The age of conspicuous consumption, the transaction-accumulation age of the deal has culturally birthed the age of the empty suit, lost leaders in search of identities. Our societies and citizens are stuffed full of emptiness, and too many leaders are largely unknowable, distant and unaware. Leaders have become as good as the deal they strike, the payoff they receive, the package they negotiate. Actions, even lives, are crafted on alters of cosmic vending machines in hopes of many happy returns. In all this phenomenal success, meaning is more marginalized, purpose more diminished. Integrity was not on the shelf as often or priced as cheaply before the age of the deal. It is now rare to find someone who has not been infected, a leader who is the proud owner of everything that cannot be bought, a soul who is not for sale. The flawless leader has rejected the seductions that 1) people are objects, 2) control trumps trust, and 3) identity is based in accomplishment. An unfortunate side effect of our quid pro quo culture is the commoditization of our integrity.

Objectification

Studies tell us the shelf life of the average CEO is less than four years. Integrity priced too cheaply and made too widely available is too often the culprit. The primary symptom of bread-and-milk integrity pricing is leaders viewing people as the means to their ends and not ends in and of themselves. Viewing people as means is equivalent to viewing them as objects, not equals. Objectifying people is rampant in our societies and is a projection of low self worth and self-hate. The narcissistic CEO who objectifies others as means to their ends typically suffers from self-hate and low self-esteem. People with high self worth do not prostitute themselves or others so easily.

Control

Between the rooms of fear and faith there is the door of choice. On that door is the doorknob of control. Our affinity for control locks us in fear, separated from the possibility of a powerful life of faith. Control is the enemy of trust. Trust is not the answer to everything, but for relationship to occur it is essential. Leadership is relationship. Leaders who believe control trumps trust tend to be isolated micromanagers, devoid of depth, and lacking powerful relationships. Control is often necessary and effective in organizations and societies, but it’s often misapplied to leadership. Flawless leaders sequester control in favor of trust in relationships.

Identity

We are human-beings not human-doings. If you are what you do, then when you don’t you aren’t. Accomplishment is important – hey, we need to get stuff done, but it is not who we are. Who you are is your answer to the question of life. It is the only appropriate answer to every question we face, especially the tough ones. What you do flows from who you are. The age of the deal has glorified competence over identity. We now have empty suits that can condescendingly execute complex tasks, but have no idea who they are or what is right and what is wrong. Our ethics and morality have been summarily sacrificed on the alters of our missing identities.

Flawless leaders have struggled with the wrenching question, “What will I do in this life with no expectation of a return?” They can discuss the question, “Who am I” without talking about where they work and what they do. The solidity of their identity creates depth in their relationships, synchronized convergent effort by willing followers, emblazoned service to worthy purpose, and a sense of deep-water satisfaction that is lacking in the kiddie pools full of empty suits.

“What exactly is corruption?” was the leader’s uncomfortable question that began the meeting. Although it took a large pry bar to get the conversation moving at first, the presiding leader gently kept the input focused on “purely definition” at first. At the onset, the comments around the room included almost poetic things such as “violation of virtue,” “impairment of integrity,” “corrosion of character,” “perpetration of moral principle,” “ethical decay or decomposition,” “bribery – the tangible payoff for wrong,” and “departure from the good and the right.”

After the group warmed up to the coldness of the topic, they were encouraged to be more personal with the definition, as if it were going to be applied directly to the organization they led and to themselves, the leaders within the organization. The comments then included things such as “the decline of ethical strength,” “the slow spoiling of truth,” “the quiet departure from the originally pure,” “the slow creep away from the initially correct,” “secret festering scandals,” “extortion of blind obedience,” and “self-protective mismanagement.”

I was asked to observe the meeting and periodically offer observations, comments, and advice on the quality of their group processes and interactions. I do this often, and I was generally quite impressed with the honesty and trust I had observed so far, but I noted a large pause and significant discomfort in the room when someone who had been mostly quiet so far said, “corruption is the generally acceptable use of extortion-like power by the elite few seeking to profit at the expense of the unknowing whole.” Since the elite few were the ones in the room, the following stillness was memorably penetrating. After a long silence, and just as a few group members started to get up, I stated my first verbal observation: “I think we have found both the start of a meaningful conversation and the definition of corruption that is most piercingly relevant for this group.”

