Leadership, faith, risky business

Despite what you might think from my title, this post is not about the dangers of mixing faith and politics – in a certain way, it's the opposite. 

Actually it's about leadership.  As I wrote the other day, one of the reasons why I don’t want Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic presidential nominee is what appears to be her conventional, calculating, risk-averting approach to leadership.

The flaw with this style of leadership is that it leads to inauthentic and ultimately weak leadership. It consists of making a constant stream of minor (and sometimes not-so-minor) corrections to one's path and oneself, each to avoid a short-term political hit.  Like retouching a photograph, each alteration taken individually seems to improve the photo – but when you add them all together you end up with a picture that looks fake.  In the long term, you can be better off plowing ahead, taking the hits on individual issues, and gaining a greater big-picture respect from your audience. 

Many of today’s Democrats end up looking as genuine as a patient after their 10th facelift.  The larger problem is that today’s political system requires such a ridiculous level of effort and commitment that the people it attracts, and creates, are simply afraid to take hits.  Here are some quotes I think they might want to ponder: (think of death here as a metaphor meaning “political death” or “death of your career”)

If you want to become whole
let yourself be partial.
If you want to become straight,
let yourself be crooked.
If you want to become full
let yourself be empty.
If you want to be reborn,
let yourself die.
If you want to be given everything,
give everything up.
        - Lao Tsu, Tao te Ching (trans. Mitchell), 22

When a man thus loses himself he immediately finds himself in the service of all that lives
        - Gandhi, All Men Are Brothers, Chapter 2, #52

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.
        - Jesus Christ, Mark 8:35

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what
ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body,
what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the
body than raiment?
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they
reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth
them. Are ye not much better than they? . . . .
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall
take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day
is the evil thereof.
        - Jesus Christ, Matthew 6:25-34

Sometimes you just gotta say, “What the fuck”
        - Joel Goodson (Tom Cruise), Risky Business (1983)

What is this thing that our leaders seem to lack, this ability to say "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" (attrib. Adm. David Farragut during U.S. Civil War).  One term for it may (ironically given the religiosity of our public figures these days) be "faith," which (among its many shades of meaning) refers to the willful confidence that things will just work out. 

I suspect that one of the things that promotes this "faith," this ability to keep to a steady path in the face of danger, is having one's eyes on a prize, a goal, a mission, a larger purpose that subsumes the dangers at hand.  Maybe the problem with the preponderance of today's Democrats is the fact that they have lost their way in the battle of ideas, are floundering in terms of what they believe they should push for, and have no clear goals about which they care more than their own careers.

Along those lines, two more excellent quotes:

It used to be said that the moral arc of a Washington career could be divided into four parts: idealism, pragmatism, ambition and corruption. You arrive with a passion for a cause, determined to challenge the system. Then you learn to work for your cause within the system. Then rising in the system becomes your cause. Then, finally, you exploit the system – your connections in it, and your understanding of it – for personal profit.
           - Michael Kinsley [Washington Post, Dec. 2, 2005]

It never ceases to amaze me how many people I meet are willing to risk their lives for their country – but not their careers.
            - A guy I once heard at an intelligence conference who
              was high up in the CIA for many years (paraphrase)