Good Leadership

Good and evil can be defined in terms of growth, learning or improvement, and our effect on others.

Good is helping others to learn and grow.
Evil is preventing others from growing.

This way of looking at life allows us to make judgments and decisions on what is good or evil for us.  It is easy to judge when we have a standard by which to measure.  For example, we can judge murder to be evil because taking the life of another stops his growth, learning or improvement.  We can also see that enslavement is evil.  Watching TV or other entertainment is evil if we don’t grow from it.

We can judge what is good as well.  Those who are continually learning and growing are good.  These always bring others with them.  Authors who share their ideas by writing books, or speaking helping others to learn are good.  Teachers who teach truth are good.  Politicians who improve society, increasing freedom, allow others to grow and learn more are good.  Businesses that provide goods and services to help others grow and connect people together are necessarily good.

Business
We can use this standard to judge businesses in our whole society.  Some business is good by helping individuals to grow, or by connecting people together.  Others are evil because they cause addiction, or bring destruction.  Most can be either good or evil, depending on how they are used.

Good Business
Good business facilitates growth in any way, and preserves choice.  Most good businesses increase freedom.  For example, the travel industry allows people the freedom to move around much more, and make more connections, or experience other cultures, and thus grow in many ways.  The electric companies allow more freedom to work and improve.  Any business that increases freedom is necessarily good, such as the following:

Schools
Farming
The automobile industry
Publishing books that inspire
Building homes and offices
Power companies
Communications industry
Providing clean water
Clothing industry
Inspiring art
Travel industry
Hospitality industry
Oil and gas
Building products
Mining industry

Evil Business
Businesses that are evil take money and decrease choice and freedom.  Anything that can be addictive, that doesn’t build up and improve, is evil.  Whole areas of our economy are inherently evil.  These touch everyone from infants to grown adults, including:

Pornography
Gambling casinos
Sugar
Tobacco
Drugs
Alcohol

Ambidextrous Business
Some businesses are tools that can be used for good or evil.  The weapons industry for example is important for protection from invasion and loss of freedom, but on the other hand can be used for destructive purposes.  The health care industry can feed on people’s fears and bind them into a lifetime of drugs, or help them to be free of illness, depending on how the tool is used.  Many industries are ambidextrous, and in these cases caveat emptor applies.

Finance - credit can destroy, while savings can build
Insurance - creating fear, or protection from risk
Legal - plundering the wealth of others, or helping those in trouble
Entertainment - wasting time, training the heart to feel fear, loss, and desire, or connecting the heart and the brain together
Churches - addiction to self-justification, or pointing the way to God
Supplements - giving false health, becoming less healthy, or building nutrition
Food - eating for taste brings addiction and destruction, while eating for nourishment allows health, vitality, and growth.

Government
The reason government is a “necessary evil” is because it can only take away from growth and improvement.  Freedom is the engine of human progress, and government necessarily restricts freedom.  Living in a society with others requires rules which are administered by the government.  Wherever rules are made, there will be stagnation.  Defining an industry prevents progress in that industry.  For example, in 1910 the Kinsey Report indicated how the government should define medical care, leaving us a hundred years later with the same definition, making it difficult for our society to get past the patent drug era.  Though our technology is rapidly increasing to remove the cause of disease, our government forces us into an archaic system of relieving symptoms.  Government slows growth; the more the people are governed, the slower will be the growth.  The ideal would be a population that obeys the rules, and doesn’t need government interference.  If there were no evil businesses, there would be little need for government at all.

Learning
The object of all good leadership is to remove the evil elements from society.  Previously, this was done by law, making vice illegal such as alcohol, sex, and drugs.  However, instead of putting people with vices into prison, there needs to be a way to teach our children to avoid those businesses that will bring them down to suffer in their own prison of addiction.  Knowledge defines good, where evil is ignorance.  By knowing the truth we are free to choose, and I believe people with knowledge mostly choose good.

We must learn everything, even, or especially, those things we think we know.  I was talking with a physical therapist who was explaining that people don’t walk correctly and cause themselves pain.  We think we know how to walk because we’ve been doing it since we were one year old.  However, just because we’ve been doing it a long time, doesn’t mean we know how to do it right.  In high school and college I ran long distance, from three to over ten mile runs.  I had coaches who talked about breathing technique, and indicated that some runners had an innate ability to run well.  But it wasn’t until a recent class at my Cross-Fit gym that I was taught how to run.  The first time I went for a mile with my new knowledge was amazing!  I could run so much longer with less effort, and I didn’t get shin-splints like I had before.  After fifty years of running, I finally learned how to run.