The group regained composure rather quickly and began a solemn and difficult discussion of the evil in which they had chosen to be entangled, the cancerous corruption both they and society had previously deemed acceptable. Unmasking corruption as an outsider or as a newly positioned leader is heroic and commonplace, although it is often the disguise for disingenuous self-aggrandizement and a host of hidden agendas. However, dealing with our own acceptable corruption is another matter entirely; facing our own evil without flinching is the hallmark of adept personal and organizational transformation.

Leaders can never be perfect regardless of our illogical wishes and expectations, but it is both possible and logical for leaders to know and deal with their dark side appropriately. It is right for leaders to name and heal their own evil; as the ancient proverb states, “Physician heal thyself.” For this self-attentiveness, Flawless leaders gain incremental respect, loyalty, and admiration from followers. Flawless leaders know that being appropriately authentic is the exposure of their own hypocrisy. Consider Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” where the Emperor walks around naked displaying his “new” clothes while everyone around him colludes in agreement with his self-deception. Everyone around the Emperor already knew of his hypocrisy, as it is with leaders. Flawless leaders discuss and deal with their own hypocrisy. Only then can we authentically and honorably deal with the evil in our own organizations.

I was partnering with Paul, a CEO of a large company that was going through significant change. Paul said he wanted help in getting every leader in the organization engaged in the change and becoming a valuable partner in creating the necessary details associated with imbedding this change deep within the massive global organization. We designed a series of work meetings over several years that were vital and dynamic interchanges centered on both a unifying and resonating purpose and on the full engagement of all leaders. The top six hundred leaders in the organization worked together across all hierarchical and organizational boundaries and truly created a rare competitive advantage with high leveragability within their industry. Paul impressed everyone at the series of meetings as an excellent speaker, a master facilitator, a trusted leader, a polished professional, a brilliant strategist, and a management guru. The organization was now positioned well to take advantage of several significant and profitable growth opportunities that no other company in their industry would be able to copy for at least a few years. It would have been wonderful if the story ended here.

Paul then started a new initiative to downsize the leadership staff in his organization and remove many of the “redundant” leaders that had, incidentally, toiled with him to create the advantages he now enjoyed. He did this to meet a special secret bonus incentive that he alone enjoyed as part of his compensation package. Paul was facing a scary fact he had avoided for a long time: he was not at all grounded in who he was. He was not a leader who lived out the values he preached during all those inspirational meetings he had hosted over the last several years. He was actually somewhat deceitful, self-serving, disloyal, and in his own words, corrupt. He immediately lost the trust and loyalty of the remaining leaders, and the best of them took offers from other companies shortly thereafter. Paul’s window to take advantage of his extraordinary positioning within his industry quickly closed around his wily methods and glossy techniques. Paul harmed his organization and those within it by hoarding power and valuing self-protection over principles and purpose.

Let’s face facts. We are all, at least a little, like Paul: deceitful, self-serving, and disloyal to varying degrees and depending on the situation. We are all human. As leaders, we don’t like to admit it or face it all that often, but we are human. Paul was so competent, so perfect, so god-like, that he didn’t face the fact that he was merely human, and that he had a dark side that needed to be navigated in order to lead effectively. Paul had been a “good-boy” for so long that he had over identified with that role, causing him to literally not know himself or even be aware of who he really was. He ignored his dark side; he refused to admit it was there. He was a ship captain who ignored the bad-weather reports and obliviously careened into the perfect storm. Knowing your dark side, facing it, becoming familiar with it, accepting it, and being vulnerable enough to discuss it appropriately takes its power away and enables you to navigate its unavoidable storms.

Even though I just came out with a new book, here is a peak into the next volume of The Flawless Leader Papers. It’s about the incredible leadership power that emerges when a leader embraces their irrelevance.

“The truth about our own modest contribution might immobilize us: much easier then, to tell ourselves a story about how much we make our own reality.”

