IT’S always good to check from time
to time this social
and political requirement of ours. We always need leaders who can
effectively orchestrate the different elements of our life so that we
can attain or, at least, facilitate the attainment of our common good.
It’s a tremendous responsibility to choose the right
people we put at the helm of our society to steer us in the right
direction. With challenges getting not only plentier but also
trickier, we need to know what criteria we should be using or what
values should guide us in selecting our leaders.
Are they the appropriate ones? Or do we allow ourselves to
be used and deceived by all sorts of gimmicks played around?
Candidates for leadership will obviously try to take
advantage of anything they think would help them in their pursuit for
positions. They will build up their war chest, bolster their
popularity, package themselves as attractively as possible.
If you allow them, they will buy you, drown you with their
images, hypnotize you with their names, make all kinds of spins to any
issue, etc. We have to be most wary of these unwelcome cohorts
candidates bring along, and focus on what truly is important in
selecting.
Besides, they might think of leadership only in the
practical sense, without any reference to God. Power and authority are
seen as coming only from the people, and not as a participation of the
power and authority of God. Charisma, if they have any, is just pure
personal luck, again with no reference to God.
It’s the voting populace that has more or less the last
say in the choosing. That’s why, to a certain extent we deserve the
kind of leaders we have, since we, in a collective sense, choose them.
The classic criteria in choosing our leaders are basically
two: competence and integrity. These, of course, can ramify into
countless branches of considerations.
But already at the first level, there’s a significant
segment of the people who put these two criteria into conflict. One
part is just contented only with competence and look down on
integrity. As long as the goods are delivered, no matter how, which
can include the immoral means, the leader is regarded effective.
Another part just looks almost exclusively at integrity,
defining it in some curious ways, with God largely excluded, and
hardly gives any attention to a candidate’s capabilities and
expertise.
Many fail to see the organic connection, even the mutual
relation between these two basic qualities. They can get contented
with one without the other, not knowing that both need each other to
survive and prosper.
It’s true that the combination is often an elusive ideal,
and that we can always manage with our enormous capacity for tolerance
and for resourcefulness to get by with any situation. But we have to
work on this goal for choosing leaders with greater determination and
system.
Our times call for it. We need authentic leaders and we
have to learn how to recognize and elect them. We’ve been in some kind
of a bubble produced by a democracy that hardly exerts any effort to
nourish itself with true values. It contents itself with simple
majority.
We need to outgrow this mentality and effect a real
conversion, not just putting lipstick on a pig. It’s no easy job at
all. It requires tremendous effort on the part of everyone, and
especially of our leaders. Of course, the transformation has to start
in individuals, in homes, schools and churches.
Sadly, in many parts of the world today, leadership is
understood and pursued in this way. It’s as if the challenges are
purely political or social or economic. And thus, the solutions can
only come from those provinces. The religious grounding of leadership
is at best confined to an ornamental role.
It’s truly funny to hear talks of ethics in business and
politics when God is not put into the picture. Instead, shameless
maneuverings and brute power plays are resorted.
The crisis of leadership in the world stems from this
purely secular outlook. Only time will expose the anomaly of this
attitude. Its congenital error will play out in full, as it seems to
be showing in our current global political crisis. Soon, it will paint
Godless leaders and peoples into a corner.
At the moment, many of us still feel deeply awkward to
admit the role of God in our leadership and in our assessment of
leaders’ competence and integrity. We are actually playing into the
hands of a worsening and escalating trouble.
and political requirement of ours. We always need leaders who can
effectively orchestrate the different elements of our life so that we
can attain or, at least, facilitate the attainment of our common good.
It’s a tremendous responsibility to choose the right
people we put at the helm of our society to steer us in the right
direction. With challenges getting not only plentier but also
trickier, we need to know what criteria we should be using or what
values should guide us in selecting our leaders.
Are they the appropriate ones? Or do we allow ourselves to
be used and deceived by all sorts of gimmicks played around?
Candidates for leadership will obviously try to take
advantage of anything they think would help them in their pursuit for
positions. They will build up their war chest, bolster their
popularity, package themselves as attractively as possible.
If you allow them, they will buy you, drown you with their
images, hypnotize you with their names, make all kinds of spins to any
issue, etc. We have to be most wary of these unwelcome cohorts
candidates bring along, and focus on what truly is important in
selecting.
Besides, they might think of leadership only in the
practical sense, without any reference to God. Power and authority are
seen as coming only from the people, and not as a participation of the
power and authority of God. Charisma, if they have any, is just pure
personal luck, again with no reference to God.
It’s the voting populace that has more or less the last
say in the choosing. That’s why, to a certain extent we deserve the
kind of leaders we have, since we, in a collective sense, choose them.
The classic criteria in choosing our leaders are basically
two: competence and integrity. These, of course, can ramify into
countless branches of considerations.
But already at the first level, there’s a significant
segment of the people who put these two criteria into conflict. One
part is just contented only with competence and look down on
integrity. As long as the goods are delivered, no matter how, which
can include the immoral means, the leader is regarded effective.
Another part just looks almost exclusively at integrity,
defining it in some curious ways, with God largely excluded, and
hardly gives any attention to a candidate’s capabilities and
expertise.
Many fail to see the organic connection, even the mutual
relation between these two basic qualities. They can get contented
with one without the other, not knowing that both need each other to
survive and prosper.
It’s true that the combination is often an elusive ideal,
and that we can always manage with our enormous capacity for tolerance
and for resourcefulness to get by with any situation. But we have to
work on this goal for choosing leaders with greater determination and
system.
Our times call for it. We need authentic leaders and we
have to learn how to recognize and elect them. We’ve been in some kind
of a bubble produced by a democracy that hardly exerts any effort to
nourish itself with true values. It contents itself with simple
majority.
We need to outgrow this mentality and effect a real
conversion, not just putting lipstick on a pig. It’s no easy job at
all. It requires tremendous effort on the part of everyone, and
especially of our leaders. Of course, the transformation has to start
in individuals, in homes, schools and churches.
Sadly, in many parts of the world today, leadership is
understood and pursued in this way. It’s as if the challenges are
purely political or social or economic. And thus, the solutions can
only come from those provinces. The religious grounding of leadership
is at best confined to an ornamental role.
It’s truly funny to hear talks of ethics in business and
politics when God is not put into the picture. Instead, shameless
maneuverings and brute power plays are resorted.
The crisis of leadership in the world stems from this
purely secular outlook. Only time will expose the anomaly of this
attitude. Its congenital error will play out in full, as it seems to
be showing in our current global political crisis. Soon, it will paint
Godless leaders and peoples into a corner.
At the moment, many of us still feel deeply awkward to
admit the role of God in our leadership and in our assessment of
leaders’ competence and integrity. We are actually playing into the
hands of a worsening and escalating trouble.
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