Goodness is always learned because nobody automatically knows how to build, grow, and learn.  We can’t know what we don’t know; we must be taught everything.  The best way to do this is with mentors, or one-on-one teaching.  We understand that a great athlete always requires a coach, but often don’t think that everyone needs to be coached in how to do things right.  There are specialists who know the right way to build a business so an entrepreneur can seek one to learn.  We all need coaching in how to handle our finances.  We need coaching in how to nourish our bodies.  We need to learn how to walk, run, and move to build and not tear down our bones, muscles, and joints.  The myth of the self-made man is dead.  We need those who know.  There is a huge need for good mentors in every area, and among all people.

Becoming Good Leaders
After becoming good at something, the next step is to teach others, becoming leaders.  A leader provides an objective for a group of people.  If the objective is growth and improvement, the leader is good.  But, if the objective prevents progress the leader is evil.  We can easily judge by the “fruits” of their objective.  We know what brings freedom and choice, and what will cause addiction and slavery.  A doctor treating hypertension doesn’t teach the patient how to live a healthy life, instead giving a pill that only the doctor can give.  Rather than health and freedom of choice, the patient is bound for life to the doctor.  The “natural” doctor who prescribes a supplement to lower blood pressure is little different because the evil business model is unchanged -- “a pill for every ill” binds people to pills.  On the other hand, those who seek the cause of the problem, and remove it, open doors of freedom.  This is good leadership.  By teaching each person the truth freedom will prevail, and people will grow.

Mentors are perhaps more important than politicians because the root cause of bondage isn’t the President, it’s the people.  If the individual members of society are seeking safety, stability, uniformity, and security, they will not be seeking truth, they will not be looking for mentors, they will not subject themselves to coaching, and will not be growing and learning.   The default is bondage to those who bind and steal, the evil businesses.  As more people are in bondage, addicted to their own desires, the whole society stops growing, leading to a government of despotism.  This isn’t created by politicians, it starts with the population.  If good leaders can teach individuals and groups to know the truth about every part of life, then no power on Earth can subject them, they are free.  The real leaders of society, then, are not the politicians, presidents, kings, or rulers, but rather the counselors, teachers, coaches, tutors, and mentors of the people.   The real leaders are the entrepreneurs who have failed at multiple businesses, and finally get one right.  It’s the teachers who continuously learn and grow in their field, teaching what they learn to others.  It’s the CEO’s who take people under their wing, showing them how to help employees to grow in their own positions.  And, it’s the MLM business owners who are trying to build a downline, learning skills with people, marketing, accounting, and personal growth.  Good leaders are rarely in the limelight.

Choosing a mentor
This is how truth spreads, one person at a time.  If I need to learn about finance, I seek a mentor who is proficient and learn the simple truth that borrowing money doesn’t lead to wealth, only by spending less than we earn can this come about.  The mentor teaches the truth, and shows me how to live within my means.  I then become an expert and can teach others the same process.  Truth doesn’t change.  If I want to know God, then I need a mentor who has been there and can show me the way.  As I learn, I can help others who are seeking.  There is a myth that there are no good leaders.  I would beg to differ.  I think there are too few who are looking for truth.

Finding a mentor is a complex task.  Jesus gave us the criteria: “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?  (Matthew 7:16)  In other words, don’t go to a poor man to learn how to be rich.  Don’t go to a fat person to learn how to be thin.  The lesson is simple.  When I sought a life coach, I was feeling trapped in a job, and was looking for freedom.  I found among the people I knew, a friend who was similarly trapped, and had escaped and was doing well.  I hired him, and he has helped me to become free.  The simple (and cheap) way to find coaches is through books.  Authors have written on every subject, and for pennies we can get their advice, learn their truths, and improve our own lives.  While I think reading is an essential part of learning, I also believe that a coach is essential for the application of principles we learn to our own lives, giving support and encouragement.  I don’t think a boxer can become a champion by reading a book.  I don’t think a pianist can be great without a teacher.  I don’t think a businessman can succeed without a mentor.  Seek a mentor.  There is no limit to the number.  Learn.  Grow.  Improve any aspect of your life, and then, become a good leader.

Good leadership
After going through the process of learning, when we have mastered an area of life, we can then turn to help others.  Parents can mentor their children in some areas, but will be weak in others.  Parents who are good leaders will seek mentors for their children, to teach them in areas where the parent is weak.  In business, those who have mastered the art of business are always looking for a protégé.  Politicians who are seeking the freedom of the population need to take on young leaders.  Those who understand the principles of health can help others apply them in their own lives.  The art of good leadership is one by one.  Growth happens one by one.  Your legacy is not just the one or two that learned to grow from you, but also includes those who are taught by them, and so on through time -- an endless line of leaders.  Whether in your family, your business, or your country, helping one person to grow is, by definition, good leadership.