Leadership

 Although our heroes are different and we tend to follow people who think the same as we do, the qualities or character traits of leaders tend to be the same. Even better, we learn about those qualities, analyze and integrate them into our character so that we can all be our own leaders moving forward with clear intentions, purpose and motivation.

Bravery, we see it in every action movie. We see the hero showing incredible bravery in situations that would make us normals quake in our boots. Or you hear of those guys that stand up for themselves and others when faced with stronger opponents. Or those people who make the hard calls and do the difficult jobs day in and day out. It is about pushing forward despite our fears. My favourite saying is, “courage isn’t the lack of fear but pushing forward despite the fear”.

Thoughtfulness isn't a characteristic we tend to associate with leaders, however every good leader needs to be thoughtful. Look at it this way, who would make a better leader?  Someone who's out there for others or out there for themselves? Would you prefer someone who actually cares about you and thinks about your needs or someone who takes care of himself and would think nothing of leaving you in the lurch to save their own skin. A good leader needs to put careful thought and planning into their people's needs.

Honesty, honestly another essential characteristic, hahaha. Think about this: if a prospective leader is too cowardly to be honest with others, they very likely won't be honest with you. How could you trust someone that lies all the time? It is like carrying a scorpion in your hand, not expecting it to sting you. We value honesty because it shows that the individual has courage despite the circumstances.

Empathy, we also look for caring characteristics in our leaders. In our modern society some consider mercy, i.e. caring, to be a weakness. However, the Romans, as brutal as they were, considered mercy a show of strength and a manly virtue. Although, I actually mean caring in the broader sense. We want our leaders to truly care about what we want.

Duty is a word drilled into the psyches of most service personnel. It is the sense of finishing a task on behalf of others, sometimes a great risk to the individual. First imagine a single parent rushing home from a hard day at work to make a healthy meal and bring their child to an uplifting activity. Secondly, a soldier puts their life at risk for the citizens of their society. The parent and the soldier would likely be both better off health-wise, to not engage in such stress-filled behavior. However, they do so out of a sense of duty for family and or society. We need our leaders to feel a sense of responsibility for those that they govern.

One of my goals with Frontline is to try and teach self-reliance, i.e. being leaders for ourselves. So how do you think we can apply these characteristics to ourselves? Bravery can be exercised by speaking up for ourselves, others and speaking our truths. Also and perhaps more importantly the bravery to look at our faults and shortcomings with an honest eye and being able to take steps towards change. Thoughtfulness is an important trait to develop in order to better ourselves. The journey to betterment requires planning based on a careful consideration of our needs. If we heedlessly live only for the pleasure of the moment we think nothing of building a sound foundation for future success. In my opinion honesty is the best policy with ourselves and others. I won't dip my toe in ethics today. Instead we'll examine Polonius from Hamlet, act 1, scene 3, “this above all to thine own self be true…”, we cannot make true gains if we aren't honest with ourselves about our shortcomings. What we examine with honesty we accept and adapt to with bravery. Empathy/caring, or in this context, self-caring. Self care has become a pop culture word with a broad meaning. It can mean treating yourself to another bag of chips because, “I deserve it”, to taking stock of yourself and how to achieve success. Personally, I believe in the latter. To honestly care about our personal success we should care enough to sacrifice for it day in and day out. That means if we care enough about our weight loss goals, we should care enough to sacrifice our nightly Mars bars. If we care enough about the quality of our work, we should care enough to remember that fatigue and quality workmanship don't mix and to rejuvenate. Equally, if we care for our success, we should care enough to sacrifice our media consumption and get to our labors. Service personnel, as well as every other hard-working, honest person wouldn't ever think of ignoring their duty. However, most of these type of people do it all the time. They ignore their duty to themselves. Duty equals the discipline to get our responsibilities taken care of on a regular basis. Remember that old wisdom, you can't save anyone if you make yourself a casualty. Having the discipline to do those things you know honestly helps you be well and achieve.

Have a listen to "Leadership", a shamanic drum journey at https://soundcloud.com/michael-doucette-514549408/leadership?si=13f79cb93aa4468fbdc64b5dba43f403&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing.

Check out the companion video at https://youtu.be/hKzZsa6wXFI.