-David Whyte

Gary is a successful President in an insurance company. He was previously known as the “execution guru” because there was just no one better at getting things done than Gary. He had made a name for himself over the years in the industry as he climbed the ladder to President by moving anywhere he was asked, and by fixing all the broken areas in the company quickly and efficiently. If there was a part of the organization that needed to be brought back into line and up to snuff, that was where Gary was headed. He had accomplished much and had much to be proud of, and until recently, that seemed to be enough for Gary. I started working with Gary after his wife of twenty-eight years left him for the landscaper that cut the grass and worked in the gardens of what was now his former home. This shock caused Gary, the ultimate provider, to stop and take a long look at his life. He came face-to-face with his previously unknown reality that the ladder he was so sacrificially climbing through all this accomplishment was leaning on a wall filled with emptiness. Gary had been living with a governing assumption that strenuously surrendering his life to the shallow cause of “getting things done” would eventually give him fulfillment and enjoyment. When he stopped and took stock of his entire life, some rudely painful awakenings happened to surface. He had just lost a twenty-eight year marriage to a great woman, he was virtually estranged from his three wonderful children, he had sacrificed a great deal of his health and well being to excruciating work and travel schedules, and he had managed to alienated himself from everyone at work except his superiors. In the dictionary under self-sabotage, it said to see Gary.

Essentially, Gary woke up from his façade dreams of largess (that he assumed to be reality) and found he was actually deliriously and furiously rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship. He had worked so hard to build a life, and in reality he had been destroying it. He discovered that his life had little meaning and his vast conquests had left him with little significance. In fact, he had perfected conquest in the financial world; he, however, failed miserably in contribution to the larger world. His life’s purpose had resided in accomplishment alone; he served the task list; he lived for the execution of initiatives; he was the man who “got it done.” While he felt appreciated by his superiors, he also felt used. Gary had a pile of regrets and “looking himself in the mirror” had become nauseating, at best. Gary had built his identity on the unstable foundation of accomplishment-dependence; he was only good enough if he was accomplishing enough. So, to Gary, when he wasn’t accomplishing, he didn’t exist, and those badlands can get quite scary rather quickly. He bounced back and forth between feeling so good and never feeling good enough, and the definition of enough was never too clear and always out of reach. Somewhere along the way, he exchanged the power to be himself, to love himself, and to love those around him with the almighty adoration of accomplishment. Tasks had become the enemy of those waiting to love him, and Gary had too easily sold out to the enemy. He was a confused double agent and felt estranged from his own heart. He had taken many journeys, but had avoided the requisite flawless leaders’ journey from head to heart.

Gary viewed his stacked “to-do” list as empowering his life, but in reality it served to overpower him. The list was where he did his best work, and the list was where he was most stuck: the list never ended. As soon as one list was completed, another one was created. He was so busy doing; he never got to be. Being had become too difficult; he chose the life of a human doing. He got the tasks done – that is, except the preeminent task of life, the task of meaning and worthy purpose. He was never able to deeply connect with his wife and children because he subjugated them to the task list. His gluttony for accomplishment eclipsed his need for human relationship. His wife and children didn’t disappear; they just eventually faded away, settling for second best because first best was perpetually unavailable. He was left alone to live with the remnants of pain and a more than appropriate level of anguish. Gary lived in the shadow of illusive balance. Those who loved him surrounded him, but he felt so alone. He had gradually and unwittingly chosen exile. He strove to be the provider, but, when he turned around, there was no one left for which to provide. He created the emptiness in which he resided; he manufactured his own misery. He now wanted to repair and restore as much as possible of what he had lost and destroyed. Since Gary was so adept at lists, I asked him to take some time and make a list of a life filled with things that eclipsed accomplishment in importance, essentially what a life built on the economy of meaning, a life of gifts without any expectation of a return. Make the list, amend it, adjust it, edit it, perfect it. Get it done, and then we would discuss it. He later told me that this list was the most difficult and most important work he had ever done in his life. His first item helped form the title for this book.

Gary’s new life list:

- Feel joy and contentment about my insignificance – Embrace my irrelevance

- Connect with people as deeply and quickly as they are able

- Stare into the eyes of my wife; listen to her soul; love her; beg her forgiveness

- Stop everything and watch my children – especially when they say “dad, watch this!”

