Not so selfish?

One of the NZ Herald's best columnists is Tapu Misa.   She doesn't seem to write on a regular basis, that is, you won't find one of her columns in the same place each week.   However, when she does write, she always has something worthwhile to say.   (Would that the rest of us could follow suit!)

One of her most recent columns has been entitled Courage, Compassion make nice change, which doesn't sound like Misa.  It has the ring of some subeditor who didn't read the article very carefully and dumped a few quick words on top of it.   (Of course, I could be wrong.)

In this piece, Misa points out that selfishness, in spite of what we've been told, isn't necessarily the norm for human beings.   People do put themselves on the line for others, even give their lives for others.  She cites a few examples in recent NZ news, (and there are a surprising number of heroes in our recent history) and notes that Sue Gerhardt, the author of The Selfish Society, "does much to dispel the myth that we humans are relentlessly self-centred, self-interested beings who do good only when it serves our own ends."

Check the article out.   It's always good to read good news. 

Hero to Host

Two quotes from Len Hjarmalson’s article on leadership - Post Modern Leadership: From Hero to  Host - in a recent edition of Next-Wave: 

Margaret Wheatley said “We need to move from the leader as hero, to the leader as host. Can we be as welcoming, congenial, and invitational to the people who work with us as we would be if they were our guests at a party? Can we think of the leader as a convener of people? [We need] a fundamental and unshakeable faith in people. You can’t turn over power to people you don’t trust. It just doesn’t happen.”

Martin Luther King Jr. put it, “power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anaemic.” And Henri Nouwen reminds us, The temptation of power is greatest when intimacy is a threat. Much Christian leadership is exercised by people who do not know how to develop healthy, intimate relationships and have opted for power and control instead. Many Christian empire-builders have been people unable to give and receive love.

The rest of the article has some very good things to say about individuals and community, gentle and vulnerable leadership.