Thought of the Day 08.06.09

A friend’s recent email about the moral failures of American business got me thinking about the essential elements of leadership, one of which is restraint.

Sometimes this means declining to take as much advantage of a flawed system and foolish people as you can. Sometimes it means foregoing profits because there are more significant things to being human than the size of your pile of money. But sometimes leadership requires more than just restraint.

If the very system which feeds your children and clothes your neighbors is being jeopardized by everyone else doing the same insane things, it’s not enough to simply keep your own hands clean. Leadership in those moments means actively correcting others and fixing the system which is being abused.

This will likely cost you much more than just lower profits. But leadership at its core is knowing when to take risks for the sake of what matters, especially at great personal cost. That is what distinguishes true leadership from mere success.