A friend said something to me recently that keeps ringing in my ears: “Wealth is not a sign of good leadership.” She’s right. Let’s look at CEOs of companies who are usually wealthy and considered the leaders of their organizations. Instead of being a good leader, it’s more likely they’re a psychopath because roughly 4% to as high as 12% of CEOs exhibit psychopathic traits, studies find. That’s many times more than the 1% rate found in the general population and more in line with the 15% rate found in prisons, according to Forbes.
A psychopath lacks empathy and doesn’t care about the consequences of their actions. They are typically very charming but they don’t care about hurting other people. They will do what they need to do to accumulate more wealth and power. In the U.S. and other countries, we reward this sort of behavior. There is no check on the amount of wealth one person can accumulate and we let the extremely wealthy do whatever they want under the guise of “freedom” and “choice.”
Elon Musk and Twitter is a perfect example. Within a few weeks, he managed to destroy a social media platform used by people all over the world. Not only are artists, activists, and others scrambling to change their operating mechanisms, but now thousands of people are without a job because they were laid off or resigned in response to Musk’s ultimatum. He said if people want to keep working at Twitter, they need to be “extremely hardcore” and that means “working long hours at high intensity,” according to the Washington Post.
Wealth doesn’t translate into leadership. Photo by Adeolu Eletu on Unsplash
In response, people left Twitter in droves. Whatever Musk is – a narcissist, a psychopath, or a sociopath – it’s clear to me he lacks empathy for others because if he actually cared about the people working for him, he would want to promote a positive working environment that takes into account that people have lives outside the office. He didn’t do that. He only cares about his vision and what he wants. He doesn’t know how to lead or inspire people to work for him. All he really has is wealth and a desire for exploitation, which is the opposite of a leader, according to my spiritual teacher. He said:
“The function of a [leader] shall, therefore, be to see that the dominating or the ruling classes do not have any scope for exploitation … The moment one class turns into exploiters, the life of the majority becomes miserable; a few enjoy at the cost of many whose lot is only to suffer. More than that, in such a state of society both the few and the many get degenerated. The few (exploiters) degenerate themselves due to [an] excess of physical enjoyments, and the many (exploited) cannot elevate themselves, because all their energy is taken up in mundane problems …. Hence, for the physical, mental, and spiritual welfare of the administrator and the administered of the society as a whole, it is essential that no one is given any scope to exploit the rest of the society.”
We clearly don’t have that because these days, exploitation is encouraged. What’s the solution? One of my friends says “more governance,” but that doesn’t work with our current politicians because many of them also show psychopathic and sociopathic traits. What we really need is a complete overhaul of our power structures. We need people in power who are actually leaders, not in the sense they inspire followers because hi, just look at cults. No. What we need is people who want to curb exploitation. People who actually care about others. People who understand the repercussions of their actions and aren’t only looking out for themselves. I see some of that already but I hope I see more of it soon.
I dream of a world where we recognize wealth is not a sign of good leadership. A world where we understand true leaders think about others and show care for everyone. A world where we recognize leaders should hinder exploitation because they value the upliftment of all.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I have a tendency to idealize people, especially leaders. Not government officials because their peccadilloes are well documented, but other leaders like Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. However, everyone has their flaws. Gandhi was a racist and had some weird, perhaps even abusive, sexual behaviors. Dr. King cheated on his wife. Did both of these men contribute to society and deserve recognition for that? Absolutely. But were they perfect? No.
That’s quite common actually for revolutionaries. I’m going to quote Rutger Bregman from a super-long article in The Correspondent. He read a book by British journalist Helen Lewis called Difficult Women that chronicles the history of feminism in Great Britain. In the book she makes the point many revolutionaries are difficult. Progress tends to start with people who are obstinate, obnoxious, and deliberately rock the boat. Also, doing good work in the world doesn’t mean a person is perfect.
Bregman writes: “Lewis’s criticism is that many activists appear to ignore this complexity, and that makes them markedly less effective. Look at Twitter, which is rife with people who seem more interested in judging other tweeters. Yesterday’s hero is toppled tomorrow at the first awkward remark or stain of controversy.”
