One of the things that I have been pondering of late is the relationship of one’s worldview to one’s leadership. There is a direct correlation between the two concepts–how one leads reflects one’s core belief in the nature of reality and the things that are of ultimate value.
My favorite philosopher, Herman Dooyeweerd, referred to this concept as “ground motive.” He makes the argument that one cannot separate a person’s core-belief/life-foundation from his or her behavior. In other words:
- Those who value money lead toward financial gain at the expense of people, justice, mercy, or environmental health.
- Those who value environmental issues favor nature over economic well-being, people, justice, and so on.
- Those who value themselves too highly favor self-enrichment over any external values.
- Those who ascribe to a carpe diem/today-is-all-there-is approach to life favor short term gain over long term investment.
- Those who value the organization will perpetuate it by sacrificing family, co-workers, materials, business relationships and even themselves
While I rarely talk specifically about ground-motives, I do ask leaders to consider what they value most deeply. Here’s how that works:
- Consider the last 3 decisions you made. (By the way, don’t think back to big decisions–think about the most recent decisions, even something as mundane as what you had at your coffee break or where you buy groceries).
- Why did you make those decisions? What values underlie your rationale?
- If your reason is strictly historical, as in that’s what I always do, your life is probably on autopilot. You need to consider whether you are leading, or merely following an habitual pattern.
- If your reason is strictly because “it’s easy,” you need to remind yourself that easy decisions are not always the best decisions. Sometimes (and I stand guilty of this, too, you know) the easy decision is often the selfish decision.
I don’t mean this to be an exercise in beating yourself up. I mean it to be an exercise of deep thought and consideration. The point here is to consider the ground-motive that drives your decisions. This, like it or not, represents your view of ultimate truth.
If you are a leader, you must understand this about yourself. If you do not, you will be continually perplexed trying to figure out why your best efforts often wind up spinning off in a variety of unintended directions.
You can expect me to continue working these ideas out and fleshing out this concept more fully.