- Cry with those who are crying

- Listen to my child when she tells me whatever is on her mind at that moment

- Hold someone’s hand when they’re afraid

- Live my life as though it ends too soon

- Free oppressed people

- Feed hungry people

- Shelter homeless people

- Avoid at all costs colluding with exploitation

- Compassionately speak truth

- Live wide open and vulnerably

- Forgive without condition

- Love without reason

- Trust without reservation

- Dance without consideration

A notable thing here is that Gary didn’t quit his job; instead, he took it to another level of excellence. He took a few weeks of vacation to sort things out, but he came back in a more meaningful and powerful way. He learned to find meaning in the mundane, and holiness in the ordinary. He recreated an existence that touched the hearts of people, and instead of Gary working so hard, everyone around him was working much harder than he was. Gary transformed his existence by renewing his mindsets. He still got things done, in many ways better than before, but what changed was that he found an illusive peace that comes from balance, deep relationships, and authentic intensity. He recaptured reason by finding his way to his heart. He discovered resonating meaning and worthy purpose by connecting deeply with others’ hearts. He recovered his authentic identity by living a life founded on the solidity of who he was, not what he did. He rediscovered his true power by sharing it with those around him. He gifted followers with a newfound hope and meaning and that, in turn, energized them to collectively struggle to achieve his directions and dreams. He became the proud owner of that which cannot be bought. He had stumbled onto the path of the flawless leader.

What will you do to restore relationships you have harmed? On what is your self-worth based? What is more important than accomplishment?

Cindy was one of two Group Presidents who were leading a large multinational company. Walter, her counterpart, was responsible for Europe, Asia, and Australia while Cindy ran the larger of the two operations in North and South America. Both leaders were responsible for billions of dollars of business, and both were considered outstanding business leaders. In fact, both Walter and Cindy had been offered CEO positions in other companies in their industry, but both had decided to stay with this organization and cultivate their possibility for the top job there. While Cindy ran the larger of the two main groups within the company and was largely considered the logical choice for the next CEO, she reached out for me because she noticed a disturbing difference between herself and Walter, and she was seeing that difference ripple throughout their respective operations.

The unsettling dissimilarity Cindy noticed was that Walter was more decisive than she was, and his entire organization consequently moved faster than hers did. Most leaders rarely see the connection between their trapping of value in their own lives and the trapping of value in the organizations they lead. She had a rare awareness, and she knew that an authentic change of this magnitude and at this stage in her career would require a little help to navigate. Being more decisive or less decisive is neither good nor bad, however, there are leadership situations where these behaviors create distinctive repercussions. If the organization is large, spread out geographically, and requires speed to be competitive, then bottlenecking decisions at the top is not desirable. For Cindy, her major blockers were around illogical assumptions regarding “control” and “being right.” While these are two important things, the needs of the organization did not require the behaviors she was embracing. Essentially, through our work together, Cindy chose to change her thinking and create new behaviors that were more aligned with her vision and awareness. Her organization subsequently became even more nimble than Walter’s and she turned a weakness into a strength – not an easy task, to say the least.

The Latin root of the English word decision means “to kill off, to cut off from all other alternatives.” There is a finality, a commitment, a starkness, a confrontation, beneath the surface of decisions that entails various forms of violence. When we say, “yes” to someone or something, we are at some level simultaneously saying “no” to all other alternatives. If the intrinsic “no” to all other options is not present in our “yes,” than our “yes” is a thinly veiled lie, a political spin, a shallowly disingenuous act of a pithy, unaware and immature, soul – a soul, incidentally, that others intuitively find unappealing to follow.

The act of authentically committing our “yes” in the world is actually a marriage of sorts, in that we now identify with the choice we have made. Often, we even become the choices we make, so our choices dynamically craft and wed themselves to our identity. A decision is a self-creative act in that our lives become the sum total of our choices over time.

There is an inherent forcibleness to choice; but it is not coercion – it is the subtle, more powerful force of freedom. Flawless leaders don’t force choice on anyone; they invite and encourage choice and thus engender full commitment and self-accountability. In this way, they release the force of those making the commitment and unleash power and speed throughout their entire organization. Followers are not machines; flawless leaders never treat them as such. Our most effective decisions will always be about the ways in which we facilitate others releasing their trapped value both inside and outside our organizations.

What choices will release trapped value in your life and the life of the organization you lead?

