Neo-Dark Ages

At one time, perspectives on leadership were different than they are today. There are legends and myths that speak of leaders in a light that outshines modern leaders, like the sun outshines a candle flame.  Myths and legends may be embellished stories, but they relate a social perspective just like the hero in a movie relates social values and perspectives of the movies culture and era.

Modern leaders aren’t respected, loved and admired for their wisdom, empathy and philanthropy.  Or, how they think of the future generations after them and how to progress civilization.  Modern leadership is all about power over profit, like the dark ages.

Changes in society take longer than a lifetime to happen and in a lifetime, an individual can be a part of that change even though they will never see that change.  Slavery in America only ended 160 years ago, or 4-5 generations ago.  Separate but equal, segregation laws, only ended 70 years ago, or 1-2 generations ago.  So it took, 230 years, or 5-6 generations, for slavery to actually, sort of end, and we are still working on fixing the social damage from such terrible decisions.

To rise out of these neo-dark ages, leadership and societies perspective on leadership will have to adjust from the serf, lord, royalty mentality that considers its population as a commodity for use as collateral and cannon fodder to increase profits.  To leadership that sees us all working together for a common goal, of progressing civilization.  Leaders that only think of profit work for Wall Street more than they work for the country and the modern day CEO, is yesterdays Lord/Nobel/Baron/Plantation owner that doesn’t care about the people under them because they are more like cattle than people and more profit is how they measure progress.

The missing element in the modern leader compared to the mythical leader is, philosophy.  There’s a shadow of actual philosophy in business philosophy, but business philosophy can’t be used for social philosophy because it is counter to social progress, in that, in business profit is more important than the earth or its’ people and truly philosophical, such a perspective is detrimental to society.

Good leadership is making it better for the following generations, like carving a city out of the wilderness.  Leaders today seem to have forgotten that all of this was once wilderness and people built a world that enabled business to prosper, business didn’t build a world that enabled people to prosper.