Chapter Thirteen- CHARACTER, WILL,
Many have their leadership abilities sapped by majoring on minors. A popular saying in business today is “count the pennies, and the dollars will take care of themselves.”
This is probably true because if the leader of an organization is taking time to count the pennies, there probably will not be any dollars to worry about! Get someone else to count the pennies! The leader must major on the majors.
If we do not take control of our own time, that which represents 10 percent or less of our enterprise will demand 90 percent of our attention. In many cases this is the cause of burnout for the leader and substantial losses for the enterprise. If we are in leadership, we must learn to delegate the details and give our attention to leading and planning. This is a challenge for leaders who are doers by nature and are inclined to become too involved—but it must be done if we are to fulfill our potential.
Learning to prioritize your duties can actually multiply your productivity. A simple classification system can be helpful. Keep a current list of your “Things To Do.” If, under your classification system, number 1 is the highest priority, do not work on the 2s until the 1s are finished, and so forth down the line. A few more pennies may fall through the cracks, but you will be amazed at how many more dollars come in!
If we are going to keep our priorities in their proper order, we must be delivered from the curse of self-centeredness. Few empires, civilizations, or enterprises have been overthrown by enemies without—they have almost all perished from the cancer of self-centeredness, which is often the result of their prosperity. Cancer is a cell that consumes for its own purposes without regard to the rest of the body. In a sense, cancer is the personification of self-centeredness.
To prevent this we must establish predetermined personal morals and values that will not be compromised, even for the sake of the success of our enterprise. What are they? Is lying, and therefore becoming a liar, worth the success we are after? Is our success worth the hurt that a certain course will inflict upon others? To win World War II, the answers to these questions may have been “yes.” Using deception to foil the enemy was crucial to the success of many operations. At times a course had to be chosen that would inflict casualties on civilians, but it had with it the possibility of ending the war more quickly and thereby saving others. Leadership sometimes requires very difficult choices.
In many areas, Western civilization has risen to the highest standards of honor, justice, morality, and the esteem for life. It is apparent that these qualities are the foundation of Western progress. Now those foundations are being tested. The issue of abortion is one of the tests. Some feel that it will ultimately be as divisive as slavery was in the last century, or that it even has the potential to surpass it. Some view abortion as an issue of freedom, and some view it as the value we will give to life—the ultimate freedom, the freedom to live at all.
In nature, preservation of life is the most basic and powerful motivation.
Because of this, excepting only a few of the most base forms of species, family is a primary drive of life. There are few creatures in existence that will not quickly and instinctively sacrifice their own lives to protect their young. It therefore seems to have been no accident that the very first test of King Solomon’s wisdom was concerning
the issue of a mother’s sanctity for life. The very first test of wisdom for any government is its commitment to the sanctity of life. However, some feel that a woman’s freedom and ability to live her life as she chooses supersedes her unborn child’s right to live at all.
These are basic issues. We now are confronted with the very real possibility of cloning, which will define our values, and definitions of life that may have huge and terrible consequences that we will face as a civilization. When Germany succumbed to the ideas of a master race, they were soon destroying all who were physically or mentally inferior to their definition of what the German people were to be. Some of the great souls in history did not pass the test to deserve life in Nazi Germany, as tens of thousands of children disappeared. This great nation went from being one of the most civilized and noble to stark barbarity in just a few years.
It is unnatural for a mother to destroy her child, born or unborn, and it reveals a fundamental departure from civilization to embrace a barbarism in its most base and inhuman form. The resolution of the abortion issue gives us the opportunity to provide the world leadership witht the chance to find even higher standards of morality, justice, and the esteem for life. The failure to resolve it with courage and honor, not just with law, will certainly leave a major crack in our foundation of honor and morality and can eventually lead to an ultimate form of tyranny.
Just because something is legal does not make it right. There are fundamental laws that prevail in nature which reveal a great deal more wisdom than politicians often display. True morality does not have much to do with mere legal compliance; true morality is doing what is right regardless of what we are able to get away with. A civilization that is not based on law will be open to despotism and tyranny. However, a civilization that cannot rise above the law to live by what is not just legal but also moral has lost its humanity and its potential for true greatness. Lawlessness always results in tyranny. The inability to rise above law will also result in tyranny. The preservation of life is fundamental to both nature and morality.
Even so, can we cast stones at the mother who aborts her child if we ourselves are sacrificing our living children at the altars of the petty gods of selfish ambition and personal success? Could even the greatest success of our enterprises be interpreted as anything but a terrible human failure if we lose our own children in the process? Who can count the “successful” businessmen, sportsmen, coaches, and even church leaders who have accomplished their goals only to say that they would trade everything just to have their families back again? The first condition that God identified as not good was for man to be alone. Loneliness is not good, and that is exactly where we will end up if we do not give our families the priority they deserve.
This book is not intended to be a family-counseling manual. However, if you have a family, they will almost certainly either be a great source of motivation or a great burden which detracts from your venture. How you value your family will be up to you.
If your love for your family is more than your enterprise, then everything else is subsequently increased. A decline in productivity usually parallels the devotion to selfishness. We were created to need others, and the motivation of doing things for
others is one of the highest motivations. Family is primordial. History testifies that the quickest way to destroy a civilization is to destroy the moral fabric which is rooted in the esteem for family. All other standards of meaning and morality are easily overthrown if the basic drive of life, the family, is diluted.
After our immediate family, the next on our priority list should be people. Do we see our venture as a “thing” or as the people who comprise it? People are more important than things. As your venture is personalized, some of the more powerful motivations for success will energize your people. As much as possible, a primary goal of the leader should be to get his people to see themselves as a family. Such an identity will be your best chance to stir them to self-sacrifice in place of the self-centeredness that always works against the basic vision and purpose of your venture.