The fires of our discontent are found within our unquenchable desires for more. Nowhere does this discontent rage fiercer than in the engulfing flames of our weak over-indulgence, our gluttony. Leaders often choose to burn contentment in the bonfires of gluttony. Our conspicuous consumptions and illogical wishes are the unfortunately stressful byproducts of our capitalistic democracies, our extortionist organizations, our self-absorbed cultures, and our fears of our unknown self. On a planet where fifty percent of the people have no shoes, have never made a telephone call, and will never read this page, discontent of mythical proportions broods hysterically among those who have countless shoes, phones and reading materials. We hear the cries of gluttony everyday, “Enough is never enough,” “Mommy, I want that – now!” “Gotta do more, gotta be more,” “You deserve it – you can have it all,” “We must never be satisfied,” “There is no finish line.” Our cultures of credit cards, mortgages, “keeping up with the Joneses,” and ever increasing salaries and revenue targets continually feed this well hidden dysfunction. The problem, however, with discontent and gluttony is that it robs us of our power, the power of authentic and actionable identity.

Gluttony is the strongest defense we have against contentment. Contentment must be defended against because it’s scary, for we can only be content when we abandon blame and judgment and unconditionally accept ourselves for who we are and what we are doing. Authentic contentment does not include satisfaction and complacency; it is an unadulterated acceptance of our current reality and an actionable agreement with our current objectives. This self-acceptance entails acute awareness, exacting alignment of intention and behavior, courage, and forgiveness: a rare recipe in kitchens these days. Gluttony wouldn’t be a root cause to leader dysfunction if it didn’t captivate so much of our attention and deflect us from the truly meaningful. Our blind grasping of ill-defined accumulations prevents us from our most powerful and enduring interventions: identity and purpose.

T.D. Jakes, a contrarian voice, said, “Contentment is the apex of existence.” When we are satisfied with ourselves we embody our own gift of “enough.” Contentment is the ultimate act of unconditional love and acceptance, the resulting joy and peace that come from meaningful identity and purposeful action. Few of us experience this because we swim with our heads barely above water in our own ocean of discontent, dissatisfaction, self-hate, and overall revenge for being born. Most organizations encourage these feelings because they use people as human resources, as inhumane means to an end. Gluttonous leaders preach to the masses that encouraging contentment would create laziness, resistance to change, and a culture coated with haphazard malaise. Most managers prefer to use fear and domination because to actually lead is risky and scary. These leaders are defending against honoring people as equals and leading through the power of resonating purpose. The gluttonous leader is weak and produces shallow, short-lived conquests, where the flawless leader brings enriching and enduring contributions. Contentment is quite possibly the most precious thing that gluttony cannot attain.

It is understandable that when we are not firmly grounded in “who we are” and “what we want” we react in fear by “wanting it all.” (The illogical assumption being that more and bigger must be better.) While it is understandable, it is also unacceptable. We fill our aching voids resulting from our lack of identity and vision with random, incoherent gluttony and greed. When we don’t know who we really are and what we really want out of life, then we reach out by trying to grab it all. Gluttonous leaders instinctively criticize, judge, and reject themselves and others, habitually supporting their gluttonous addictions in lieu of simple, scary self-acceptance. When we are gluttonous we have a lot, including regrets, resentments, self-hate and emptiness. This amounts to manufacturing our own harm via the shrinking of our life by smothering it with stuff: the more we get the less we are. Gluttony is the quintessential devaluing of our distinctive selves. Its seduction is the emotional high of shopping for more in the disguised department stores of our own discontent. Ironically, we also accumulate more dissatisfaction through our frenetic purchases, accomplishments, and conquests. Once we accumulate the new, we devalue it by ignoring it in pursuit of the more, or the new and improved. In the midst of our noisy gluttony, we avoid our heart’s quiet calling for contentment: know yourself, forgive yourself, accept yourself, love yourself, choose your destiny, live out your purpose with gusto.

Flawless leaders are irritants because they dare to strive for the contentment that can only result from authentic identity, resonating purpose and meaningful action. They are content with themselves, their actions, and the directions they have set. They accept reality, create the future, and forgive quickly. They are grounded in their identity because they are able to articulate who they are without mentioning what they do. Leadership is both who you are and what you do, but it all starts in who you are. Every decision flows from identity. Every answer to every question is another brick in the building of our uniqueness. Gluttony is the consummate defense against the power and productivity that only authentic identity and meaningful purpose can bring.

Who are you? Where are you? What resentments do you still hold toward yourself? What accumulations prevent you from living fully?

