True leadership is servitude
Matt Pearl
The longer I live on this old planet of ours, the more this single truth makes more and more sense to me:
True leadership is servitude. He who would lead must first learn to serve.
I truly believe this. When we look around our world — whether we examine life at the city level or Washington D.C. itself — we see the product of leaders who have grown to view their positions as seats of power, rather than appointments to servitude.
And you see where it leads.
We see seats of authority being filled by megalomaniacs, the narcissistic types who never miss the opportunity to chase money and influence, all for the sake of their own vanity. Is that truly the picture of a public servant?
We seem to think so. I mean, we all complain about them, then elect them again. The truth is (if we are brave enough to face it) that Americans would rather have a name-brand crook in charge than an unknown, untested nobody.
When is the last time you saw a public official truly offer a gesture of genuine servitude? If you have seen it recently, I’m guessing you saw it from a local council member or public administrator.
I don’t want to sell every single member of our government short. But when they call the roll and vote for the good or ill of our nation in Washington, too often I see politics rise in the absence of servitude.
How can these men and women of power sleep at night after they allow themselves to neglect the aspect of service — the one great virtue we ought to demand be shown by each of them?
Too often they, being themselves so frequently the sons and daughters of great entitlement, know only how to serve those seeking the substance to which they believe themselves to be entitled. Ask yourself: Who benefits more from political agendas than the extremely rich and extremely poor? Each is the recipient of virtually every entitlement offered by our public “servants.”
Why? Because a politician needs rich people for the campaign trail, and poor people for the voting booth. A true servant would know that he or she can help the most people in the most situations by working to benefit the middle class.
Which party am I talking about? You should know me better than that by now. Greed may separate the virtuous from the wicked, but it’s pretty apparent to me that greed can’t tell an elephant from a donkey.
And to be honest, when I peel the layers of philosophy and rhetoric from our politicans, and when I examine their actions (which I was taught speak louder than their words), I can’t really tell the difference between them, either.
As long as we are willing to tolerate partisan politicians who neglect their obligation to serve, this is how it’s going to look. We will see two parties playing tug-of-war with our future: one team wears blue shirts, the other red, but all there is between the two is a puddle of mud. I wish they would both just go ahead, jump into the mire, and be done with it.
It’s that rope they’re clinging to that concerns me: they hold many of our hopes, as well as the promises of prosperity and the opportunities to be this world’s greatest nation within their muddy hands.
But these precious virtues must pass into the grasp of true public servants, and those seeking only prosperity and power need to leave the game now.
