Authentic Service Arises From Humility.
James Strock writes that effective leadership is about serving others. In fact, “the only effective leadership,” he says, “is focused resolutely on serving others. It is no longer an option or a modifier; it’s the very definition of leadership.”
But service to others doesn’t come easily. It’s not our default approach. Day-to-day pressures can easily derail our best intentions.
Keep this question in front of you.
If you tell people the world is complicated, you’re not doing your job….They already know it’s complicated. Your job is to distill it, simplify it, and give them a sense of what is the single [cause], or what are a couple of powerful causes that explain this powerful phenomenon. –Samuel P. Huntington to his student, Fareed Zakaria
Amid the all the changes underway in leadership in all fields, it’s easy to get disoriented amid complexity.
This is entirely understandable. The rules are changing faster and faster, it seems. If you’re an incumbent, if you’re part of an establishment, your position is uncertain, in flux. The things that got you where you are won’t keep you where you are. They certainly won’t take you to the next level.
And yet, there are underlying, unifying forces at work. They’re so large, so omnipresent, that it’s easy to lose sight of them.
Historian Geoffrey Perret has written fine biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Douglas MacArthur and John F. Kennedy.