Frank was a dynamo. His energy levels and stamina were the envy of all. His managerial capacity was astounding. His presence was larger than life. He also had deep needs that were satisfied by looking busy. He had defined an overstuffed schedule and generally frenetic behaviors as the hallmark of effective leadership, and his less effective boss rewarded and reinforced this behavior. So in order to fulfill his well hidden needs to be accepted, honored, and competent, Frank would literally run around his business and react vehemently to each and every fire that broke out. As a regional Vice President, he was not only responsible for putting the fires out; he was also responsible for preventing them from recurring. It was that second thing, the fire-prevention role, that Frank unconsciously neglected because he was magnetized to the seductive elixir of the reactive-manager role that he loved to play in order to feel good about who he was. Frank did feel good about his chosen identity, but that unfortunately did not help his business. It hurt his business. To really help his business, Frank actually needed to adhere to the uncommonly sage advice, “Don’t just do something – stand there!”

We all have multiple roles, hats, and positions. A mother is probably the human with the most roles. The average mother is leader, manager, teacher, lover, wife, partner, mentor, advisor, coach, counselor, officer, referee, doctor, judge, analyst, friend, daughter, accountant, nurse, negotiator, pharmacist, chef, maid, and chauffer all before lunchtime. Not all of us are blessed with such complexity. But we all play our parts, actresses and actors in a powerful play. Some parts we run toward with joyful abandon; some parts we run from like rats jumping from a sinking ship. Whatever the role, we say our lines. We move on and off the stage. We act; we interact; we switch roles; we wear hats; we put on masks; we change costumes. Certain parts we like to perform better than others. We over-identify and overuse some roles, choosing to be comfortably trapped in a fractured sliver of existence – gravitating to comfort and safety as a defense against the discomfort of living fully. A mother might overuse the caring-pacifier role, a father might be stuck in the fierce-protector role, and a Vice President could constantly gravitate to the reactive-manager role. When our pet-select roles seduce us, magnetize us, and envelope us, we over-identify with that specific part of life.

Our intoxication with these identity-magnet bit-parts of existence chips away at our wholeness, dilutes our presence in other critical roles, and shatters our fullness. A multitude of varying roles is not a fragmented life. Being less than fully present in any one role is diminishment. Overusing or avoiding roles is a sign of potential organizational dysfunction. Our identity is the compilation of fully living every role that presents itself throughout our lifetime. Our identity is not our action. Our identity is not one role or even a compilation of roles. Our identity is our unique creative process of breathing our full authentic presence into our chosen possibilities. Flawless leaders consciously create their identity and submit to a larger purpose instead of unconsciously overemphasizing single aspects of leadership in an effort to salve deeply hidden personal issues.

What roles magnetize you? What roles do you neglect and what is the resulting fallout or risk? Where and when are you less than fully living?

Leaders that create an elite aura disserve followers. The elitist attitude in leadership says to all followers that “I am better than you, hence I should lead you.” It is a mental state of ascendency that leads to domination, control, tyranny, extortion, and abuse of the community and society. History has clearly shown us numerous times that the elite leader has great capacity for tyranny and dehumanizing leadership. Elitism is obsolete and must be eliminated in order for authentic leadership to flourish.

After more than two centuries, the US has created a somewhat free and equal society that is fairly distinct in the world, although still infected with aristocratic domination and elitism in areas and pockets throughout. When America declared its independence from the British Empire and won its liberty and status through war, it separated from a monarchy and would for years strive to live distinctly different from monarchy, ensuring free speech, freedom of religion, right for all citizens to bear arms, etc.

Over two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson, one of the founders of the United States of America said, “A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take away everything you have…I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.” Jefferson was a liberal, secular humanist, however, today, this thinking would be considered fairly right wing.

Through only 200 years, a few generations, Americans have allowed elitism to creep back into leadership and now our free speech has been limited to certain “free speech zones”: areas set aside in public places for the exercise of free speech in the US. The US Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law… abridging… the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The US Constitution was circumvented by the US Courts: the existence of free speech zones is based on U.S. court decisions stipulating that the government may regulate the time, place, and manner—but not content—of expression. These free speech zones stem from decisions within the last fifty years, but were not extensively utilized and enforced until the last 2 decades, coincidently and arguably with a noticeably higher rise in elitism in Governmental leadership.

Over the last fifty years Americans have also seen limitations on their religious freedom: mandatory teaching of evolution theory in public schools and the elimination and denigration of creation, elimination of prayer in public schools, and the shift in mindset that the US Constitution guarantees the freedom from religion, where it was always only originally intended to guarantee the freedom to be religious.

