Tuesday 8 July 2014

Leadership

Leadership is servership. In any given situation people take initiatives that serve the need of the situation rather than just their own gratifications. This quality is lost when leadership is equated with personal status.

Leadership embodies qualities of a true willingness to listen and stands clear in the decisions and actions that arise from a genuine communication.

Leaders get out of the way as much as possible so as not to interfere with the free movement of initiative within their respective influence.

Leaders know they are not a power unto themselves. They are learners on an equal basis - operating temporarily in a particular role.

That was just some ideas of what qualifies true leadership in my view.

In such times as we live there is much fear and polarised reaction, and consequently little willingness for genuine communication. So many are defined by what they believe is wrong and must be fought.

There are two directions that serve humanity truly. One is a process of education by which we become aware of choices we make that undermine, sabotage or deny our own good and the other is to wholly embrace the beloved - the Good that is tangibly and obviously Good. Fear distracts from joy in life and the mind is activated in reaction so as to put 'Life' on hold until the emergency is passed. In a state of perpetual emergency, Life does not get a word in edgeways.

Life has everything to say if we let it in and listen - but all the devices by which we think we can 'go it alone' - operating on our own thinking - without really checking in at the heart - is exactly the kind of 'leadership' that goes nowhere and costs everything!

The child is paternally protected and guided until it can begin to also hold the values of the culture. It is not free to be a child forever but must grow responsibility. This principle is Life-affirming. If the parent loses the cultural values that enliven it - they drift into patterns that distort their guardianship so as to become guards. If the same distortions affect the adolescent, they interpret love as coercive and redefine their freedom in reaction. The 'parent' that manages, feeds and protects a distorted culture of perpetual adolescence and childish irresponsibility may see itself in a world that would become even more chaotic if it were to withdraw its control - or if any other parenting idea was to usurp it from its sense of power.

That was a quick sketch - but the principle of restating and embodying the true and tangible values that enliven our culture is one of truing up and coming out of the closet as an example of the culture rather than an attacker of what is perceived to be the evil in another. From a true integrity, one can communicate issues without becoming baited in the personality level of mask, deceits and addiction to false presentation. ANYONE of any station who extends such an active willingness is answering the NEED of our situation and embodying leadership.

Every idealism becomes subverted to deceit because Life is not a system - so much as a dance. One has to move with the music - and this means listening. Belief systems will tend to replace listening and seeing. Belief systems tend to be coercive upon the consciousness that gives trust and power to them. This is the politic of freedom I invite; of responsibility as consciousness for what we choose to accept as true of our own self - and thus to act only from that - whilst extending the same trust to others in their own choices and being willing to communicate honestly where we meet or share purpose.

Reflecting the choices that ARE being made is different from attacking them. It allows joining with the one who is making a poor choice so as to serve their ability to make a better one - once the issue is opened to the light. Those who freely deny their freedom do not realise such a choice while they see their limitation arising from their failed expectations of others or of the world 'out there'.

This was written into an article:
Misguided Beliefs in Political Leaders
http://www.thedailybell.com/editorials/35457/Richard-Ebeling-Misguided-Beliefs-in-Political-Leaders/

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