In complex social arrangements, such as exist in governments,
business firms, and religious organizations, a person must climb through many
levels before reaching persons of sufficient height and occupational breadth that
what had been said to be binding requirements suddenly become as though
unfettered butterflies. Astoundingly, the mid-level subordinates may even
object as the rules are relegated back to their true status as guidelines. Beyond
the element of greater authority, a greater perspective in terms of what truly
matters is profoundly important in this regard. Having many decades of lived
experience, plus a certain maturity in place of pettiness, is also in the mix.
A Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, for example, may be more likely to pick up
on a sincere heart of the sort Jesus would praise than run through a laundry
list of doctrinal requirements.
In the film Emperor (2012),
religion and government are intertwined in the Japanese emperor, who was until
shortly after World War II also officially a living god. Although his aides
attempt to put General MacArthur into a straightjacket of protocol for the
meeting with the emperor at the end of the film, both the general and the
emperor are off sufficient maturity and perspective to disabuse themselves of
the protocols and focus on the truly important stuff. To discern the petty from
the profoundly important is a key feature of upper-echelon leadership.
The entire essay is at “The
Emperor”
