet.
There are people in this ‘dispute’ who say they’ll take 100 eyes for every one of theirs, as if this would break the cycle.
There are adults, old men, with their fingers on the tiggers, their thumbs on big red buttons, willing to burn the house down for their selfish ends. They dredge up stolen pencils and pinches from a thousand years ago…
Today we stand on the brink of a possible nuclear war between Iran and Israel / USA for a new round of tit-for-tat.
If these men go ahead, every person on Earth will pay dearly, and the quarrel will be fuelled for another millennium.
These people are anti-leaders.
They serve nobody’s interests, not even their own.
Their words and deeds do not make anyone’s lives better.
This is NOT the Influential Leadership way!
[Influential Leadership] is the exact opposite of the policy [and behaviour] of an-eye-for-an-eye-for-an-eye-for-an-eye which ends in making everybody blind.[i]
It would take just one of these powerful people to break the cycle with an Influential Leadership approach.
Yes, that is so.
But, what about you and me?
It is easy to examine situations outside of ours, and dictate solutions for others, while baulking at taking the medicine ourselves.
If you and I applied the Influential Leadership Philosophy (just as a start, without even going further to the Principles and Behavioural Attributes) we would stop the unproductive cycle at ‘…you took my pencil…’
The Influential Leadership Philosophy is the unconditional acceptance that the quality and value of each life is inseparable from other’s lives and that whatever we do when we choose to lead must be for the common good.
The Influential Leadership Philosophy leaves no room for ifs and buts, no dredging up pencils and pinches from yesterday, last week… ever.
Step out, break the unproductive cycle.
Start a new one that leaves us all better off.
When you choose to lead, you also choose to go first, to break the unproductive cycles that catapult us towards endless blame-games and leave us all blind.
As you travel through the new week, find those Leadership Moments where you can stop the rot.
Go first!
Regards,
Colin @ Karoo
We Activate Apex Skills!
Leadership Weekly Note: 1624.150424
e: colind@karoo.world
Follow The Karoo Influential Leadership on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/KarooInfluentialLeadership
[i] The original maxim quoted below is found in the Quote Investigator and refers to line in the book by Louis Fischer, ‘The Life of Mahatma Gandhi’.
Satyagraha is the exact opposite of the policy of an-eye-for-an-eye-for-an-eye-for-an-eye which ends in making everybody blind.
