Choosing Integrity in Leadership — no exceptions
Maybe I am naive. I expect better from leaders.
I ask how so many people are drawn to follow those who have built a platform of hate, lies, drama, corruption, cheating and disrespect for anything that does not serve their self-interest?
How did we get to this?
I am heartbroken by the lies and nastiness.
Indeed, for anyone who wants a world filled with more integrity in leadership to endorse a leader who spews hate and lies, is to be complicit in hatred and lies.
In Australia, we are about to hold a referendum to decide if we want to change our Constitution to add the Indigenous First Nations people to our Constitution and give them a Voice in the decisions that directly affect them. Not carte blanche. But a Voice that must then go through parliament.
It is not hard to understand. It recognises 65,000 years of our history and allows the people affected by decisions to support their well-being to be a party to making those decisions. Like being an adult, being a part of the decision-making process also means we have to accept responsibility when things do not create the intended results.
The opposition to the Voice says it is hard to understand, as if its simplicity must be duplicity.
Then, they propose that citizens who don’t understand vote no because they don’t understand.
The irony in this statement is that it says a declaration of ignorance is a reason to remain ignorant. It makes fools of the ignorant.
How is it that these same citizens who are encouraged to vote no because they do not know not realise they are being treated like fools?
Those who love power use wilful ignorance as a tool. Keep the people unconscious, asleep, overworked, poor, starved, and addicted to anything.
Then, weaponise the wilful ignorance to use that ignorance against the very people who are encouraged to be ignorant.
Offer them hope. Yet keep them angry and filled with hate that this change will badly affect their lives.
I wonder, seriously, why people follow anyone who platforms hate and division as the core tenet of their voice. I find maintaining hate exhausting and soul-destroying.
Beauty will save the world, said Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Beauty is a powerful antidote to hate. As is love.
I search for leadership that speaks of beauty and calls for a better world. They are hard to find.
Have we lost the desire to be inspired by leaders who call us to dream?
‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.’ Martin Luther King Jr
Content of our character! The character I see in many leaders is lying, manipulation, corruption, narcissism, racism, misogyny and an insatiable quest for power.
Perhaps we are missing inspirational leaders. Those who call us to the greater angels of our Nature. To a better world. A more beautiful world.
How did we reach a place where lies in political expression are an accepted practice?
I found out this week that political parties in Australia are given legal license to spam when I received a text message that encouraged me to vote ‘no because I don’t know’. In addition to that, it also invited me to sign up for a postal vote, which is not the official website but the Liberal Party’s way of capturing my data. This act of duplicity is enough to have me run, run, run far from any Party and anyone who says this behaviour is acceptable. I have zero Party allegiance to endorsed manipulation and the deliberate propagation of lies as a political tactic.
To endorse this type of behaviour just because of the side of politics on which you live is to be a part of the propagation of more lies, cheating, corruption and hate in politics.
Is this the world you want? We get the character and behaviour we step over.
All of these local incidents are reflected in almost every Nation around the world.
Fear, lies, corruption, cronyism — political business as usual.
And too many people cheer in agreement. That they do cheer such hollowed-out-lacking-integrity characters is a place to pause and reflect deeply. What is the vacuum that has been created that hate and fear seem to be the only antidote?
We vote these monsters in.
I wonder how people live in a world where hate is served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Where is joy? Love? Beauty? Kindness?
Why would anyone be attracted to a leader who is a fester of hate and lies?
Where oh where is integrity?
A friend just posted an endorsement for the same politician who spammed me. How do we endorse such shameless, exploitative behaviour? How have we come to this?
Where oh where is integrity?
What can we do against this tsunami of nasty and hate?
At the micro-personal level
I have written many times about Little Atrocities. Micro transgressions that are the seed and context for macro and meta transgressions and genocide.
When we step over the first Little Atrocity, we enable the field to be cultivated for the second Little Atrocity, slightly amplified from the first. Repeat this, and we send six million people to the gas chamber or elect leaders who lie for a living.
The first lie, the first act of hate, and the first violation of integrity are the most dangerous.
In accepting the first lie, we cultivate the field for lying as normal.
Do not step over the first Little Atrocity. It will become an aggressive cancer if we do step over it. Get active. Call your local representative. Send a complaint to consumer complaints. Write. Speak. Protest.
Be part of the change in all actions.
Consider the following disciplines when looking at problems.
- Understand Synergy — Start with a complete as possible understanding of the whole. This includes the history of the situation and history in general. To understand poverty, to find solutions for poverty, we must also know money, finance, economy, currency, capital, capitalism. To consider why people are flocking to the liars and haters, we must understand how the vacuum liars and haters are filling was created.
- Stay open-minded — Only when we take time and have an open-minded commitment to understanding the whole, including the opposing positions, can the next step be determined. We may need to change our minds. Are we able to? Or do we cling tight to our position?
- Ask — What is the highest act of integrity we can then take? Integrity = whole and complete. It includes truth, radical honesty, and transparency. Step over nothing. Become an activist, not a complainer.
- Ask — What would love and integrity do?
- Ask — How can we support the highest number of people to thrive, without ecological offence or the disadvantage of anyone? Zero exploitation, zero colonisation, zero extraction. Does this mean that we might need to give up something?
- Ask — What is the precession — the side effects and consequences of our action? How do we take responsibility for the precession of our decisions and actions? Or do we pass the buck down the line so it is up to our childrens children?
I think about my friend endorsing someone who uses lies and manipulation. It makes me sad to think that they accept this type of behaviour. Or do they not see the bigger picture here? This person has led a privileged life and wants for little. What do they fear?
Think about the more beautiful world that we know is possible.
The one almost everyone I have met wants.
To be treated with dignity. To be given opportunity and respect. To know love and joy. To belong.
Leadership has managed to turn people upon each other in their grab for power.
I want leadership that serves the increased well-being of Earth and all her creatures.
Anyone not leading for this, I will call out and invite to shift towards the more beautiful world we know is possible, to lead syntropically.
The Yes vote in Australia is towards an increased well-being for all. The larger majority will not lose rights or land, or any of the other BS that is being spewed as true. I see those working hard for a Yes vote doing so on a platform of inclusion, dignity, and responsibility, in stark contrast to the No campaign.
I want a world with more of this behaviour lived and modelled.
Syntropy is the greater force. Love, beauty and grace will be there when the dust finally settles. I hope the price we play to arrive in a Syntropic World is not too great.
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