Tag: loyalty

In Relationship (Part One)

www.cartoonstock.com-cartoonview.asp?catref=llan448Staying Loyal

“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop” ~Herbert Stein’s law

If you’re going to stay loyal to an organization you really have to love that organization. You have to love its philosophy, its theology, vision, structure of government, mandate, etc… If you don’t love it, you can not last.

John Boyd wrote that, as individuals, our basic goal is “to improve our capacity for independent action”*. In order to fulfill this goal we can not work alone. We have to cooperate with others. Boyd continues…

“The degree to which we cooperate, or compete, with others is driven by the need to satisfy this basic goal. If we believe that it is not possible to satisfy it alone, without help from others, history shows us that we will agree to constraints upon our independent action—in order to collectively pool skills and talents in the form of nations, corporations, labor unions, mafias, etc.—so that obstacles standing in the way of the basic goal can either be removed or overcome. On the otherhand, if the group cannot or does not attempt to overcome obstacles deemed important to many (or possibly any) of its individual members, the group must risk losing these alienated members. Under these circumstances, the alienated members may dissolve their relationship and remain independent, form a group of their own, or join another collective body in order to improve their capacity for independent action.”

Taking that into account, we can also say that if one is going to stay loyal, one has to feel as though he is able to pursue his own individual goals while belonging to the organization. If he feels he cannot do that, he will either leave or stay as an unhappy member of the group.

Being loyal does not just mean staying with the group. Being loyal means contending for the group in its mission and mandate. If one does not love, or fit in with, the mission or the mandate, then one cannot contend for the organization.

Sometimes, if the leadership has forgotten the original mission, a disgruntled member of the group (perhaps a “Man of Words“) may speak out to remind them. That person may seem like a rebel, but really he is contending for the organization. An organization, once it has initially fulfilled its mission, may turn to other ventures in order to survive. The original, fanatical, leadership may consider the survival (the continued existence) of the organization to be more important than its original mission.** This change in venue may restrict the individual members from achieving their independent goals which, up till that point, lined up with the organization’s original mission.

Other times, however, the members of the group, in their foolhardy zeal to just do something, may have misread the intentions of the organization right from the start. Sometimes the leadership does not make its intentions clear at the beginning because, they too, are looking to pursue an individual goal. If an organization’s leaders can use the members to achieve what they as leaders want, once that achievement is accomplished, they may have no more use for those members, and the members will find that their opportunity for accomplishing their own independent goals has evaporated.

The ideal situation then is when “skills and talents are pooled, (and) the removal or overcoming of obstacles represents an improved capacity for independent action for all.”

Loyalty happens…

  • …when the intentions (re: mission, mandate, theology, system of government, etc…) of both the leadership and the members are clearly stated and understood right from the beginning.
  • …when both the leaders and the members feel that they can successfully pursue their own independent goals.
  • …when, as things change over time, a clear and honest line of communication is kept between the leadership and its members.
  • …when the survival of the organization does not outweigh the mission and the mandate of the organization.

*Destruction and Creation by John R. Boyd

**You know this is happening when the leadership starts to lie about how successful the organization is.

In Relationship ~ Part Two

In Relationship ~ Part Three

 

Leaders of Movements

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“The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world”

~Eric Hoffer

What does it take to be a leader of a movement?

“It needs the iron will, daring and vision of an exceptional leader to concert and mobilize existing attitudes and impulses into the collective drive of a mass movement. The leader personifies the certitude of the creed and the defiance and grandeur of power. He articulates and justifies the resentment damned up in the souls of the frustrated. He kindles the vision of a breathtaking future so as to justify the sacrifice of a transitory present. He stages the world of make-believe so indispensable for the realization of self-sacrifice and united action. He evokes the enthusiasm of communion — the sense of liberation from a petty and meaningless individual existence.

“What are the talents requisite for such a performance? Exceptional intelligence, noble character and originality seem neither indispensable nor perhaps desirable. The main requirements seem to be: audacity and a joy in defiance; an iron will; a fanatical conviction that he is in possession of the one and only truth; faith in his destiny and luck; a capacity for passionate hatred; contempt for the present; a cunning estimate of human nature; a delight in symbols (spectacles and ceremonies); unbounded brazenness which finds expression in a disregard of consistency and fairness; a recognition that the innermost cravings of a following is for communion and that there can never be too much of it; a capacity for winning and holding the utmost loyalty of a group of able lieutenants. This last faculty is one of the most essential and elusive. The uncanny powers of a leader manifest themselves not so much in the hold he has on the masses as in his ability to dominate and almost bewitch a small group of able men. These men must be fearless, proud, intelligent and capable of organizing and running large-scale undertakings, and yet they must submit wholly to the will of the leader, draw their inspiration and driving force from him, and glory in this submission.

“Not all the qualities enumerated above are equally essential. The most decisive for the effectiveness of a mass movement leader seem to be audacity, fanatical faith in a holy cause, an awareness of the importance of a close-knit collectivity, and, above all, the ability to evoke fervent devotion in a group of able lieutenants.”
(The True Believer, by Eric Hoffer, HarperCollins Publishing, New York, pg. 114-115)

In the initial phase of a movement (Hoffer calls it the “dynamic phase”), there will be rapid growth, almost too fast to take an account of — like the seven years of plenty in the story of Joseph, they just stopped keeping count after awhile. With rapid growth like that it doesn’t matter if you steward the resources well, because the money, the people, and the assets keeping pouring in.

But, that rapid growth phase will not, can not, go on forever. Eventually growth will slow down and begin to plateau. What kind of leader is needed when the slow-down occurs? As Hoffer writes later on…

“The danger of the fanatic (the movement’s initial leadership) to the development of a movement is that he cannot settle down. Once victory has been won and the new order begins to crystallize, the fanatic becomes an element of strain and disruption… Thus on the morrow of victory most mass movement find themselves in the grip of dissension. The ardor which yesterday found an outlet in a life-and-death struggle with external enemies now vents itself in violent disputes and clash of factions.”
(pg. 146)

A Man of Action — who knows how to steward the resources generously, who knows how to maintain good relationships with individuals (mainly the lieutenants), who is honest about the reality of the state of the movement, who considers the mission of the movement to be more important than its survival, and who won’t sacrifice everything in his life for the movement — must come to power.

“If allowed to have their way, the fanatics may split a movement into schism and heresies which threaten its existence. Even when the fanatics do not breed dissension, they can still wreck the movement by driving it to attempt the impossible. Only the entrance of a practical man of action can save the achievements of the movement.”
(pg. 147)

“The man of action saves the movement from the suicidal dissensions and the recklessness of the fanatics. But his appearance usually marks the end of the dynamic phase of the movement. The war with the present is over. The genuine man of action is intent not on renovating the world but on possessing it. Whereas the life and breath of the dynamic phase was protest and a desire for drastic change, the final phase is chiefly preoccupied with the administering and perpetuating the power won.”
(pg. 149)

Related reading: Visionary Leaders Vs. Masters