What does leadership mean to you? Does it give you a thrill to think of others looking up to you, awaiting your slightest, but ever-wise, decision; or leaping to carry out your least, but always-firm, command?
If so, you may have the necessary instincts to command a flock of sheep, or to hold determined sway over a band of cutthroats (each of whom will, of course, be merely biding his time until he can cut your throat and grab your position).
One-man team
Yours will, however, be a one-man operation. You will be able to accomplish little through others. Most of your time, probably, will be spent in grumbling over your subordinates’ incompetence or stupidity, in arbitrating their petty squabbles, and in settling endless private grievances.
Your subordinates will be incompetent, no doubt. You will have discouraged competence in them as a threat to your own autonomy. They will quite possibly be stupid as well. Who, blessed with any intelligence, would remain for more than a few weeks in the condition of mindless obedience that you impose on your subordinates? Inevitably, too, they will squabble, for you will have reduced them to positions of insignificance not only in your eyes, but also in their own.
And they will brood endlessly on their petty grievances, whether real or imaginary, simply because you have never held before them any vision that might have lifted them out of themselves.
When people are not inspired to give of themselves, they revert naturally to thinking what they can get for themselves. For such is the state of the unregenerate ego: self-centeredness, and the unending query, “What’s in it for me?”Egocentricity is invariably self-defeating. While it seeks only self-gratification, it closes off the very channels by which it might achieve true fulfilment: self-expansion, progress, and creativity.
Setting up for failure
If a leader glories in his own importance, he will infect his subordinates with the same attitude. Never will he be able to inspire in them the dedication which can bring a project to success. Everything he attempts to accomplish must eventually bog down in incompetence and — unless its sights are set almost at ground level — in failure. For the tenor of every group endeavour is a reflection of the spirit of its leadership.
I myself came to this understanding after trying for years to deny it. I had the job of organising groups under the coordination of an international headquarters. My endeavour was to free those groups from uncertain dependency on any one leader. It was only gradually that I came to see that I had been working against a simple reality of human nature — rules and procedures are no substitute for creative leadership. And it was then I realised that leadership means cultivating people, not abstractions.
Like begets like
For as the leader is, so will the group be. A good leader attracts good subordinates — or in some cases simply magnetises them so that they become good. A bad leader, on the other hand, can dissipate the magnetism of even the best team. No one with spirit, moreover, would remain longer than absolutely necessary under the direction of anyone completely lacking in spirit.
Ego games are not so easy to dismiss as they are to ridicule. Arrogance, indeed, is the first temptation of leadership. Not to be so tempted, furthermore, is not even necessarily a good sign in a potential leader. For whereas arrogance may be — must be, in fact — tempered if leadership is to be effective, unwillingness to lead may simply be an inborn trait, and unalterable. One who cannot come to terms with the thought of being a leader is someone whose natural mode of self-expression can only lie in some other field of action.
Nor should it be supposed that a person’s unwillingness to lead necessarily marks him as humble, or that another person’s acceptance that it is his nature to lead marks him as egotistical. Admittedly, creative expression of all kinds requires at least some degree of ego-consciousness. However, it is by creativity that we can develop to our own highest potentials.
Importance of ‘I’
It is, in fact, to our own greater self-consciousness that we owe our ability, as human beings, to raise ourselves, and to improve our material lot — a gift that is denied the lower animals. For only because of man’s capacity to tell himself, “I want to improve my lot; I want to change myself,” can he begin the long upward climb from the fogs of nascence to the crystal clarity of enlightenment.
What is important in every creative expression, including that of creative leadership, is not to allow one’s creative flow to be blocked by the thought of “I”.
The ego itself must be used creatively. It is the thought of “I” that first generates creativity. “My company needs a new product, let me try to invent one”; or, “I’d like to write a new song”; or, “I accept the responsibility for leading this army to victory”.
The important distinction lies in the direction of one’s flow of energy. If that flow is focused inward upon the ego, in the thought of one’s own importance, it becomes constrictive. On the other hand, if it is a radiation outward from one’s self, it becomes expansive. The more powerful that outward flow, the more magnetic it will be — and, ultimately, the more self-transforming.
Outward energy flow
If one’s concentration is on “I, the great inventor”, or, “I, the great poet”, or, “I, the great general”, one’s creativity will become blocked by the ego. But, if one’s energy-flow is directed outward — toward the thing one wants to invent, or the song one hopes to write or the war one intends to win, one’s creative energy becomes liberated, and the flow toward success is assured.
Leadership, then, must be focused on the job to be done. Your own role in the completion of a task should not be the focus of your attention, however vital that role may be. The greater one’s mental emphasis on himself as the doer, the less he will be able to accomplish — whether as a leader or in any other capacity. On the other hand, the greater his mental emphasis on the job to be done, the more likely he will be to succeed.
(The author is a writer, composer, playwright, artist and spiritual teacher. He is also the founder of Ananda World Brotherhood Community.)