Leadership or Playing to the Mob?

What a crazy week this has been.

Concerning the House’s passage of a 90% tax on the bonuses of a limited number of people in the Financial Industry, this is a time for reasoned leadership, not playing to “the mob.” Students of Roman history need to be speaking up. Does this not remind you of the final days of the Roman republic when real public servants were so hard to find and the Roman elected officials played to the mob in the forum?

The way Edward Liddy was treated on Capitol Hill is shameful. This is a man called in to lead AIG by the government. He is taking a $1 a year salary. He has no stock options. He is a public servant in every sense of the word. I encourage you to read Mr. Liddy’s op-ed piece in the Washington Post for Wed. March 18. You can find it online by clicking on http://tinyurl.com/cdb8th

Tax policy should never be used as a tool for punishment. As the President pointed out tonight on 60 Minutes, this tax bill would affect at most 10,000 people. Tax bills should reflect a reasoned approach to tax policy that focuses primarily on raising revenue for government operations in the fairest way possible. The internal revenue code should not be a system of rewards and punishments.

I have heard that we get the leaders we deserve. Maybe this is true in a democracy. If so, it is time that we modeled the behavior that we seek from our leaders. Maybe it will begin to resonate.

Time to “run into the roar.”

My friend Steve Barnhill of Edge Creative told me and a group of guys hanging at a friend’s ranch a great story. Steve said that he heard from a man recently here from Africa. I want to share it because it contains some great advice.

Apparently lions love to eat gazelles. But they have to catch them to eat them and gazelles run faster than lions. So the lions have to be smarter.

When a pride of lions finds a herd of gazelles the lionesses fan out and begin slinking in closer and closer to the herd. The gazelles eventually sense their presence and run like hell away from them. What they don’t know is that the oldest, mangiest, weakest, slowest lion has positioned himself (of course he is the male) on the side opposite from the lionesses. As the gazelles bound toward him, he rises to his feet and lets out the biggest roar imaginable. And of course, the gazelles are scared silly by the roar and turn and run right back into the claws and maws of the chasing females. Gazelle is back on the menu ladies.

Had they kept going, they could have easily outrun the old roarer. The indigenous people having observed this Mutual of Omaha life lesson have learned from it. What they say is, “Run into the roar.” Seems to me that it is time for us to do the same.

The bad news roars every day. And we are running silly. Everyone I know is cutting back, hunkering down – in short operating out of fear. Maybe it is time to run into the roar.
We are no less creative, no less imaginative, no less talented, and no less educated than we were just 18 months ago. Time to live creatively and generously. It is time to turn back around and run into the roar.