Some insights from Colonel Lee Ellis, from his book Leading with Honor: Leadership Lessons from the Hanoi Hilton. My own reflections in smaller italics, befitting their comparison to Colonel Ellis’.
“Authentic leaders consistently live in harmony with their
values, even when no one is looking.
Their walk matches their talk.”
Is “victory” a value? I do not believe it is. Prowess is certainly a virtue of Chivalry,
but is victory necessary to exemplify Prowess? Again, I do not believe it is. Therefore, striving only for victory,
favoring Prowess over all other Virtues, is disharmonious to Chivalry. Can such a person be a true leader?
According to Colonel Ellis, self-reflection is most
important element of personal leadership:
“Our culture desperately needs courageous servant leaders—men
and women who have clear vision and strong character, who instill confidence
and inspire excellence, who don’t fold under pressure, compromise on principle,
or practice deception. In short, we need
leaders who are committed to leading with honor.”
“Leading with honor is about doing the right thing, even
when it entails personal sacrifice. More
often than not, doing the right things—accepting responsibility, fulfilling
your duty, telling the truth, and remaining faithful to your word—is the most
difficult thing to do. . .”
“Becoming a leader is not easy. First, your ego will sting a bit when you realize
that you have not arrived, and still have room to grow. Second, changing some of your attitudes,
behaviors, and habits can be difficult, even painful. You must go to war with your ego, your
dogmatic opinions, and some of your old ways of doing things. . .”
Our Society also seeds courageous servant leaders,
committed to leaving their offices and charges better than when they came into
them, not content to serve out the term and check the box; who seek out the
difference they can make, even if it gain them nothing but the satisfaction of
having made the difference; who see beyond how they believe things ought to be
to see that how others think it ought to be is not lessened by their station in
the SCA or the activity they choose to engage in, but is of equal weight as a
fellow member, whose belief is necessary for our society (and our Society) to
flourish.
But, with what weapons does one “go to war with [his
own] ego [and] dogmatic opinions”?
According to Colonel Ellis:
Leading Yourself
1. Know yourself.
Be honest and accept responsibility for your actions and
inaction. Know what you
stand for.
2. Guard your character.
Make your actions matter; let them be balanced manifestations
of the Virtues of
Chivalry. Stand strong in your convictions.
3. Stay Positive.
Life is
trial, and often success but unveils new challenges. Joy lies in each new
challenge; joy lies in
the fight for what you believe in. Do
not let difficult or
successive challenges lead you to despair.
4. Confront your doubts and fears.
Do not shrink
from the fight, within or without, but certainly do not avoid the
fight within
by throwing yourself only into the public fray.
Those who face only
the outward foe merely “seem.” You must conquer yourself to truly“be.”
To
quote Neil Peart:
Living in the limelight,
the universal dream for those who wish to seem
But those who wish to be
must put aside the alienation,
get on with the fascination,
the underlying
theme.
5. Fight to win.
Chivalry at
its most basic. Always bring your best
fight and fight to win. To do
otherwise
would be disrespectful to your opponent and dishonorable generally.
To do less would be untrue to yourself.
6. Bounce back and be resilient.
Failure is
unavoidable, internally and externally.
Success knows its own timetable.
In
the immortal words of Albertus Pacinus: “On
any given Sunday you are either
going to win or you are going to win.” Get
up and get back into the fight; the next
dragon awaits!
Leading Others
7. Clarify and build your culture.
To lead any
group, you must be a driving part of defining the culture you want
to build. How can you manifest the virtues
of your estate if you have not
defined that estate to some degree? How can you model the behaviors you
would see
in others seeking your same estate if you cannot articulate, or at
least
recognize, them in yourself? How can you
judge the merits and
shortcomings of others toward achieving your estate
without?
8. Over-communicate your message
It is not enough to simply say you follow Chivalry, to
say you are a Knight or a Don.
You must
continuously celebrate what Chivalry means, must extoll the Virtues of
Chivalry
and not suffer dishonor to flourish. You
must constantly manifest and
exemplify your virtues and define them for future
generations. Tireless effort is
necessary for success.
9. Develop your people
Chivalry does not allow one to simply sit back and
observe. Virtue requires
action, and
perpetuation of virtue, the spread of Honor and Chivalry, requires
great effort
to ensure those who come after you develop the skills and
understanding
necessary to ensure Chivalric virtues thrive. If such mentoring
and training
appears easy, you probably are not doing it well, right, or to the
degree
necessary.
10. Balance mission and people
Don’t forget the fun!
All work and no play make Lord Jack a dull boy. People are
more important than expensive trappings. What a man believes in, what
he does,
should be more important than who he cleaves to or what award he
bears.
'Nuff said.
11. Build cohesive teams
Celebrate the multitude of relationships available in
our current middle ages,
but don’t lose sight of the larger goal. Chivalry and the greater good are more
important than individual or group (shire, household, etc.) success.
12. Exploit creativity
Let everyone contribute according to his skill and
loves, and don’t insist things
be done only your way. Never turn down a
volunteer. There is much work to do,
always another challenge, and many hands lighten the work. If you fear to
share whatever spotlight you perceive yourself to bask in, you are in it for the
wrong reasons.
13. Treasure your trials; Celebrate your successes.
Keep victory in
its place. Trials reveal character, require
character to
overcome. Character is the product of all your virtues. Therefore, ensure all
your other virtues are
as practiced and sharp as Prowess.
14. Free the captives.
Help others
confront their own doubts, fears, attitudes, behaviors, and
habits; help others
lead themselves.