Leadership disease
When they are opposed, these gods of our god-forsaken country take to social media to air their rage, their threats and their version of the truth.
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When they are opposed, these gods of our god-forsaken country take to social media to air their rage, their threats and their version of the truth.
Power has a peculiar way of changing a person. It’s a story we have seen many times over the past few decades, through different administrations and in the political mood that elevated certain individuals to positions of authority.
Those of us who have lived through these transfers of power can tell many stories: of promising young men and women who later became the villains of their own stories; of families that built dynasties on credibility and honor only to see those legacies stained by the deeds of the next generation.
What is it about power that transforms decency into arrogance? The answer lies not merely in power itself, but in how it slowly changes a leader’s relationship with the truth.
Some begin as honest, idealistic and full of good intentions. But surrounded by people who shower them with praise, indulge their every whim and never question their decisions, they gradually come to believe they are entitled to shape reality in the service of what they believe.
It is, as the Greeks called it, hubris.
Perhaps there is a reason The Odyssey has dominated the box office. People recognize supreme arrogance and excessive pride in so many of today’s leaders, and perhaps they wish to see how the wrath of the gods ultimately catches up with them.
Matt Damon’s Odysseus is not condemned because he claims the victory at Troy entirely for himself. This latest retelling stays closer to Homer’s epic, where it is Odysseus’ decision to blind the Cyclops, Poseidon’s son, even after escaping the cave, that begins his decade of suffering.
In the original epic, Odysseus cannot bear the thought that the monster would never know who defeated him. So he shouts his name, his father’s name and even where he came from, giving the Cyclops the chance to ask Poseidon to punish him.
A similar episode comes to mind, when a senator-judge recently used a public platform to present a spliced version of the truth. Was it simply being pikon? Or was it supreme arrogance?
When does confidence become so monstrous that it no longer feels bound by fairness or truth?
Hubris is a dangerous tendency for anyone in a position of authority — politician, CEO, judge, legislator or even member of the media. It’s the kind of thinking we see in individuals who act as if the usual rules do not apply to them.
When they are opposed, these gods of our god-forsaken country take to social media to air their rage, their threats and their version of the truth.
Perhaps the opposite of hubris is not humility but accountability. A humble leader can still make mistakes. We are all human, after all.
Only through a system of accountability can erring leaders be corrected.
Perhaps the true test of leadership is not whether one wins a war or an argument.
It is whether one possesses the discipline to submit one’s own power to the same standards expected of everyone else.
It is whether one can practice restraint — the true opposite of hubris — for the common good, even when it would be so much easier to outtalk or outmaneuver everyone else.
