It's been a while since I've done one of these, so buckle up:

Thought for the Day: Why Leadership is Failing Us

Are some people just plain better than others? I don't mean, “John is better than Bill at doing X” or “Seamus has more Y than Siobhan.” Without regard to a specific skill or trait, is there an inherent hierarchy to humanity, where some people should just be viewed as BETTER people than others, who deserve an inherently better quality of life because of some je ne sais quoi? Perhaps more to the point: Are our brains programmed to think this way about each other in overarching ways? Do we like to simply feel as if we are better than others?

From what I've witnessed, the answer to those last two questions is a resounding YES...and it truly upsets me, because it leads to all manner of social injustices that have plagued mankind in all its recorded history. This idea that some people are better than others is definitely a byproduct of the social hierarchies we have in place in many contexts, but it's also likely that this byproduct serves as a feedback loop that causes people to set up more hierarchies or exploit their current ones just to satiate their own egos.

This is dangerous, because it creates imbalances wherein the strong prey on the weak. At the risk of stoking the fires of our current obsession with outrage culture, the strong preying on the weak is what pisses me right off perhaps more than anything else I witness in humanity. Maybe this is because I felt lost, victimized, and alone while being bullied during my own childhood, socially ostracized for reasons I wouldn't comprehend until many years later because no one sat me down and explained it to me. All I know is that as I have become an adult, I have grown acutely sensitive to any instance in which someone in a position of privilege abuses someone without said privilege.

It could be small and isolated, like a customer yelling at a store employee in a tirade of profanities over something asinine, and the employee not being able to do anything but take this verbal, psychological, and emotional abuse lest he risk losing his job. It could be a single bigot using all manner of crude epithets against a person he views as lesser. Or a manager treating the staff working under him like dirt, stealing their ideas without giving them due credit as he presents it to his own bosses while he continues to view his underlings as mere peons. (Fun fact: I heard the word “peon” before I ever saw it written, so I thought the term was “pee-on,” as in viewing a person as being so much less than yourself that they could be debased by being urinated on.)

But it's also the big, sweeping attitudes I see that upset me. It's the bills being presented and signed into law that only further to marginalize those already on the edges of society, like laws that make it illegal to provide food, water, clothing, and shelter to the homeless while letting it remain 100% legal (and even encouraged by traits of raw capitalism) to let those in power create and maintain economic systems that create homeless people in the first place, and then having the audacity to accuse the impoverished of being poor due to some personal moral failings instead of the systemic diseases that forced them into such a position, usually since birth.

It's seeing refugees seeking asylum from an oppressive government threatening to kill them and their families, and meeting them with suspicion—even further violence—rather than humanity and compassion, because they have been labeled as “the other.”

It's refusing to open dialogue with the people who live differently than you and face a world of different problems than you face, accusing them of lying and being “fake news,” then trying to flip the script on them because you mistake the reasons why they're upset or why they kneel during the national anthem—reasons you would understand if you simply listened and tried to comprehend a scope of humanity beyond your own tiny corner.

It's using the phrase “There but for the grace of God go I” in a feeble attempt to sound humble while coming across as merely condescending, because that phrase carries the implicit undertone of “My life is better than yours” and by extension, “I am better than you.”

It's the wealthiest few in the world who bribe, cheat, steal, lie, and threaten their way into coercing lawmakers to pass laws that allow them to amass even greater wealth at the cost of lowering the quality of life for the millions in the 99%. To be honest, I don't even understand the utility of wealth to the degree that is held by the 0.001% anymore. The richest person living has a net worth of over $160,000,000,000—more money than a single individual could spend in a hundred lifetimes—yet refuses to pay so many of his employees a living wage. Where's the utility of this level of wealth? Why does one person need to own so much, especially when the world as a whole would be better off with much of that wealth redistributed? At what point do we say, “Your achievement of this magnitude of success goes beyond what you rightfully deserve to keep for yourself, because in doing so you are single-handedly holding back the opportunities for success (or even basic well being) for millions of others”?

The bottom line of humanity should not be the bottom line of a bank statement. The leaders of the world shouldn't be abusing their positions of authority for personal gain. But time and time again, society devolves into states where the underlying dictum is “I got mine, so screw everyone else.” It's the idea that climbing to the top of the heap means you're the Big Winner. That whoever dies with the most toys wins.

That's not the goal of leadership. That's not the point of being in any position of power or authority. If we operate as a species of structured roles and hierarchies where some people are in charge of others or just get to make the rules, the rules are supposed to serve the community as a whole—not just themselves. Being in charge means you're given more resources because you're entrusted to utilize and distribute those resources in a way that benefits everyone. You're being entrusted in your creativity to structure resources to make life better for everyone and your sense of fairness so that no one gets left behind.

So when someone in authority hogs the resources or uses them to only make life better for themselves and a select few they care about, they've proven themselves unfit to lead.

When a leader doesn't stand up for those underneath him, fails to protect them, and basically leaves them to their own devices so long as they fall in line or pay tribute when its demanded, that person has proven himself unfit to lead.

In “Game of Thrones,” Ned Stark explained to his son Robb that being a Lord is like being a father, except you have hundreds of children, and you're responsible for all of them. This is what leadership is. This is what it means to be in a position of power and influence and privilege—to guide, to protect, to raise people up and work to make sure life is good for EVERYONE, not just the people you like.

Even if the privilege you have is simply being a member of the majority of your country or culture, you have a responsibility to treat those on the margins with the same dignity, respect, kindness, and compassion you would want shown to you and yours. You represent power, and you have to be careful how to display that power to those who lack it. Otherwise, you're broadcasting the message “I am inherently better than you, so stay out of my way and do as I tell you.”

There is room in this world for humanity for everyone. There is room for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed. There is room for us all to have a fair shot at a decent standard of living, but the people holding the cards need to make sure they're dealt out fairly. And we should all be holding them accountable, each and every day.