Keys to Leadership (and Life): Humility, Love & Service

I found myself speaking to a business school class on leadership yesterday. Neither the students nor the professor knew what they were in for. I started with my professional success stories and quickly clarified that was not what I was there to talk about…

I have often gotten feedback that my focus/obsession with mental health, addiction, and the crisis in manhood can be depressing and negative. It usually comes as, “Okay, so what is the moral to the story?” I try to provide concrete solution-based advice to those who are struggling whenever I write or speak.

But that isn’t the same as giving a more coherent positive view of SO WHAT?

There’s nothing like a live audience hanging on your every word to force some overarching positive message or takeaway to balance my gloom and doom about the reality of our world right now.

When I condense it all down, I found myself advising the future business leaders of America to focus on Humility, Love, and Service. That is what fills me up. That is my daily goal, however much I might stray from it. And it is a helpful frame for anyone to consider how to build a meaningful life.

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I have been reading and contemplating the new book,?“Life Worth Living,” ?by Miroslav Volf, a Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and the founding director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. Among many other things, the book pushes back on the idea that we are here to live a “long and happy” life. It forces the reader to consider meaning in our own lives. And to separate meaning from joy or even longevity of a well-lived life. Certainly, MLK or Mother Teresa lived lives of worth. Were they long (one yes and the other not)? Were they characterized by joy (if yes, a very different kind of joy than our consumer-obsessed society would lead us to believe)?

The book forces the reader to ask themselves THE QUESTION of why? Why are you on this planet? Who and what do you ultimately answer to for moral authority? What are you called to do with your life? What gives you the most profound sense of meaning? Belonging? Conversely, what are the periods of your life when you have felt the most alone, hollow? What has caused you to suffer?

Each of us has our unique responses to these lines of inquiry. No two people are identical in grounding what makes up a meaningful life. But to live without asking the questions makes it much harder to find what we are all looking for.

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My summation at the end of my lecture was not intended to dictate the unique flavor of each student’s life. Only to provide guardrails against what I see as fundamental myths held so deeply as truths in our society. Myths that caused me enormous pain. My summation was an attempt to flip mental health disease, addiction, and male isolation into a positive ideal to guide the discussion.

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For all of us, life is some version of a dance between ego and humility. At least in my experience, my ego closes my eyes to the reality of my situation. It’s a way to cover up the most profound truths about myself. In many traditions, including recovery, surrender is the turning point to a mature life.

In the context of “leadership,” we see rampant examples of ego—from religious leaders to athletes to CEOs. But true “power” comes from those who display humility. They are putting down their mask. It’s the woman or man who is entirely vulnerable, comfortable in their own skin, and ready to admit their powerlessness. That’s the paradox. Those who accept weakness are the most inspirational and have the most power.

No one can live in humility all the time. My ego beats my ass every single day. But the more humility, the more peace, and the more I can see the truth about myself and the world.

The ultimate act of humility is to listen intently to those who speak to me. Not talk about myself. Just listen. Be curious. Try to understand. Show compassion. Silence my ego.

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Deep down, we all want to belong. We want to love and be loved. We are social beings. We will move Heaven and Earth to be just another bozo on the bus. Most people, unfortunately, feel outside the circle. They fight unconscious demons that drag them around by the nose.

I listened to?this fascinating interview ?with Caryn Davies, the winningest U.S. Olympic rower in history.?She won gold in 2008 and 2012 and then tried for a comeback in 2020. She describes how NOT making the Olympic team 2020 was her most rewarding rowing experience. The Olympics were delayed because of COVID until 2021, so the training cycle for that Olympics was unusually long and grueling.

It eventually became clear that she was not good enough to make the team. She had felt like the odd woman out from the start of camp. The other athletes were a generation behind her and resented her for her prior success. Months before, she had gone to every athlete competing for a spot and asked them how she could be a better teammate. One said she had always hated Caryn, and that would never change. But all the other athletes said they had never been asked that question. Each woman answered with thoughtful and heartfelt responses. From that point on, Caryn tried to do what they asked of her. When she was ultimately cut, her coach said her leadership during training made her more of an Olympian than any medal. Her teammates cried and said the same thing.

Caryn said that winning gold medals had never felt joyful to her. It felt like a relief. She was expected to win. And afterward, like so many gold medalists before her, she went into a deep depression. Winning, it turned out, was not the answer to life.

After the 2020 experience, Caryn finally realized she never really cared about winning anyhow. What she wanted was to BELONG. To feel loved. And performance, success, etc., was simply a way to try to prove that she was lovable. Her mind played the trick on her into believing that being a great rower would make people like her when she was entirely lovable the whole time. She could have tried to win gold medals or not, but she didn’t need to go to such lengths to get a sincere hug.

This often plays out as a drive for professional and financial success for men. When I have X million dollars, when I win the Academy Awards and become a tenured professor…I will be happy, satisfied (and lovable). The problem is that success is very isolating. You get to the top of the mountain, and no one is there with you. And if you set your sights on some crazy goal to prove your self-worth and fail, your mind doubles down on low self-esteem. It’s a no-win scenario.

Isolation is the true pandemic of 2023, causing skyrocketing mental health and addiction problems, particularly among men. It is killing us, the root cause of everything I care about.

The antidote to isolation is connection, love, and acceptance. I have written extensively?elsewhere about how to build those kinds of relationships.

For those spiritually inclined, like me, love is at the core of what most of us believe. The face of god is seen whenever two or more are gathered in love.

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Alexis de Tocqueville famously said that service is the most enlightened form of self-interest. It combines love and humility into action. Bill Wilson, the founder of AA, discovered when he was newly sober, dying for a drink, and profoundly depressed that nothing helped except going to the hospital where he had first gotten sober and talking compassionately with wet drunks. Not one of those men ever got sober. But service saved Bill’s ass.

For most of my life, people have told me that I might want to help others to help myself. My ego was always in the way. I thought that was the most insane idea I had ever heard. I was too busy building monuments to myself out of sand.

These last few years, I have finally witnessed a man get better due to my “service.” The most profound thing I have ever experienced is meeting a man whose life has been destroyed—utterly hopeless—and watch life come back in his eyes, hope bursting from his heart. It’s a miracle that never, ever gets old, as many times as I have experienced it.

Self is dangerous territory. When focusing on others instead, the world is a much better neighborhood.

This applies equally to the leadership of the large organization to the monk in the woods. The most effective CEOs of massive companies humbly serve their employees, customers, and vendors. Many state that mission. Almost none do it. Ego hides in the hearts of even men and women who see themselves as virtuous. It’s that shadow that never leaves us. The only way to deal with it is to remind ourselves that it is always there. Part of humility is acknowledging the ego's power to corrupt the best intentions.

Service aims to help another human being and expect nothing in return. If no one else even knows about it, all the better. No pat on the back, no ego stroke. Just the glow in the heart of being truly happy for another.

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There are many ways to look at life, guides, or guardrails to avoid pitfalls and find a meaningful path. I have no monopoly. Only a shit-ton of mistakes that have resulted in my focus on these three concepts: humility, love, and service.

God grant me the ability to deepen my humility, my love for others, and my ability to help others in service.

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