Rol Fessenden asked
> Any other thoughts on how to recognize a morally legitimate leader?
Thank you, Rol, for putting the question about goodness this way.
My answer is inspired by Ken Wilber's latest book ("Eros, Kosmos, Logos"
in german, I don't know the original title). He argues that real entities
are "Holons" (a word created by A. Koestler), which means, that they are
whole and parts at the same time. Therefore "being whole" and "being part
of" should always be in an balance. As a "whole being" you are creating,
shaping the world around you and as a "partial being" you are serving. To
recognize morally legitimacy I ask the question: Is creation and service
in a good balance or is one side overemphasized?
To my experience, people stating or intending to be "good" often
overemphasize the service-side, the being part of something higher. But
this is not "good" in this sence. An easy test is to question the
"goodness", for example by stating "Thats selfish!". Usually you get a
very emotional reaction, which you can use to say "Thats what I meant".
Only very seldom you get a laughing " You are right", which is realy
great!
If you accept balance as a criterium for morally legitimacy or "goodness",
a leader is someone who can hold this balance thoughout his leading. My
great question to learning/teaching is: How can one learn or teach a
stable balance? (The test may be a good demonstation but I doubt that it
is helpful to the person tested.)
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>