I know it’s a little silly to use a Batman figurine to illustrate this post, but Batman is a human and he’s a hero so. . . Photo by Ali Kokab on Unsplash
I’m reminded you don’t have to be perfect to make great change in the world and in fact, I take heart in that regular people with passion do that all the time. As we’ve recently celebrated Pride, I’d like to mention one such person: Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman, who played a key role in the fight for LGBTQ equality. Three passionate Black women making a difference today are the co-founders of Black Lives Matter: Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi.
You obviously don’t have to be a saint to be a leader, to be a spiritual revolutionary. My teacher says true leaders or spiritual revolutionaries work to achieve progressive changes for human elevation on a well-thought, pre-planned basis, whether in the physical, metaphysical, or spiritual sphere and they follow an ethical code. That ethical code includes things like not intentionally harming others, practicing benevolent truthfulness, not stealing, sacrificing to serve others, etc.
Today I am reminded that you and I can also be leaders in our own right, in our own way. If we are working to elevate humanity and doing our best to be ethical people, we fall into that category. We may never have the notoriety of any of the leaders I mention in this post, but we’re still leaders and the work we’re doing still matters. We need different people playing different roles to create change.
I’m going to end with another quote by Bregman here. He says:
“Our inclination – in talk shows and around dinner tables – is to choose our favorite kind of activism: We give Greta Thunberg a big thumbs up but fume at the road blockades staged by Extinction Rebellion. Or we admire the protesters of Occupy Wall Street but scorn the lobbyists who set out for Davos.
“That’s not how change works. All of these people have roles to play. Both the professor and the anarchist. The networker and the agitator. The provocateur and the peacemaker. The people who write in academic jargon and those who translate it for a wider audience. The people who lobby behind the scenes and those who are dragged away by the riot police.”
I dream of a world where we all work together to make a better society. A world where we recognize we all have the capacity to be leaders. A world where we remember we don’t have to be perfect to make a difference. A world where we see ourselves for the heroes we are.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
Last week I wrote about how I don’t want to be responsible right now. I want to retreat, to withdraw. I’m tapping into something deeper this week and realizing it’s more than that. I want to be taken care of. I want someone else to make the hard decisions, to be a leader, a hero. I want to be like a child feeling joyous and free because someone else is taking care of business.
This week has destroyed all notions I’ve had that someone else is taking care of business. Regardless of your political affiliation, I think the majority of us are fed up with many of our political leaders. I think the majority of us have lost faith in the people steering this ship. I know I have.
We all have an inner hero.
It’s hard and it’s scary for me to say that, because again, I want to be like a child, only concerned with her toys. What I’m realizing is I cannot. None of us have the luxury of becoming disengaged. We are who we’ve been waiting for.
Dhomang Yangthang says, “But now who is the arya sangha [the exalted community]? It is all of us, all of the practitioners of the present time.” That to me means I can’t wait for someone else to show up and be the hero. I can’t wait for someone else to come in and save me or save humanity. I really don’t think it’s up to one person anymore. I think it’s all of us. My spiritual teacher says all spiritual aspirants must strive to become leaders.
We must all find our inner hero because as I think we’ve been shown, most of our leaders are primarily concerned with power, not with our welfare. There are exceptions of course, thank God, but it is up to us to keep the pressure up, to have a voice, to be empowered. And it’s more than just voting once every four years. It’s easy for me to sit back and say, “Well, I voted and that’s good enough, that’s all I can do.” Voting is great! Voting is important! But voting isn’t everything.
To ensure we’re being taken care of, we have to take care of ourselves. To ensure our brothers and sisters are being taken care of, we have to take care of them. What I’m saying is we can’t rely on someone else. We can’t be passive players in our lives because when we are, we become like sheep terrorized by wolves. Wolves will always be wolves, but together, we can drive the wolves away.
I’m going to quote my spiritual teacher again who said leaders will “work for the good of all countries, for the all-around emancipation of all humanity. The downtrodden humanity of this disgraced world is looking up to the eastern horizon, awaiting the leaders advent with earnest zeal and eagerness. Let the cimmerian darkness of the interlunar night disappear. Let the human being of the new day of the new sunrise wake up in the world.” I’m ready for that new day. Are you?
I dream of a world where we realize we have to work together to save ourselves. A world where we realize we have to be our own heroes. A world where we develop the leader within us in order to make the world a better place for all.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.