TAKE THE CHANCE: BEING PART OF SOMETHING LARGER THAN YOURSELF
Most of you at The School for Ethics and Global Leadership are here to learn how to become ethical leaders who will create positive change in our country and the world. Junior year of high school is a critical time to discern your vocation. You still need to acquire more academic credentials that will help you in your future service career, but it might surprise you to know that much of what you will need and use to change the world and be successful are habits you are forming right now. Today let’s focus on some of these important habits needed for public service, talk a bit about what you can learn from the ancient Greeks about forming good habits, and time permitting, give you a couple of examples of good habits practiced by the ethical politicians, the characters with good character in my book, Politics with Principle.
I begin by sharing a motto I learned from my study of ten characters with character: “If you want to be useful, serve.” In order to do things properly, you must know how to do them. It’s not enough to want to be ethical; you must train yourself to make ethical choices in difficult situations.
In public service, you should have the desire to contribute to the well‑being of others. Your work should never be self-centered. The political players I have known made their own happiness by knowing they had worked hard for others less fortunate and that work in itself was their reward. The classical term for this kind of self-motivated activity is auto telic (from the Greek word self, auto and goal telos.) When we are immersed in serving others, it is autotelic activity, self-rewarding hard work that makes one happy more often than not. Your service will be the source of your own happiness.
By interviewing 10 successful public servants, I gained insights that may help guide your career planning:
1. Crave satisfying work. Immerse yourselves in clearly defined demanding activities that allow you to see a direct impact of your efforts.
2. It’s okay to seek success. It is natural to want to show others what we are good at, aspire to something grand and feel like we are getting better over time, but try to make the success involve more than yourself. Implement a grand idea and improve the human condition.
3. Your generation has the best tools to seek social connections. Wisely share your experiences. We often accomplish big things, by doing things that matter together.
4. The most successful endeavors have meaning, that is, the chance to be a part of something larger than ourselves.
To help you in your quest you should know satisfying work starts with two steps: a clear goal and actionable next steps to achieving that goal.
My hope is you are on a mission to be part of something, bigger than yourselves. You will know you are on the right path when your actions have significance not just to yourself or your family and friends but also to your community and humanity.
The characters I studied had meaning in their lives because they connected their daily actions to something bigger than themselves. Each character found the opportunity to contribute, to do well, and to inspire others to do well. Some of the ten had lives of heroic proportions, and all had lives that surpassed the ordinary. Each politician I profiled was marked by a desire to serve. None came from wealthy families, yet all of them managed to serve at the highest level within our country.
The characters I chronicled became virtuous by practicing honor, duty and justice. They kept their emotions under the control of their reason. They all were skilled at practicing Aristotle’s art of persuasion: First they made decisions that preserved their good character. This gave them credibility in the ETHOS part of the art of persuasion. Ethos is the appeal based on the character of the speaker. It is what makes you want to listen to someone because you consider them an expert on a certain topic; Next, all the character practiced sound Logos. What I mean by this is that when they wanted to talk others into something, they built their argument and appeal based on logic; and then, and only then, did they add Pathos. Pathos is an appeal based on emotion. Ethical leaders persuade by keeping Ethos, Logos and Pathos in proper balance. Pathos can provide the powerful closing argument, but it should never be the entire meat of your argument.
In Politics with Principle I chronicled ten politicians who mastered thinking of others and serving them well. Here are brief examples of two Characters with Character… Admiral Lynch and Ambassador Manatt.
Take Admiral Lynch, I can honestly say Tom is the most selfless individual I have ever met, in public or private life. From his earliest days as the captain of the Navy Football team and heavyweight boxing champion of the Academy to late in his military career as the Superintendent of the Naval Academy, Tom rose to the heights of power not by self-seeking but by being a selfless leader. Tom’s Navy motto was: “Ship, Shipmate, self”. This motto served him well in the military and in private life.
Chuck’s Manatt’s legacy of success provides a snapshot of his good character in action. Chuck’s character building tools are always the same: friendship, responsibility, loyalty, self-discipline, and a hard work ethic. To these traits he adds the exceptional virtues of compassion, perseverance, wisdom, and faith. Chuck led others not by force of command, but by force of good character.
Gratitude is an important attribute of good citizenship and Chuck has always been a grateful person. His gratitude for the Iowa lessons he learned from the Boy Scouts, the Future Farmers of America, and his high school, remain evident today. His high school motto, “Not for yourself, but for the whole world,” was played out in his military service to the country as an officer, in his service as National Democratic Party Chairman, in his work as Chairman of the Board for GWU, and in his service as United States Ambassador to the Dominican Republic.
You are mistaken if you think success in politics comes from putting yourselves first; true success in politics comes not from thinking more of yourself, but rather from thinking less of yourself, from seeing the truly small role we play in something much bigger than our individual needs. The successful and ethical leaders I have known in over 30 years in political life have always yielded their self-interest to the interest of others; they have been willing to sacrifice– for folks they do not even know—and they were not willing to win at any cost.
So what does this mean to you? Start preparing now to be an ethical leader tomorrow. Study successful principled leaders—I recommend that you study the ancients with new eyes. Learn from the Greeks—identify the men and women who showed good character and ask how you would have handled a similar crisis. Study heroes in your own life and examine their habits, then actively work hard at copying the good habits you find. Those good habits come by another name—virtue—and you will be storing up an arsenal of virtue to bring to your public service career.
Each of the characters I studied was all about serving a larger cause. They did not calculate each move of their political careers and were not obsessed with self-fulfillment; their fulfillment came from fulfilling commitments to others. I chose to praise them not because they were Ambassadors, United States Senators, Presidents of Universities and high-ranking public officials… not because who they are, their titles and positions… but because what they really did with their lives that really mattered to me… they lived their lives well, with character.
My characters left their mark and know what it feels like to be of service to a larger cause. It is my hope your experience in Washington will help you discern exactly what you want out of life, will help you find satisfying work, increase your social connectivity not just on Twitter and Face Book but with people of good will and in so doing, become a part of something bigger than your self.