The last several decades in America have seen numerous challenges to individual’s rights to own firearms. Rights for Americans in this area have been severely limited by state and local governments and are yet another symptom in a long line of the sickness called elitism in leadership.

Elitism is paternalistic, coercive, extortive, and monarchical. It says, “let me control your life because you are not wise enough to do so.” It is not democratic. If human equality is holy, elitism is evil. Elitism is definitely not an American original. It says that all are not equal. It is the harbinger of tyranny and slavery and human abuse. And after only two centuries, the American congress looks more elite than the British parliament that it rebelled against. The extreme debates and diatribes in which the British parliament and its Prime Minister currently engage make the American congress and President look like the elite, polished puppets that they are. Congressmen cannot even challenge the President out loud when the President lies in a public speech without receiving censure. Thomas Jefferson and his arguing, impolite, brilliant compatriots are reeling in their graves. Freedom no longer rings in America, the elite have silenced the bell. If these comments from an American Democrat irritate you, you have probably been infected with the disease of elitism.

Authentic humility will always be the bedrock essence of a flawless leader. However strenuously we strive for relevance, we are rarely really relevant. It is high time leaders not only accept this but also embrace it. Embracing irrelevance is a holy reverence for the equality of all humans. Most leaders are constantly in search of their own relevance and thus are chained to illogical and unarticulated fantasies of being God. They think they should lead because they are “the best choice for the job;” because they have been “appointed.” When we embody the paradigm of constant relevance we repel followers because they sense our need to be dominant, however covert our condescension may be. Our past accomplishments and accolades shallowly support our self-pertinence. Leading and following are intensely “present-time” sensitive. Followers disregard past track records once they are with you in the moment’s current affliction. In our present anxiety, our past triumphs melt feverishly into triviality. Flawless leaders reject continuous relevance because they have chosen a lifelong submission to authentic service and meaningful purpose.

Immature children think of themselves; mature adults think of others. A tyrant views other people as beneath him; a community member views others as equals; a servant views other people as more esteemed than her. Pretentiousness repels; authenticity attracts. Only the strong become servants because they have mastered the illogical instability of self-supremacy. The servant is merely the mature, periodic and loving master of the ever-present inner-tyrant. Psychologists tell us that we carry with us our inner child. It is the manner in which we carry that child that makes all the difference. It is the flawless leaders that lovingly accept their inner instabilities, yet still guide themselves to a life of significance through surrendering to worthy purpose. Flawless leaders do not major on the minor issues. Flawless leaders are able to create strong bonds with followers through appropriate vulnerability. These relationships of deep strength and connectedness form the invisible infrastructure that propels the flawless leader’s organization toward meaningful success. There are correlations between leadership ability and organization outcomes. The extreme organizational power that is released from leaders’ embracing their irrelevance is another symptom of the necessary and deep work that occurs on the path of the flawless leader.

In what ways does your undercover elitism limit possibilities within the organization you serve?

The night of our renovation is a come as you are affair. The natural byproduct of our personal reconstruction is a considerable amount of dust, an acceptable mess. There is no classroom, no laboratory, no test case, no disposable first draft when it comes to life. It is purely a build-the-airplane-as-you’re-flying event. There is no certification for birth or parenting; it just happens. And often it is quite messy. The most extraordinary flowers bloom in the most retched filth, the good earth. That’s just the way it works. The best tasting sandwiches are oftentimes the messiest ones. The most precious humans, the little babies, are the untidiest of us all. And when we work on ourselves, the fruition of our transformation requires mistakes, failures, and imperfections: the dust of our own change. The question that must remain rattling inside us is “If a thing is worth doing, is it worth doing poorly a few times first?” Please pardon our dust.

When we walk into the workshop of the woodworker we do not condemn them to incompetence for debris and sawdust strewn in random unkempt piles on the floor. When we see the little toddler stumble and fall so many times when they are beginning to walk, we do not demand their legs be removed. When the young ones take their training wheels off their little bicycles and have difficulty riding unassisted, we do not assume stupidity and sell their bikes to cut our losses. In all these instances and many more, we have patience, understanding, and react with encouragement and assistance. But when the leader is learning and changing, we get nervous and gravitate to assumptions of travesty and disaster. We are oblivious that the power of this collective premise often cajoles leaders into hypocrisy. In many cultures this cultural presupposition is so powerful that leaders adopt a correlating unfounded notion that they cannot afford to learn by mistakes, they must be what they are undoubtedly not: perfect. The inevitable dust of a leader evokes our condemnation, where in most other cases the dust of others causes us to smile and pick up a broom to help. Please pardon our dust.

