Qualities of leadership are sometimes hard to define but not really hard to spy. When a man speaks consistently with passion about what he believes and his content returns regularly to the human condition, and he seems to yearn for a better world for all, inclusive even of the disenfranchised, then his integrity may begin to become visible. And that’s who you want to support in any field, associate with and point your children to as an example of successful living – even if that individual has suffered most of his life for his principles, to wit: Nelson Mandela.
We use in our society a kind of rewards system and too often unfortunately short term greed is rewarded with a quick buck, and inevitably a golden handshake and the keys to an escape hatch.
For our society to be more effectively fortified to withstand major upheavals like the current financial collapse, we need to reward more people of principle who demonstrate their will for peace and the intelligence to bring it about and show daily their commitment to goodness, charitableness and the promotion of universal love. This is not, I believe, a namby pamby or pollyanna approach. Quite the contrary: by supporting such individuals and representative organizations we can eventually divine the inherent power of righteousness as it transforms, subtlely but certainly, the moral fabric and colour of our global society from a kind of grey bleakness to that of an astonishingly bright sunrise rife with fresh ideas and the sweeping hues of hope.
It is sad to say that as I work within the Canadian junior mining industry I find very little of this newness and strength of commitment to long-term gains of happiness and joyously righteous business. Where are the leaders who are prepared to stand up and have their company counted now as one of fundamental, long term value? The rather disgusting truth of it is that more 90% of my initial contacts with this group of CEO’s is met with a lie: that voice mail which informs me, “And I’ll get back to you shortly” or some such empty promise. They don’t, which is just rude and reflective of their lack of interest in any decency of humanity and clearly indicative of their single-minded, narrow drive and blind greed. If I were, however, to call and leave a message on their deceptive little machine that I was actively interested in laying out some serious moolah for them to manipulate, methinks I would be graced with a return call.
And now that their shit is hitting the fan, these CEO’s, once all full of promises of heydays, are hiding on tall limbs in high trees somewhere in the general vicinity of their splashy offices, licking their wounds and mapping their escape route.
Is it any wonder then that our global economic circumstance - somewhat billowing out from a Wall Street obscenely populated as it is with clowders of fat alley cats - is in such dire condition? With those lords of the iniquitous at the helm, we can all expect more of this short term desperate lurching and little of the long term success that principled men and women might bring to bear upon our current, rather pathetic situation. The steady-handed and clear-headed can be found among those exasperated people who have been trying to ring the bell of righteous business for their lifetimes. Find among them your leaders.
The voices of these principled gentlefolk are still being muzzled by the recent wailing and breast beating of those former glad-handers and back-slappers of the old regime who chortled shamelessly in dark corners and sneered at the people who abide by “the still small voice.”
Mr Obama, I suspect, wouldn’t last long in that company of patented shit-eating grins, and thank God for that and good luck to him. In this climate of impossible avarice he’s going to need all the luck the sun can muster.
