by Dr. Cecil Clements (13th November 2012)
This morning I want to go from something very specific to something very broad. This is contrary to what I normally do – which is moving from general to specific.
I would like to start with what Mahatma Gandhi said and taught many years ago. He said that there are seven things that will destroy us.
He was basically underscoring that the path to achieving good must be paved with good itself. The means must justify the ends. As Stephen Covey said, “If we reach an admirable end through the wrong means, the ends ultimately turn to dust in our hands.”
Most of my thoughts this morning come from a beautiful book that I read called ‘Servant Leadership’ that has essays written by Robert K. Greenleaf, who introduced this thought of servant leadership into the corporate world in the 70’s. This is a compilation called ‘A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness.’ The forward is written by Stephen Covey and I want to share a few thoughts from that as we look at this whole idea of means justifying the end.
Covey says, “The key ingredient here, for us to always stay on that path where we only use means that are justifiable for the good ends that we have, is conscience. Conscience teaches us that ends and means are inseparable, that ends actually preexist in the means.” He then goes on to differentiate between positional authority or formal authority, and moral authority. Here’s where I’m trying to move from the specific to the larger picture. He bases these thoughts on what Greenleaf has shared in his book. But what he says is, “We ought to move into a place where we exercise authority through morality rather than positional or formal means.”
That may seem a little strange because we get our authority from the positions that we have, be it GM, marketing manager, director, CEO or whatever. But Greenleaf says that there is a greater good and a more enduring legacy that can be achieved if we operate through moral leadership or moral authority.
Covey says, “The essential quality that sets servant leaders apart from others is that they live by their conscience, the inward moral sense of what is right and what is wrong. That one quality is the difference between leadership that works and leadership that endures, leadership that will leave a legacy. Even after we have left that position, people will still look at the things that we have done and the views that we have held and the principles that have molded and shaped us and motivated us and say, “That was an enduring legacy of leadership!”
Jim Collins, in his book ‘Good to Great’ says that this quality where leaders look to leave a legacy behind, is actually the 5th level of leadership. Very few leaders actually get to this because most leaders are looking at survival. But the level 5 leader builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. As one leader says, “I want to look out from my porch at one of the great companies in the world someday and be able to say – I used to work there.”
Leadership that endures is leadership that is based on principle and principles that are based on our conscience.
What does this look like? I want to share with you very quickly 4 dimensions of moral authority or conscience.
JoAnn C. Jones relates an experience in which a university professor taught her to live and learn by being guided by her conscience. She writes, “During my second year of nursing school, our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school? Surely this was a joke! I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name. I handed in my paper leaving the last question blank. Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count towards our grade. ‘Absolutely’ the professor said. ‘In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello.’ I have never forgotten that lesson. I also learned that her name was Bharti.”
Compassion, along with the passion we have, helps us to live in community, helps us to see people who sometimes we don’t see but who can be part of the vision that we have. That is the true synergy in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
William J.H. Boetcker says, “You must retain your self-respect. It is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.” Self-respect and integrity produce the ability to be both kind and courageous to other people – kind, in showing a great respect and reverence for other people, their feelings, experiences, etc. and courageous to be able to model integrity however difficult the circumstances or the situation might be. This interplay between differing opinions can produce third alternatives that are better than what you may have initially proposed. This is true synergy where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Has that challenged you this morning? To be able to live with a moral authority, to walk the halls of your corporate world with moral authority rather than positional authority, to use more of moral authority where you have submitted yourself to a higher cause, to higher principles that come from your conscience. Where does the conscience come from? The conscience comes from God. God has placed within each one of us the ability to know right from wrong. He inspires us to be able to walk in that moral authority.
Jesus had great authority when He walked on this earth. At one point, when He met with His followers, He sat down and washed their feet. Servant Leadership! And yet in no way did it diminish who He was and what He stood for. I wonder whether today, we can rise to doing lowly things, recognizing people who we sometimes just pass by, and exercise Servant Leadership, moral authority in all that we do.
Leaving behind a legacy is what we ought to be aiming for. Living lives of significance that will impact future generations must be our goal. We must not just live for the now, the immediate, the urgent. We must live, allowing God entry into our cubicles of influence and allow His wisdom to help us lead lives of significance that will leave a lasting legacy. Positional authority may get the job done, but moral authority will also leave an enduring legacy.
God Bless You All.
This morning I want to go from something very specific to something very broad. This is contrary to what I normally do – which is moving from general to specific.
I would like to start with what Mahatma Gandhi said and taught many years ago. He said that there are seven things that will destroy us.
- Wealth without work.
- Pleasure without conscience
- Knowledge without character
- Commerce without morality
- Science without humanity
- Worship without sacrifice
- Politics without principles
Most of my thoughts this morning come from a beautiful book that I read called ‘Servant Leadership’ that has essays written by Robert K. Greenleaf, who introduced this thought of servant leadership into the corporate world in the 70’s. This is a compilation called ‘A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness.’ The forward is written by Stephen Covey and I want to share a few thoughts from that as we look at this whole idea of means justifying the end.
Covey says, “The key ingredient here, for us to always stay on that path where we only use means that are justifiable for the good ends that we have, is conscience. Conscience teaches us that ends and means are inseparable, that ends actually preexist in the means.” He then goes on to differentiate between positional authority or formal authority, and moral authority. Here’s where I’m trying to move from the specific to the larger picture. He bases these thoughts on what Greenleaf has shared in his book. But what he says is, “We ought to move into a place where we exercise authority through morality rather than positional or formal means.”
