Empty Headed Leadership!

Here one can envision what is coming.

Question: What kind of person would it be that sit's on the Throne of Swords?

Leadership is continuing to be an issue these days. The fact is we as a human race have a lot of history behind us and you would think, by now we would know better.  We are all aware of many leaders in history who have lead everything from families, communities, political parties and very large nations astray. And many of these have happened in the last few centuries. 

Remember the saying, "We have to learn from our mistakes." 

Guess what, we still have leaders TODAY who are doing the craziest and the most bazaar, hurtful and things, leading their fellow trusting human beings into trouble. Using their positions for a variety of personal selfish ambitions bringing about factional battles or wars that should never have happened. The end result being the deaths of millions of the very people they are to lead. Or, betraying them by making mistakes in their own personal lives to the point of getting arrested and slapped into jail. Or, on the local level, dividing communities, destroying initiatives or groups because of personal agendas. 

In fact, here in Canada, we have mayors of major cities who are being investigated for criminal activity. One of which is now sitting in jail. We apparently are not learning from our past.

"Power, it seems certainly can and will corrupt the seemingly nicest person. And we chose these people. We who voted this seemingly nice person(s) into leadership or to the committee, or political party  have to bear the burden of the far to many disasters that often ensue.

It is exactly this kind of leadership I'm representing with the head you see above. Empty headed Leadership! (You can see I'm hollowing out his head, so seems appropriate right now to see it that way.)

Well, that "empty headed" joke is more applicable than we think. It often turns out that leaders make such empty headed decisions. It dose actually apply to the kind of person who would lead from a Throne of Swords. The wolf head represents what we have come to know as the "alpha" (Male or female) leadership idea. 

Look at this comment from Dr. Prasad, "Alpha males lead by using the command and control approach, which is becoming less important in an increasingly service oriented world that depends on innovation and team participation to survive." (Samuel Prasad, Ph.D.)* 

Dr. Prasad has a long list of characteristics unique to both the non Alpha and the Alpha Male leader. Let's look at some of the Alpha Males characteristics: wanting to make decisions immediately,  being very blunt, little or no patience, tries to outwork everyone, suspects positive people, lusts after competition, make's quick judgments usually based on externals, and not surprisingly tends to self destruct often quite quickly.

As the comedian says, "Remind you of anyone!"

He makes the point that true leaders do not use the word "I" as they are thinking not of themselves, but of the team and the best for the team. They are working at what the team is thinking and moving ahead, building on the shared ideas of the team. Quite different from the Alpha Male leadership described above.

Think about it, we have not even begun talking about the wolf pack yet and the Alpha leadership that happens there!

Begs the question, what, as humans, is our problem with leadership? 

"Benjamin is the ravenous wolf; in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil." 

Gen. 49:27

*http://blog.prasads.com/weblog/

Saturday, June 30, 2012 "Alpha Leaders vs. Alpha Males"

English Garden, Winnipeg MB

June, 2013 By Cliff Derksen