Nonetheless, when I read this LONG LONG article sent to me by a man with whom I went to School, Chuck Comstock, about political stuff I was grabbed by this excerpt of who were considered leaders in the Boarding School of the writer's day.
We all heard leadership intoned again and again at chapel, assembly, commencement, and building dedications. Wearing our school blazers and ties, sitting on folding metal chairs and listening to the headmaster (“Chief Yellow Finger” we called him, because his hands were stained from the cigarettes he smoked incessantly), we knew what leadership really meant. It had nothing to do with leading, much less with taking risks, and not at all with acting ethically. A leader was just a boy with an unusual talent for submission. A boy could win the top perch as a prefect and become an official leader just because he was preternaturally preppy or could throw a football with a tight spiral. Not even the most golden among us was capable of actual leadership.
What hit me was the part I have highlighted in RED. Leaders as people with unusual talents for submission. And the last line was most telling. And the line about taking risks (in Blue)? Just read the post a couple below this one.
Life doesn't change much when we become adults. Conformity and submission are heralded as desired leadership qualities. Fitting in matters more than forming futures. We have had Presidents like that, we have had Governors like that, and many directors of corporations fit this pattern.
It's sad when Boarding School Standards of Leadership haunt us all the days of our lives. Go along to get along. It's also shallow and immature.
If you think back to your school days, what ever happened to those "Leaders" the 8th grade English Teacher encouraged us to all emulate.
Not where that teacher thought he would end up at this stage of life I'll bet.
That's a real story.
I'll not tell it here. Some of you would know him. Some of you DO know him.
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