Leaders’ changing themselves is consummately the prime directive for flawlessness. The road to flawlessness is paved with our flaws as we navigate them effectively. When leaders are not constantly changing and adjusting, they are usually stuck and failing. When we discourage learning and change by the condemnation of the accompanying dust, we encourage failure. Through our intolerance, we tacitly create a greater ineptitude and hypocrisy. Please be careful where you step in these construction sites. Stop shaking your head in disgust and intolerance, and start rolling up your starched sleeves and help to clean up a bit. Please pardon our dust.

I worked with a leader once that employed an over-simplified model by asking his employees at times, “is this a journey or a destination?” He did this in a cute attempt to help them realize that their efforts at completion were not yet effective. His destination thinking was effective when it came to the content, output or accomplishment of their tasks, but it was ineffective when dealing with their developmental journeys. Life is not merely a series of destinations; it is also a journey. Both paradigms are valid and helpful. However, destination mindsets are rarely helpful in making us more fit for the greater journey. If I am only concerned with the destination, I might become too busy driving the car to stop and get gas. As leaders, we need to embrace both ways of thinking: destination thinking and journey thinking. From a systems perspective, journey thinking is about structure and process fitness and improvement, and destination thinking is about output effectiveness. For many systems, the keys to incremental effectiveness are often found in structure and process improvement. For many leaders, the keys to enhancing flawlessness are often found in enhancing our fitness for the journey. And there is a good deal of dust that gets pretty much everywhere over the course of a long journey. Please pardon our dust.

Beautiful craftsmanship only happens in the midst of dust and debris as the rough edges and extraneous material is removed and the sanding and polishing produces a greater level of existence and experience, the art of the everyday, the miracle of the methodical and mundane, the creation of holistic flawlessness from raw and flawed materials. The transformation of a flawless leader is similar. Please pardon our dust.

What imperfections and dust generation do you avoid in your hypocrisy?

When are you unhelpfully critical of dust and contribute to trapping value in others?

Answers are strenuously sought after and largely irrelevant when it comes to leadership. Most leaders are in their positions because they were among the most competent and knowledgeable while in their previous positions. Unfortunately, most leaders fail, too. So, even though they were seen as the answer, they became the problem. In fact, the latest studies would indicate that about 70% of leaders are dishonorably discharged in some way. The same group that installed the leader as the answer to their problems ends up removing the leader, perhaps, because that leader did not ask the right questions.

Let’s face it, the best leaders ask the best questions, and their best ideas come from someone else. Flawless leaders know that it is far better to have one questioner and a thousand who answer than a thousand questioners and one who answers. A flawless leaders job is to orchestrate the right conversation that brings about authentic change and energized engagement. Leaders don’t facilitate change and actions by answering someone’s question. It is high time for the archetype of leader as oracle to die in order for leaders to access their flawlessness. Instead of question and answer sessions, the best leaders have question and listening sessions.

There is an important inherent gift that all leaders possess, yet rarely access: irremediable ignorance. Just in case one of your close friends hasn’t told you lately – you don’t know it all and you never will. When leaders approach the world as an answer to its questions, they inevitably fail because they are operating from an unrealistic impossible premise. Alternatively, flawless leaders approach the world as a series of questions designed to release its trapped value. It is only with meaningful conversation around significant questions that leaders can hope to release the trapped value within their organizations. These conversations are only started with great questions.

E.E. Cummings said, “always a more beautiful answer that asks a more beautiful question.” As leaders, when you are tempted to answer everyone’s questions, I urge you to ask another question instead. Followers have the answers, but their answers are trapped within. A leader asking followers the right questions unlocks their value and engages their spirits. As leaders, we can only change ourselves in this way when we embrace our irremediable ignorance. We do not have all the answers, not will we ever, but it is possible to have the right questions. What questions would engage your followers fully? What questions would harvest the best thinking in the group? What conversations are you avoiding? What potentially helpful questions are you afraid to ask?

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In what ruts are you stuck? What choices would set you free?