If you can’t lead with love, don’t lead at all
People have always looked up to leaders. Companies spend millions of dollars on leadership training every year. We elect so-called “leaders” to lead a country. We look-up to school principals to lead education. We even have thought leaders and gurus to help us gain more insight about us, and as such, we like to “follow” their ways to replicate their success. It’s interesting what I said just now. Did you realize something? I said that it’s interesting that we rely on others to give us more insight about ourselves and that we like to follow their ways to replicate their success. It seems to me that we are always chasing something that other people magically have that we don’t, doesn’t it?
So, if you would allow me, I’d like to talk about this concept of leadership, since when one looks at it, we seem to be a bit obsessed by it all. On google alone, a search for the word “leadership” yields millions of results. Why? What is it that we are looking for and why do we insist on turning to leaders to decide things for us? To give us direction? To share knowledge? We turn to the scientists to give us the “best” advice and we make sure we check all their credentials, and if we are happy, we accept their answers. As soon as this acceptance takes place, we observe and act upon what someone else has said to us, through their lenses. If we spend our lives seeing the world through other people’s lenses, when will we ever understand self knowing? All we have really done is collected lenses, isn’t it?
Given the state of the world, I wonder if we need leaders at all? A war is a very terrible thing to happen to any of our brothers and sisters. In war, as far as the writer/speaker is concerned, there are no sides. What there is, is immense suffering. Suffering of those being harmed by others. Suffering of those being told to harm others. Suffering of people that are hit with sanctions. Suffering of people that can’t go back to their homes. What has caused this immense suffering and confusion? Is it leadership? Is this what “leaders” create?
We seem to be very well trained from early in our lives to “follow”. We are born into this world and since we are small and unable to do a lot of things, we rely on our mothers or parents to feed us, bathe us, comfort us. And then we get to school and are told to listen to the teachers and other grown-ups for guidance. On that journey, we eventually move on to learn from university professors and then CEOs, and so forth and so on. We follow rules and patterns, rituals, mantras as well - all to give us what we are seeking. And we seem to thrive waiting for others to tell us what to do, what is best, what we need to do, or rather must do:
-
Tarot tells us who we are and what we need to do next
-
Religious figures tell us what to do (and when!)
-
Songs tell us what to believe
-
TV personalities tell us what to wear
-
Doctors tell us what to eat
-
Psychologists tell us how to think and what to think
-
Politicians tell us what we must do
-
Gurus tell us what to do
-
Books give us systems that work for other people and supposedly will work for everyone else
-
Even the weather forecasters try and tell us what to wear, bring, prepare for
-
Search engines, seem to be the first place we go to when we have a headache
Why are we always looking to others for answers? We are we relying on this kind of leadership? We elect one political leader after another one hoping that the one we elect will be better than the last one. Of course, that doesn’t always end-up going well. The board of Directors appoints a new CEO when things don’t go well. These rituals repeat themselves over centuries and centuries. Leaders come and go, as do their followers. The problems are still the same. The world goes on as it did yesterday, filled with depression, suicides, diseases, corruption, greed, wars. In the great light of things, is leadership propelling anything forward other than perhaps some benefits of technology?
We talk about self leadership - what is the self? Perhaps a conversation for another time. We have compassionate leadership; silent leadership; systemic leadership; charismatic leadership, and so forth. So many types! So, why don’t we look at simply, what leadership is, first.
For a leader to lead anything, there seems to be an implication that there should be a follower. So is it the leader that creates the follower, whether through some kind of influence, or is it the follower that creates the leader by attaching themselves to the ideals of the leader and perhaps through agreeing with these ideals, makes a choice to live like the leader does.
Perhaps it’s the responsibility of both. The fact that there is a leader, means that there are followers - whether by choice, or by force. Along with the title of a leader, comes perhaps greater responsibility, in business more pay (perhaps), and therefore, more expectations, more goals. More importantly, a leader implies some kind of authority. Where there is authority, the exists control. Where there exists control, there exists fear. One form of authority may attract a certain type of follower, whereas another form of authority attracts another. Whatever the situation, this authority creates separation, because what you lead and stand for, some people will not agree with - they’ll agree with another leader. And this nonsense goes on and on all over the world. This separation is not a natural state of the human being and therefore, there is inequality. Inequality of pay, of position, of decision-making power, of rules, etc.
