Why do we spend time elevating leaders to be higher than their humanity? The leaders we emulate tend to be people that overcame the limitations we feel like we have. Therefore, when we find a leader that overcame their personal challenges, we are so eager to follow in their footsteps. Is the goal of life to become divine through overcoming our humanity? Religion typically points us in that direction, but now I am starting to think the pursuit of leadership could also be viewed the same way. A leader seeks to perfect their trade or craft. Is this not another way of suggesting that they are seeking to beat their humanity? After all, we usually describe humans as “not perfect”. So is the desire to become perfect a desire to become godlike?
In Dafoe’s The Complete English Tradesman, he says that the tradesman must have no flesh or blood about him. He needs to step past all of his human instincts and become something more. Only by becoming this divine person, will he attract customers. Why is that? In Dafoe’s example, the lady went into the shop and challenged the shop owner by being rude and frustrating. However, he was able to keep himself steady and calm by exemplifying the qualities of ‘saints’ or godlike leaders we emulate. Once he does, he succeeds and gets the sale. Dafoe continues to explain that if someone has a fiery temper, he or she must become a complete hypocrite to carry on the persona of a calm and steady person. Otherwise, they will not be a successful tradesman.
This is an interesting point. Our class is big on discussing authenticity, and I think it is because we want our leaders to be the paragons of our personal ideals and beliefs. Do we even truly care about what their personal beliefs are? Or is our emulation of leaders more selfish in nature? If this is the case, then authenticity really becomes a perception. It does not matter who the shopkeeper is in his personal life. We have decided on the authenticity of this person because he has shown qualities that we pursue in ourselves. However, this type of leadership style does not come without danger. If a leader cannot keep up his or her godhood, they could potentially have a fiery plummet from our graces. Society crowns our gods, we can revoke their godhood too.
A god is nothing without its worshippers. We see exactly what happens when someone crowns themselves and announces their own godhood in Julius Caesar. Caesar spends time elevating his status and explaining that he is ‘above’ the disposition of the senators. His arrogance might be very authentic, but his personality makes it easy for us to sympathize with the mutiny. It just makes me wonder how important authenticity really is for leadership. It really seems that the most important thing is for a leader to cater their personality traits to those that their followers value. Does this then make the leaders inauthentic? If we follow the suggestion of Dafoe, we should be hypocritical to some extent. I think our classmates last week said it well. Acting differently than our normal selves doesn’t mean that we are inauthentic, rather, it just allows us to highlight the qualities we idealize. In some ways, being a leader might just be acting out the life that we aspire to be.
Comments:
Connor,
You make a formidable argument about how authenticity in leadership is beyond the reach of mere mortals.
“Of simplicity and clarity, makes one consistent in their genuine intentions.
For it is deviation from this approach where one delves into the realm of pretense” (Pramod, 2021).
If genuine intentions are communicated by the leader and understood by their followers, this I would argue is within the realm of human possibility and therefore the foundation for building one’s authenticity.
Me:
I love your quote and this idea of genuine intention being communicated.
I’ll have to contemplate if it is within the realm of human possibility. I think in theory it is.. but I also think the larger the leader and the more followers, the bigger communication challenge exists.
Could it be said that someone curbing their complex ideas to get the idea across to their followers be always genuine intention? If it’s not, does it instantly become manipulation? This might be what you are saying as well. But I wonder if purely making something simple and clear always creates genuine intention.. I guess it then becomes a matter of the heart, which is only truly known to the individual.
Classmate:
This is an amazing post! I love some of the questions you pose, for example, “Is the goal of life to become divine through overcoming our humanity?” Do we have to learn to control anger and have humility to be seen as a leader, like many Buddhist religions promote? Do we have to have higher values and follow the ten commandments to be seen as a leader? If these religious values are held by a specific culture, then I would say yes. Religion and leadership do appear to have a bit in common, because religion is held by many cultures as the goal to aspire to.
The problem may be that religious values or the values held by specific cultures may conflict with the personal circumstances of a leaders life. In this case leaders might just be acting out the life that their culture wants them to be. For example, I was raised in an LDS culture where drinking alcohol was looked down on, however when I was an exchange student in Germany, their culture looked up to people who drank responsibly and were entertaining and fun. I had to display different values to be seen as a leader in both of these cultures.
Classmate:
Connor,
In my humble opinion true leaders are considered authentic if they express humility and cater to their followers needs. A leader should not force their ideas or ideologies on their followers and try to appeal their thoughts in a positive manner in order to avoid any conflicts and negativity among their people. It is up to the followers to crown their own leader whether they like that person or not and its up to the leader to decide what might be the correct path for leadership.
