A Clock and a Candle

What a Clock and a Candle Stick taught me about Leadership.

Beauty and the Beast has a theme that we have mostly forgotten as we remember the beautiful singing Belle, the amazing dancing dishes and cinematic love story ending. It begins with a self-focused Master who, while living in luxury, turns down an old beggar woman's request for food and shelter for the night. Fate would have it that she was really a beautiful enchantress testing his humility. She turns him into what he was inside, a self-hearted Beast. To make the point even more real, she slowly begins turning his servants into how he views them, "Gadgets". The only way out of the curse is selfless love.

His most trusted servant, Cogsworth, frustrated about his fate of slowly being turned into a time keeping "gadget", finally lamented, "But why did we have to get dragged into this whole spell business? It's not like we threw that old beggar woman out on her ear." Lumiere, the ever-wise shining light to their self-focused master, got it right. "No, but are we not responsible, too, for helping to make him the way he is?"

Wow! We've all been there. Our leadership messes up and we pay the price. These "gadgets" insight, though, are profound. We do hold part of the blame. Our lack of honesty and courage helps to confirm and possibly create the very weakness within our leaders that we deplore. No matter how well intentioned, our "foolish followship” will fail our leaders by protecting them from the truth.

As leaders, too, we often forget to see things from the eyes of those we trust to carry out our mission. I had a business with 165 employees at one time. No way I alone could serve my customers' needs without them. Without them, I would fail.

Beauty and the Beast is a timeless classic that tells the tale of selfishness, true courage, unconditional love and redemption by putting others first. Let us commit to be truly loving by being brave and telling the truth to those who lead us. Let us instead be a mirror that lovingly reflects honestly back to them what has probably become obvious to the world around them. To quote Lumiere, "To be human again, human again!"