Dashing heroes and defenders of the good are a thing of fairy tales, legends and of Marvel comics! Epitomising the upholding of good over evil, moral standing and care for the underdog they give a powerful insight to an aspect of leadership that is (very often) all too absent in our public leaders.
In the endless drive for power and supremacy that is characterising our world today the voices of true leaders, moral leaders, loving leaders, courageous leaders is a hundred times more important than ever.
Reaching for the heights of world domination has chilling undertones – whether it’s in the guise of a national leader or a global business. The rest of us cannot stand by and watch it happen.
Searching our own motivations is something we are all called to do. What are we protecting, is it just and fair, and how are we doing that? Compliance, or ‘hiding under the covers’ when the baddies arrive isn’t leadership.
If we are holding an inner attitude of true leadership, we will, in every moment, be identifying small and bigger ways in which we can right the wrongs – within our own thinking and behaviours of course, but also in the impact of those in our ‘world’. That world may be with our team, our whole business or on a more international scale.
We will be combining the power of positional leadership with love just as the legendary heroes have shown us in the past.
As Martin Luther King Jr said:
“Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites—polar opposites—so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love. We’ve got to get this thing right.
What is needed is a realisation that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anaemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our time.”
So we might ask ourselves, and I include myself in this:
- What attitudes am I role modelling?
- How deeply am I following through?
- Do I bring meaningful challenge to inequalities, unethical decisions, inconsistencies between values espoused and behaviours witnessed?
- How is my love for all being expressed?
- What’s my relationship with love, power, justice and fairness?
- Does my leadership focus on ‘doing what’s right’ for others?