Nancy, Steny, and James are leaving. Mitch is still with us. Joe might run again, might not. Ron is readying to charge for the presidency and he who will not be named has announced he wants to start the frolics again. The horse race is on. Political leadership is changing in America. But, are we getting the leadership we deserve?
We don’t ask that question very much; we kind of take the leadership options that are tossed up by our political system and do our best with what we got. But what do philosophers and spiritual organizations tell us about the qualities leaders should have? Do we ever get beyond the media horse-race to ask why we are not being well served, which is certainly how I feel?
I had an opportunity to explore this question recently in an on-line retreat on “Buddhist Visions of Leadership,” organized the Upaya Institute and Zen Center in New Mexico. It inspired me to write about what I learned and reflected on for two days.
The chaos, ineptitude, even corruption of American leadership over the past decade has been crazy-making. But my political activism goes back a very long way, nearly 70 years. In that time I have watched, met, even worked with, many a politician and policy official. Especially in the world of foreign policy. I have even been such an official, for a brief five years, as a senior person in charge of White House resource planning for US national security and foreign policy. I have worked in universities and think tanks as staff or even a leader. Seen a lot of leaders. Good, bad, and some very ugly.
I often made notes about who I thought was a good leader and what it was that made them effective. Wondered, often, who and what practices I respected and who and what practices I did not. The retreat, led by Roshi Joan Halifax and John Dunne (University of Wisconsin-Madison) gave me a chance to bring my sense of leadership together with the lessons of a spiritual tradition I am involved in, with about 150 other practicing Buddhists. Many of them were leaders as well, in business, religion, social service, bureaucracy, non-profits, or local activism.
The “chat” function was lively for two days, with lots of lessons from every level of leadership. Interesting, because Buddhists are often criticized for being in constant retreat or in meditation, away from the “real” world. It is not seen as an “engaged” spiritual practice, by some. Yet, there we all were, deeply involved in the crises and issues of our day. We came together to learn what Buddhism itself had to say about leadership. Turned out to be quite a lot.
The Buddha, himself, was deeply engaged in the practice and the examination of leadership and governance. He did not retreat from the world; in fact, after a time of retreat, he entered the world. He was aware of conflict, strife, corruption, misuse of power, and had some thoughts about it. The most interesting to me was his thinking about the qualities of a good leader. I decided to lay those qualities out, at least one version of them, and see how anyone we know, have observed, or worked with measured up to this particular yardstick.
The answer is (spoiler alert you already know) not very well. Well, you say, why would American (or British, or Russian, or Chinese, or Indian, or anyone else) measure up to Buddhist principles? I mean, the only political leader who has tried to bring Buddhist concepts to American politics that I know of is Tim Ryan, who just lost the Senate race in Ohio. (See his book A Mindful Nation.)
When you see the ten qualities for good leaders according to the Buddha, though, I think you will recognize and endorse most of them. They are qualities with which most of the world’s religions or political philosophies would resonate. I summarize them here (source is a Buddhist writer whose piece was one of those used in the retreat). Read this and maybe weep, a little:
1. Generosity – give your wealth away, especially to the poor; don’t enrich yourself in your position.
2. Moral character – don’t take life; don’t take what is not yours; avoid sexual misconduct; don’t speak falsely, or take intoxicants (sometimes called the Five Precepts). These should minimize corruption.
3. Sacrifice – your name, your fame, your life, if necessary.
4. Sincerity, honesty, integrity – use no questionable means to get your ends.
5. Kindness – avoid cruelty and harshness.
6. Restraint and austerity – especially in the leader’s personal life.
7. Non-hatred – bear no grudges; act with love.
8. Non-violence – promote peace and avoid war, while remaining firm.
9. Patience and tolerance – accept judgments and insults; they are inevitable.
10. Non-enmity – cultivate amity among the people and recognize and follow their will.
Oh, wow, I think now. It is almost not worth further analysis. How far American leaders fall short of these qualities. it is no wonder we are sundered into a cacophony of disagreement, hatred and enmity. If even half of these qualities were exhibited by our political leadership we would be way ahead of the game.
Of course it is not just politics where we fall short. Think on the leaders you have seen (or been). Organization directors, local officials, non-profit leaders, business people. Give a brief glance (and then look quickly away) at what Elon Musk is doing to Twitter (a platform I no longer use). Even in our personal lives, mine included: what kind of leader have you been?
I could put names beside every one of these qualities, names of people we all know about. But I am going to leave it to you to keep score at home. In fact, I am not even sure what to do with what I learned, so far do our politics fall short.
But I was glad I did the retreat. I think the Buddha was on to something. How would we make the scorecard into a real litmus test, one that mattered at the polls?
Great work you are doing, Gordon. Thank you for the insights about leadership.
Self-effacing, self-sacrificing leaders with something other than their self-interest top of mind are hard to come by. Sadly, our systems of education, business, and government do not reward this kind of behavior. It is only on the rarest of occasions that we get a Jimmy Carter, Jerry Brown, RFK, MLK, Dali Lama, or Mandela.