Defective or dangerous – that is, inauthentic – leadership, at any level, concerning any plan or project, always departs from God’s providence, which we know from scripture, tradition and the settled magisterium. We are all in different circumstances, but we are all called to learn by the Light and to lead to the Light. That is genuine leadership, whether papal, political or plebeian. Its absence is chaos, corruption and crime.
There are two overarching principles and two necessary practices at the heart of genuine leadership.
First, conscience: It is always and everywhere a mark of the unethical person to be incompetent at his or her job. It is, symmetrically, always and everywhere a mark of the incompetent person to be unethical at his or her job. Character and competence are inseparable and symbiotic. To be truly good at one’s job means being truly good at one’s life, which in turn means listening to God. Good character, or true integrity, is right conscience in action. No good character equals no genuine leadership.
From ancient times to the present, the hallmark of leadership is ready capability in the service of right conscience. As management consultant and educator Peter Drucker put it:
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
If a leader does not know what the right thing to do is, it hardly matters that he does not know how to do it. But if a leader knows what to do, he fails unless or until he knows how to do it. Inept leaders, as Isaiah tells us in scripture, “err in vision, (and) they stumble in giving judgment” (Is 28:7).
Second, competence: The leader of an organization – whether it be commercial, educational, military or religious – is, either directly or indirectly, responsible for all that the enterprise does or fails to do. “The buck,” as President Harry Truman said, “stops here.”
In the face of disasters of any kind, a leader cannot escape the burden of liability by the cowardly artifice of claiming “I didn’t know” or “a junior official made the call.” These feeble travesties amount to self-indictments of the senior supervisor. Leaders must be sufficiently informed and responsible to be able to supervise personnel and to conduct programs.
No mature sense of responsibility equals no genuine leadership.
Does the leader care?
An ingredient of integrity and competence is compassion, which means appropriate concern about one’s subordinates (which we know as charity, a theological virtue). Subordinates won’t care how much the leader knows unless they know how much the leader cares. This does not, however, mean tolerating evil or incompetence, for having a good heart does not rule out having a strong backbone. Knowing when to fire a subordinate is a key part of a leader’s job.
A leader may secure a position for which he is unprepared, but by study, experience and good advice, he can develop in his art or science, leading to competence. If competence cannot be achieved within a certain period of time – a short “job honeymoon” – then the new leader must step down voluntarily or be removed.
Devotion to growing in wisdom and virtue, complemented by diligent self-improvement, prove critical to authentic leadership.
These two principles of leadership – conscience and competence – play out in the arena of the daily leadership and management practices of employing and deploying subordinates. To employ means to recruit, hire, organize, educate, train and equip subordinates. To deploy means to assign subordinates to positions consistent with their character and competence and then to support and supervise them. Such supervision includes, as appropriate, commendation, promotion, censure or dismissal. Leaders who cannot effectively and virtuously employ and deploy others are failed administrators (Ez 34).
One cannot administer wisely or well – that is, lead – if one is seized by ignorance, meaning lack of vision (Prv 29:18); by confusion (Acts 19:32); or by sheer malevolence (John 3:19, 12:43).
To administer well, one must communicate responsibly. Banal, blustering or bumbling speech – including barbaric or coarse expression (Eph 4:29-31, 5:4; Col 3:8-9) – is a fair measure of (the lack of) intellect and temperament. (This an argument on behalf of traditional liberal arts education, which must not be subverted by excessive academic emphasis on “business management.”)
Is the leader doing right?
The Swedish statesman Axel Oxenstierna (1583-1684) observed, “Quantula sapientia regitur mundus” – “With how little wisdom is the world governed.” That is self-evidently true, yet it is all the more reason that we must judge others and ourselves against the twin standards of competence and conscience.
Is the leader of the organization administering his duties with effectiveness and energy? Is that leader behaving, personally and professionally (both publicly and privately), in a manner consonant with what we know is morally exemplary conduct and speech? Is that leader trying to do the right thing, for the right reason, in the right way, at the right time?
Be careful of extravagant enthusiasm for any causes or designs which depart sharply or suddenly from the tried and traditional. St. Pius X admonished us to be wary of anyone “under the sway of a blind and unchecked passion for novelty, thinking not at all of finding some solid foundation of truth” (“Pascendi Domenici Gregis,” 13).
The Old Testament prophet Nehemiah, himself a stellar example of principled and practical leadership, inspires us: “You ought to have reverence for God and do what’s right” (Neh 5:9). Amen!
Deacon James H. Toner is professor emeritus of leadership and ethics at the U.S. Air War College, a former U.S. Army officer, and author of books, reviews, columns and essays. He serves at Our Lady of Grace Parish in Greensboro.