Ten Leadership Commandments for a False Leader

Old Artificer

"Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead." --Stephen Dedalus

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Ten Leadership Commandments for a False Leader

“When I say to people ‘Do it,’ they do it.  That’s what leadership is all about.”                                                                                                                Donald Trump

1.   “People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.”                                      

                           Theodore Roosevelt

2.   “No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.”                                                                                                       Andrew Carnegie

3.   “You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.”

4.   “The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”                                                        Dwight D. Eisenhower

5.   “Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.”                                                                 Norman Schwarzkopf

6.   “The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.” Ray Kroc

7.   “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”                       Peter Drucker

8.   “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”                                           John F. Kennedy

9.   “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers."  Ralph Nader

10.    “A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.”    Max Lucado

About Me

Reader 45

Reader 45 is described by one of his oldest friends as "an immoderate bibliophile." He is also a lifelong teacher of students from early childhood through adults, He holds a PhD in English from Harvard University, and a Master's in Conflict Resolution from the University of Massachusetts. He is the author of over 300 articles, reviews, curriculum guides, and other publications, and has written for the Boston Globe, Providence Journal, Shakespeare Quarterly, ACResolutions, Independent School and others.

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Sweden and the Great North American Poet-Songwriters

Were you surprised when the Nobel Prize for Literature went to Bob Dylan?  Even though he’s been the subject of much serious lit-crit, including the marvelous Dylan’s Vision of Sin, by the master critic of Milton and T.S. Eliot, Christopher Ricks?

            Well a small hint of where one vote on the panel came from appeared in the Guardian recently, in an article on members who resigned from their lifetime positions over the Nobel’s handling of a sexual harassment claim.  One of the resigners, Klas Östergren, a novelist and screenwriter, ended his resignation letter with these words: “I’m leaving the table, I’m out of the game.”

            So?  He’s quoting one of the songs on Leonard Cohen’s last recording, “You Want It Darker,” released just 19 days before Cohen’s death in 2016.  Cohen, the Canadian poet-songwriter-performer who might be the only peer Dylan had. What a way to go out, Klas.

First World Problems – and Then Some

Two Boston Globe stories today show the gulf between the serious problems of ordinary people and the neuroses of the upper crust (I remember when “crust” meant impudence or arrogance – nerve, chutzpah, etc.)

            On the one hand, a Haitian American nurse who defended another nurse of color she thought was being unfairly treated, and found herself retaliated against, just won a major lawsuit against one of the city’s biggest hospitals.  Forced to take basic tests again, told of complaints against her that never were filed, she received a huge settlement for defendant conduct that was “outrageous or egregious, involving evil motive or reckless indifference to the rights of others.”

            Just below that article is the headline “Globe editor investigated over alleged text exchange.”  The exchange: a former sub-editor for the paper’s online arm produced a text message in which the editor-in-chief allegedly wrote “What do you usually wear when you write?” at some unknown time in the past.

            The sub-editor described this horrific sentence as “a sext-type text from someone who was powerful enough that you felt you couldn’t do anything (other than panic/shake your head/cry).”  Excuse me?  “what do you usually wear when you write?”  In a text?  And she’s panicking at her desk?  A “sext-type text”? She must know that almost every writer of any note – which I doubt includes her – has been asked that question, and there are whole books devoted to writers at their desks in their writing garb.  How Joan Didion, Proust, Thomas Wolfe and others dressed and where they wrote are legendary.

            This is how the greedy and the privileged co-opt serious issues and make them seem ludicrous in the eyes of people who would otherwise be happy to fight a real injury.

So That's What You're Worried About?

            Today’s news reports the dismay of high school students who sought help from the Florida legislature after the mass shooting at their high school.  The legislators refused to debate a ban on automatic weapons, as they took time to pass a resolution to protect teenagers from pornography. What’s their new motto: “Guns don’t f**k people, people f**k people”? 

            Unfortunately the right has no monopoly on misdirected concern, despite their worry about gender neutral bathrooms, sharia law, and leaving teachers unarmed.  The left too can get worked up about really dumb stuff.  Take this one: The author of the wonderful hymn “Standing on the Side of Love” has changed its title to “Answering the Call of Love” out of respect to the physically disabled, and worse yet, his denomination has changed its own campaign to “Siding with Love,” whatever that means.

            Of course, like most hastily thought out responses to any objection, the solution really doesn’t work.  How are the deaf or those who cannot speak going to answer the call of love?  And when will the sensitivity police get to the rest of the hymnal and other songs?  Here are my suggestion for the first works needing purification:

For paraplegics and those using wheelchairs:

·      “Lord of the Dance”

·      “I’ll Walk with God”

·      “The Lord is My Shepherd’ (though I walk through the valley”)

·      “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”

·      “Standing the Need of Prayer”

·      “The Garden”  (“and he walks with me”)

·      “When the Saints Go Marching In” (also note “I looked over Jordan”)

·      “Run Come See Jerusalem”

For the vision or hearing-impaired:

·      “When the Saints Go Marching In” (also note “I looked over Jordan”)

·      “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”

·      “O Little Town of Bethlehem (“how still we see thee lie”)

·      “Jesus we Look to Thee”

And music isn’t the only problem.  What was Jesus thinking when he said “You have eyes and do not see and you have ears and you do not hear,” or "But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear,” or "The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light”?  Or David when he sang “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death”? 

I could go on – and I often do:  The daily Hebrew prayer that begins “Hear, O Israel,” the Star-Spangled banner, with its grievous insult, “O say can you see,” and falsely uplifting songs like “Stand By Me,” or the heartlessly blunt “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

Folks, let’s stop nitpicking.  I want all of us to stand, walk, run, sing, shout, speak out, be watchful, and act in whatever literal or metaphoric way we can against evil, war, violence, and cruelty, and for goodness, peace, and love.  And when we’ve finished those tasks, we can return to vocabulary tests.