First, A Thing of Beauty

The Buddha’s Last Instruction, by Mary Oliver

“Make of yourself a light”
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal-a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire-
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.

I care a lot more about what kind of person you are than I care about your specific politics. The terms Republican and Democrat often create more divisiveness than unity, and I believe that far more productive conversation comes from groups of people talking together about what they’re up to in the world and how they want to be with each other. In my book, this is real leadership.

A

I had the pleasure of working with a leadership team recently to really unpack what it means to be an asshole. They were developing norms for their company, and “No assholes” stuck as a central feature of what kind of culture they want. Though norms are usually stated in the positive rather than the negative, there’s a stickiness to “no assholes” that made it a winner. After a surprisingly rich discussion about what it looks like when someone is one, the team agreed that the dictionary definition of “thoughtless” didn’t go far enough. For them, when a person acts in self-serving, “me first” ways rather than being aware and attuned to the needs of others/the larger group/humanity, they’re being an asshole.

B

Later, a smaller subset of this team was discussing the gendered nature of the word asshole, because it typically refers to men. I asked whether they saw “bitch” as related or a close synonym, and their reaction was instant and unanimous - NO. It was a good education for me. The men in particular were clear that “the b-word” (as they called it) was never appropriate almost always offensive. It crosses a distinct line, has a different connotation, and is absolutely out. I was intrigued enough to do a little follow-up research and discovered that whereas the a-word is considered mildly vulgar, the b-word is a curse word, one of the 10 most common in the English language. I appreciate this team’s clarity - the word has no place in a world of leadership.

C

Meanwhile, I’ve been adoring a slew of C-words lately, and I’ve been thinking about how different our culture would be if C-level leaders across businesses and organizations were to redefine what the “C” stood for in their titles. Here are some of my favorites: compassionate, courageous, curious, collaborative, candid. They are conscious and oriented to the collective. Think of it as a new kind of C-level leadership for a new kind of world.

That brings us full circle to Mary Oliver’s poem. One does not need to be a CEO, COO, CFO or Buddha in order to create change. Leadership is an option in every choice, action, and interaction. Perhaps these words resonate for you like they do for me:

clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.

Each day, each moment, I hold the invitation: “Make of yourself a light.” I come back to the basics, and I choose C.