A Note on Leadership
July 30, 2020
Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In these very confusing days, I have been thinking a great deal about leadership, particularly how scarce a commodity it is in our present time. As we peruse the news cycle every day, it is shocking to witness the level in which international leadership and local leadership seems to regularly, perhaps systematically drops the ball. No one seems to be able to draw the world together. We regularly read opinions about how this or that superpower is now losing its hold on world affairs. And so, I have been thinking rather hard about what makes a leader and why we are so short of them presently. I am thinking about Biblical leadership, the image of Moses and Aaron combining their talents to lead a sometimes-reluctant people to the promised land. What is leadership?
First, leadership is not power. Although leaders have power, their principle aim is not the exercise of power, the control of power and the maintenance of power at all costs. Power without leadership is tyranny. Power without the qualities that make a good leader is not only useless, but very dangerous. It means that the power broker can do things but he or she has no schema by which to do them. A true leader is not motivated by power. In fact, a real leader is usually almost embarrassed by the power wielded. She does not seek accolades. He does not seek to wield authority. It seems to me that a true leader has six basic qualities: Vision, self-sacrifice, intelligence, articulation, tirelessness, and a willingness to suffer.
The first is vision. A true leader has a meaningful and compelling vision about how he sees his corner of the world being realized, that is, being made more vivid, more TRUE. The vision tells people truths about themselves, who they are, what they really want, what they absolutely need. The vision is something that the leader convinces the people to strive for, to long for, to die for. Without the vision, the power that the leader has is nothing. Frequently the vision can never be realized in the leader’s time or under her influence, but it is tirelessly pursued. For Christian leaders, for Catholic leaders the vision is given to us, it is the vision of Christ, the authentic vision of the Gospels, equality, freedom, virtue, love, compassion. These are the true visions we must pursue, and yet, I believe we are not pursuing them, at least not systematically. The leader puts everything else aside, all personal needs and wants to achieve the vision. In our culture today we have lost that laser focus. We pursue many things, or nothing. We look for fulfillment not in universal values, but its fleeting satisfactions.
This leads to the second quality of leadership: Self-sacrifice. Am I willing to give up my comfort for the vision I am pursuing? Am I willing to put my personal values aside for the good of all? What is my bottom line for the pursuit of the vision? So many potential leaders have good ideas, good visions, but when the rubber hits the road, the vision is abandoned because it is not comfortable for me, or I think that no one is listening. Leaders lead despite response and that is great self-sacrifice. I am a true leader if I am not getting anything out of this pursuit of vision, except the satisfaction of pursuing the Truth. No tyrant will ultimately die for a vision. Am I planning to be a leader for the Church with the caveat of only doing what is comfortable for myself? The sacrifices will be great, they are great.
The third quality of leadership is intelligence, and here I am not speaking about degrees or trivial knowledge, I am speaking about wisdom. First, wisdom involves a general desire to know things, to pursue things, even things that at first glance we find unimportant and meaningless. I do not like a certain thing; therefore, I leave it to one side. I am not interested in what my friends are talking about, so I ignore them. Intelligence is the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge for its own sake and not merely for utilitarian purposes. This is the quality of a mature mind. The mature mind does not ridicule people’s interests. The mature mind, the leader’s mind knows that those interests are the things that motivate others, for good or ill. Intelligence, wisdom, is the application of knowledge toward a goal, the goal, the vision of leadership. Many people spend a great deal of time accumulating facts, but they often have little idea about how these facts apply in the world. That application is intelligence, it is wisdom.
Fourth is articulation. The leader must know how to communicate. Many of our world leaders have become somewhat obsessed in the past couple of decades with communication. They believe they must become acquainted with Facebook or with Twitter. Twitter is not communication. Twitter is a way to tell your roommate to pick up some milk on the way home. It is not a means of conveying anything meaningful, much less essential. We no longer know how to communicate. I wonder how many who have received this email will (a) open it, and (b) read it this far? Ministry is about articulation. There is no real room for shyness or reticence to talk to people. The proclamation of the Gospel demands power. Leaders must know this and must find ways to communicate true and deep ideas to people in a convincing way. The question for the leader is not only can I say things, but can I say truly meaningful things that people feel compelled to hear?
Tirelessness is the fifth quality of leadership. One of my frequent lines to seminarians going home for the break is that I hope they return more exhausted than when they left because of their tireless commitment to serve the people at home. As leaders we need to have an inexhaustible supply of energy to commit to the pursuit of the vision we have set before us. We cannot fail to pursue the vision because we are totally convinced of the importance of that vision in our lives and for the needs of the world. I must do ONE MORE THING. I must see ONE MORE PERSON. I must create ONE MORE SPEECH. I think about the image of Oskar Schindler in the film, Schindler’s List when, at the end he breaks down thinking about the one additional thing he could have done to save Polish Jews. That is leadership.
Finally, there is the willingness to suffer. This is really contained in all I have already said. Leaders must be willing to suffer for their vision. True leaders are sometimes misunderstood, often ridiculed and frequently tuned-out because the culture in which they are exercising leadership may not be ready to receive the vision. The leader presses on. She presses on in times of real struggle. He presses on in conditions of unwavering opposition. The true leader endlessly pursues a route to success. He makes the vision happen.
Our world today is sorely lacking in leaders. We have plenty of sycophants. We are filled with tyrants. We are lacking in real leaders, men and women of moral and intellectual courage hellbent on changing the sad world in which we live. What can we do? Here at Saint Meinrad, I want to find a way to commit us anew to building real leaders in the Church, and, by extension, the world. I want to recommit us to never settling for second best in the priests, lay leaders, and deacons we prepare for service to a people desperate for good and authentic leadership. I want, we need, all our men and women to make a difference in a culture so in trouble, so desperately in need of prophets and visionaries to lead us to the promised land.
This week, the nation observed the rites for Congressman John Lewis. No matter what you may think of Lewis or his politics, he provided a powerful quote that I believe deserves some reflection:
I believe that somehow and some way if it becomes necessary to use our bodies to help redeem the soul of a nation, then we must do it.
Leadership
Peace,
FDR
