Spirit of Leadership

THE SPIRIT OF LEADERSHIP • They have children but are not nurturing their sons and daughters. • They protect animals but kill unborn human beings. • They pursue power at the expense of princi ples. • They sacrifice integrity for temporary pleasure. These ways of thinking and living manifest a strange form of mental illness, which we have come to accept as normal. I sometimes think that most people in insane asy lums are actually saner than many of us because at least they generally believe their worlds. It’s the people who, deep down, don’t really believe in what they’re doing, but are doing it anyway, who are much worse off. Isn’t it amazing that many of us go every day to jobs we hate, live with people with whom we have no relation ship, complain about everything while changing nothing, keep doing the same things over and over again—but expect different results? We exaggerate our accomplish ments, pretend to be more than we are, hide behind false images of ourselves, and believe our reputations more than our true characters. Are we sane? The result of mental illness is self-hatred, self-denigration, self-deception (denying the truth about oneself, lying to one self), fear (fear of failure, fear of success, fear of the unknown, T HE PERSON IN THE INSANE ASYLUM MAY ACTUALLY BE SANER THAN MANY OF US .

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