Just as when I am up on a stage giving a speech (which is a space separate from the audience), there is already inequality. I stand on a stage and the audience listens. If you say I am a leader or expert, then it is actually you that has created it. I don’t consider myself a leader, or an authority on anything, and I often remind the audience that it is much more valuable if they learn what it is they need to question inside of themselves to fully understand what it is they need to know, listening, and observing, and trying to understand, together. This is part of understanding self knowing. We do that together, not as an audience listening to an expert, but rather on a level where we are simply people.
Therefore, do not separate me from you in the form of a leader and follower. Why not rather be a friend and together, we can have a conversation - just trying to understand why we have so much pain and misery in this world. What is the cause of all this suffering and put an end to it, together and in a co-operative manner, responsible for the entire world’s wellbeing. Don’t you want to know? The only responsibility we have in this world is to love every living thing on this planet, starting with yourself.
Looking back at history, all the leaders we have had, have not been able to create a compassionate world, whether they have created religions (with a head or leader of their organization) to try and change people’s minds. Leaders in the past have created ideologies and philosophies to help us chase enlightenment (also with some spiritual leader who is admired for something). CEOs of companies create their own visions and philosophies and as a result corrupt all their staff towards their own selfish vision of the future. All of these are putting people on many different boats and whether you lead from the front or back, the point is you have created a boat that is different from another boat, and therefore created separation and corruption in people’s minds.
From gurus to propaganda to dogmas to history books to politicians to so-called leaders of change and thought leaders. I have seen enough examples in the world today to declare that none of them will give you any insight into yourself. That leadership continues to divide us and lead us in all different directions.
Unless you can completely observe, without fear, separation, biases, prejudices, instead with clarity, an extraordinary silence, then you start to realize that you become the leader, the follower, the teacher, the student, the neighbor, your colleague, the beauty of a flower, the wonder of the sky, the amazement of the sun and the shining of the stars… you become all of that. Perhaps in my next blog, I will talk about meditation, but not the meditation as you know it.
So, it seems that the moment you define me as a leader, or anyone else as a leader, it creates a distance between you and me. Followers simply catch-on some idea that they like about the leader or what they are saying and simply copy it to emulate the leader. Those that don’t will criticize the leader and start to look elsewhere for answers. Whatever the case, the moment you copy the system of another, you become a copy-paste human being and the mind disguises you from your self - to be anything else but you. And therefore over time, you collect ideas from various leaders, gurus, politicians, etc, and you continue to pretend being anything else but you, and here’s the funny thing, you don’t realize it! And so do other people, who collect their own unique experiences and ideas from different leaders. Therefore, we become unique people based on ideas that are copy-pasted from everyone else. Is that the uniqueness we are searching for? And this continues over time. So leaders are forever encouraging this irresponsible behavior. Irresponsible because this uniqueness is what is creating division, separation, hatred, greed, jealousy, and many other issues in the world. And look what it has resulted in: Wars, people killing each other, suicides, depression, pain, despair, and so on.
If there was a form of leadership that proved itself successful in the world, then I would not have any reason to write this but as I have seen, with my own eyes, and my own heart, objectively looking at the world we live in, it is sad to say but leadership does not seem to be helping the world at all and as far as I can see/”C" they have not understood what love and compassion really are. And the ones that occasionally do come into this world with this intelligence and light, are often destroyed if they are famous or ignored if they are not.
As long as we keep the concept of leadership, we will go on creating a copy-paste human mind that can only think based on everything it downloaded from the past - from yesterday, from 10 years ago, from the time you were born. So, do we need to focus on leadership, or are we better off understanding what love really is and from that will come a responsibility that naturally cares about the world, and every individual in it, starting with oneself. And to understand that love, one cannot introduce the concepts of the self, or leadership as both are tied to time and love cannot exist in a time-bound world.
So, without leadership in this world, what would happen? One “thinks” only of the consequences of a disordered society, but a disordered society already exists with the current concept of leadership. And as such, this disorder, also exists inside of us. What we see on the outer is a reflection of what we recognize in the inner. So first, understand what order is by seeing this disorder, and then deal with this disorder until fear dissipates. And until we can treat each other with the utmost holiness, until we can be as gentle to each other as the beautiful and delicate wings of a butterfly are, then all we will have is something not worth leading.
Love and light,
GC