[I hope some people reading this will be truly ticked off. I aim to hook a nerve, and yank.]
We’re desperate for leadership.
All leadership begins with self-leadership.
Self-leadership is a function of self-discipline.
We need self-discipline about our eating, sleep, exercise, and nourishing our minds and hearts. You already know what is best. Do that.
Today, at least in the US, we face a combination of trends which will require a new level of discipline:
- Infatuation with style over substance. Style matters, but increasingly passes as a substitute for substance.
- Ascending post-modern worldviews are dominant in education, corporate leadership, governments. Fewer people accept the idea of absolute truth. Dialog about truth is swiftly converted into arguments about power. Opinion is frequently honored above truth.
- Diminished context. Social media largely operates outside complex context. Subject lines, headlines, text messages, and soundbites are sufficient to reinforce mindsets.
- Declining trust in most institutions. This is understandable — many institutions are recognizably corrupt.
- Large percentage of the population spends hours every day immersed in information streams, weirdly compelled to “keep up.”
- We swim in abundance of stuff, food, sanitized environments, and information. Many of us are not handling abundance well. This is proving to be unhealthy.
- Far more remote work, less time at the work-site. Distractions abound, peer pressure is physically absent, the benefits of face-to-face social interaction are missed.
T.S. Eliot captured it well in his “Four Quartets” poems:
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper whirled by the cold wind
You might be saying, “But not me, Glenn, no, I’m different!” Are you sure? Let’s test it out:
- How do you feel if you sit perfectly still, no sound, no flickering images, for 5 minutes?
- If you searched and couldn’t find your smartphone for 15 minutes, what’s your panic level?
- When was the last time you turned off your phone for any length of time while you were awake?
- If I demanded that you read nothing but books more than 400 years old for a week – no news, no social media, no podcasts – what’s your first reaction?
Full candor: I fail these tests, too.
I’m not trying to make a political commentary – these are the trends in our cultural environment, which is where we must exercise our leadership work.
We’re deeply in this reality. Yet we have agency. We can make choices.
I challenge you to be an intentional leader rather than passively absorbing every aspect of cultural trends. I challenge you to be a free man or a free woman, rather than a slave to circumstances and circumstantial evidence. We desperately need leaders who think for themselves, who speak outside echo chambers, who call out bullshit, who love fiercely, who rally people without manipulating them, who command respect from others even as they wrestle with constructive disagreements.
This level of leadership comes at a price, beginning with your self-discipline. Practice stepping up and out of the swirls of information and emotion which captivate most people. Recognize that the statement “Your truth” is actually “truth and your opinion.” Fast from incessant mindless activity and task completion. Do something which makes you physically uncomfortable every day – a cold shower, fasting from a meal, sitting in a hard chair, exercising in a new way, studying a difficult subject, talking with people who hold a completely different worldview. Select for quality and depth of information and insights. Invest time in measured reflection and meditation on events; Experience is not the best teacher – evaluated experience is. Demand context and alternative perspectives. Demand evidence of truth statements. Live more generously with people than they might deserve. Don’t fall in love with the idea of “the people” and then fail to interact with actual flesh-and-blood messy people.
98% of the people around you may be slaves to their inbox, smart phone, and information as someone-with-an-agenda presents it to them, but purpose to be in the 2% who strive for freedom. It’s a both-and situation – understand the reality of where the 98% are living, and live differently.
Pursue this self-discipline and you’ll become the leader that the people in your sphere of influence actually need. Model this self-discipline, and your sphere of influence will increase.
