36th Edition
December 12, 2023
Situations like these…
I’ve always had a rule about leadership. It goes something like this – I am willing to lead but I am also willing to be a follower. But I won’t follow a bad leader. It’s been a pretty good rule that guided me throughout my career.
There are at least three tests that a leader can take in order to determine the effectiveness of his leadership. One, if you look behind you and no one is following, you are probably not as good a leader as you might think. A leader who hasn’t built trust with his teammates might seem popular when things are going well, but he will be abandoned when challenges or misfortune arise.
Two, if your key followers, or inner circle, only tell you what they think you want to hear instead of the truth, you probably aren’t an effective leader. Being surrounded by yes men, or teammates too afraid to express honest contrary opinions, will most certainly cause poor decision making. Situations like these never end well.
Three, if your leadership style is anything other than servant leadership, you are doomed to fail, because your best people will resent your selfishness and won’t be loyal when loyalty is most needed. In the history of mankind, selfishness has never been a virtue that any culture has revered. It is toxic to building strong, enduring relationships.
Businesses can only survive without effective leadership for a relatively short period of time. Over the long run, they can’t thrive without it. The best, most talented, and motivated people are naturally drawn to the most effective, servant leaders. The inspiration and positive energy that a servant leadership culture exudes can produce amazing innovation, teamwork, and competitive greatness.
The opposite tends to be true as well. The worst, least talented and least motivated people tend to stick with selfish, ineffective leaders, with whom they feel most comfortable. In these self-centered cultures, mistrust replaces trust, and a cut-throat mindset replaces teamwork. Collaboration and creativity die.
Do these same principles apply to countries as well? Interesting question and one that the United States seems to be faced with today. Over the past two decades, perhaps longer, the U.S. has shrunk from the world stage. There are many reasons this has occurred, some economic, many others political. The polarization that grips our nation has made the rest of the world question our global role, while we question it our self. As I have written in previous editions, an effective leader has to know the way, show the way, and go the way. Today, the U.S. seems to be struggling with each component. We seem confused about our core values. We struggle to solve lingering problems, and many regulatory and legislative attempts have actually made problems worse. Beyond that, we simply are not producing effective servant leaders. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that we aren’t the global leader we used to be. We aren’t respected nor feared, especially by our ideological and political enemies. Worse over, we have lost much of the respect of our allies. They don’t trust us and know they can’t rely on us like they could in the past. Situations like these never end well.
Does the world even need one particular country to be the leader? Some contend that today it just isn’t necessary. The World Economic Forum (WEF), a non-profit foundation created in 1971, is one organization that believes that an international group of politicians, economists, and business leaders can play the role of a global leader. There are many who have serious reservations about the ideology and policies promoted by the WEF.
The United States, together with its allies, won WWII and the Cold War, and then stood alone as the dominant global superpower. Today, it is a title we can no longer claim. We still have the world’s largest economy, demographic advantages over most of the rest of the world, as well as an abundance of natural resources. We have the ability to lead, but not the will to do so. Has our economic and wealth-creating success of the past eighty years made us soft and vulnerable? The answer seems obvious to me. Situations like these never end well.
Closer to home, I began my 28th year of coaching basketball. We recently held varsity tryouts at the small Christian high school where I coach. At the end of an intense two-hour session, one of the players came up to me, his tee shirt drenched in sweat. He smiled because he had made the team, despite being a freshman. This thoughtful young man realized he was now part of something bigger than himself. That’s really the point of all this, isn’t it. We are all part of something bigger than ourselves. Once we all realize this, and acknowledge that God is still in control, our collective worries should dissipate, because situations like these, unlike the messes we have gotten ourselves into today, always end well.
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Michael Kayes
*These views are my personal opinions and are not the viewpoints of any company or organization.