Ingratitude and Leadership

This is point #2 of my post about Nonprofit Leadership. It has to do with ingratitude and its mainly male practitioners.

Men Without Chests (see C.S. Lewis)
In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna is told “you are not entitled to the fruits of your labor, only to your labor.” This is something that has become something of a mantra for me in my professional life. With regard to men, I first thought the ingratitude thing was jealousy over comparative testosterone/intelligence combinations. After all, how do you explain the guys I brought in – who had been unable to find employment elsewhere – who I promoted, mentored, and who then engaged in almost Biblical acts of betrayal. These were something more than mere character flaws. I know, I know – I have to take my own hit for having a defective slime meter. But how did this environment get created? Then I found out…

it may in fact be an evolutionary imperative!

Women On Top
An article in this month’s Atlantic by Hanna Rosin states that men may be obsolete in the postindustrial economy. She talks about qualities like emotional intelligence, communication skills, and focus being things that men struggle to exhibit while most women seem to be naturals. Will men fade away in terms of economic relevance?

Well, it’s not comfortable for me as a guy to embrace this but I am not going to put up much of an argument. I have worked with too many tough, smart, creative women. I would also add loyalty to the list of traits that women seem to have in contrast to the “office warriors with the beer balls” that I have come across. There are notable exceptions in places like the military but in the zero sum game of business, you may not want your “wing man” to be a man.

Gratitude and God

I’ve had some time to reflect on my agitation around the snakes that entered my world. When I think of gratitude, I think of the X Files and the tag line, “We are not alone.” For me, gratitude represents an acknowledgment of our need to help one another. It represents an awareness of the gifts God has provided us though nature. Philosophers like Immanuel Kant and David Hume understood that gratitude goes way beyond etiquette. Some observers have gone so far as to equate ingratitude with sin. When you stand on the other side of gratitude you rebel against humility, you take our gift of freedom for granted, you spit in the face of community, and you stand in league with the greed, self-centeredness, and sense of entitlement that is ruining this country.

A good start would be for the ingrates among us to slow down, and show gratitude for the good things in their own lives. Take that step and it may be possible for these people to recognize that we are, in fact, not alone – and that’s a pretty wonderful thing.