That may seem a little strange because we get our authority from the positions that we have, be it GM, marketing manager, director, CEO or whatever. But Greenleaf says that there is a greater good and a more enduring legacy that can be achieved if we operate through moral leadership or moral authority.
Covey says, “The essential quality that sets servant leaders apart from others is that they live by their conscience, the inward moral sense of what is right and what is wrong. That one quality is the difference between leadership that works and leadership that endures, leadership that will leave a legacy. Even after we have left that position, people will still look at the things that we have done and the views that we have held and the principles that have molded and shaped us and motivated us and say, “That was an enduring legacy of leadership!”
Jim Collins, in his book ‘Good to Great’ says that this quality where leaders look to leave a legacy behind, is actually the 5th level of leadership. Very few leaders actually get to this because most leaders are looking at survival. But the level 5 leader builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. As one leader says, “I want to look out from my porch at one of the great companies in the world someday and be able to say – I used to work there.”
Leadership that endures is leadership that is based on principle and principles that are based on our conscience.
What does this look like? I want to share with you very quickly 4 dimensions of moral authority or conscience.
- Sacrifice – that we are willing to sacrifice or subordinate our own self, our own ego to a higher purpose or cause or principle. Ego focuses on our own survival, pleasure and enhancement, often to the exclusion of others. Ego is selfishly ambitious. It sees relationships in terms of threat or no threat, like little children who classify all people as nice or mean. Conscience on the other hand, both democratizes and elevates ego to a larger sense of the group. We see the whole, the community and the greater good. It sees life in terms of service and contribution, in terms of other people’s security and fulfillment. It sees beyond ourselves. It involves sacrifice. Iacocca.
- Conscience inspires us to become part of a cause worthy of our commitment. How does that work out? Covey points to Dr. Victor Frankl, who was imprisoned in the death camps of Nazi Germany. Frankl used to first ask this question, “What is it that I want?” Very often that’s the question that we ask ourselves. But then he gradually submitted himself to his higher nature, his conscience, and changed his question to “What is wanted of me?” The moment that happened, it totally changed his world. He would then do the same with other prisoners. He confronted them directly and would ask the man who was despairing for example, and say, “Why don’t you take your own life?” and the response would be, “Because of the suffering it would cause my wife.” And in that answer, the person found meaning behind his own suffering. When we change our question from ‘what is it that we want?’ to ‘what is wanted of us?’, our conscience is opened up and we allow ourselves to be influenced by it.
- Conscience teaches us that ends and means are inseparable. That was the specific that I used to walk into the topic that we are talking about now. It is conscience that constantly tells us the value about ends and means. Ego will tell us that the ends justify the means, unaware that a worthy end can never be accomplished by an unworthy means. For example, we can yell at our kids to clean their room. If our end is to have a clean room, we may accomplish that. But Stephen Covey says, “I can guarantee that not only will the means negatively affect the relationship, but the room won’t stay clean when we leave town for a few days.”
- Conscience introduces us into the world of relationships. We don’t live as islands. We don’t live by ourselves. We are interdependent on each other. Conscience allows us to have that kind of shared vision. Conscience often provides the why; vision identifies what we are trying to accomplish. Discipline represents how we are going to accomplish it. But passion represents the strength of feeling behind the why, the what and the how. It is passion that allows us to share with people the vision that we have. Conscience also transforms passion into compassion. And compassion is the interdependent expression of passion. Passion and compassion as they go together, allow us to work in relationships, to be in community with one another.
JoAnn C. Jones relates an experience in which a university professor taught her to live and learn by being guided by her conscience. She writes, “During my second year of nursing school, our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school? Surely this was a joke! I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name. I handed in my paper leaving the last question blank. Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count towards our grade. ‘Absolutely’ the professor said. ‘In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello.’ I have never forgotten that lesson. I also learned that her name was Bharti.”
Compassion, along with the passion we have, helps us to live in community, helps us to see people who sometimes we don’t see but who can be part of the vision that we have. That is the true synergy in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
William J.H. Boetcker says, “You must retain your self-respect. It is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.” Self-respect and integrity produce the ability to be both kind and courageous to other people – kind, in showing a great respect and reverence for other people, their feelings, experiences, etc. and courageous to be able to model integrity however difficult the circumstances or the situation might be. This interplay between differing opinions can produce third alternatives that are better than what you may have initially proposed. This is true synergy where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Has that challenged you this morning? To be able to live with a moral authority, to walk the halls of your corporate world with moral authority rather than positional authority, to use more of moral authority where you have submitted yourself to a higher cause, to higher principles that come from your conscience. Where does the conscience come from? The conscience comes from God. God has placed within each one of us the ability to know right from wrong. He inspires us to be able to walk in that moral authority.
Jesus had great authority when He walked on this earth. At one point, when He met with His followers, He sat down and washed their feet. Servant Leadership! And yet in no way did it diminish who He was and what He stood for. I wonder whether today, we can rise to doing lowly things, recognizing people who we sometimes just pass by, and exercise Servant Leadership, moral authority in all that we do.
Leaving behind a legacy is what we ought to be aiming for. Living lives of significance that will impact future generations must be our goal. We must not just live for the now, the immediate, the urgent. We must live, allowing God entry into our cubicles of influence and allow His wisdom to help us lead lives of significance that will leave a lasting legacy. Positional authority may get the job done, but moral authority will also leave an enduring legacy.
God Bless You All.
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