Quiet and Deep Leaders

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Puro da lamang sa kaugalingon? Yay lamang para sa kadaghanan? This question can be raised by an outsider looking in… better, an insider looking out. When the observer sees the majority is concentrating on what they can get and NOT what they can give. When observations are focused on the rich trying to become richer can be seen... While around, the pathetic situations of their neighbors are glaringly present. When the leaders are focused on what they can get while the people and the place they vowed to serve are slowly dying and begins to degenerate.

Psychological egoism suggests that all behaviors are motivated by self-interest. In other words, it suggests that every action or behavior or decision of every person is motivated by self-interest. It also suggests that every action must be motivated by self-interest (qcc.cunny.edu).

The view that human beings act from self-interest and from self-interest alone is not new. It has long been the dominant view in psychology and in much of Western thought. Thomas Hobbes, the seventeenth century philosopher, believed that human beings always acted from self-interest. On one occasion Hobbes was seen giving money to a beggar. When asked why, he explained that he was trying to relieve his own discomfort at seeing the beggar in need.

But isn’t man also capable of transcendence? It has been a common for some people who reach the epiphany of being one with the universe. That level of understanding is reached when the true meaning of life is to become an instrument of the common good.

Haven’t we stopped for a minute what drives us? There are even instances when we befriend the persons who can feed our selfish needs. We are oftentimes labeled as “users” when we fail to see the other person’s worth since we are always focusing on the things that we need.

Transcendence, according to Kowalski (2019) refers the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos.

When can the person experience transcendence? Is it correlated to his intelligence? Is it when his deficits and needs are already satisfied based on what Maslow theorized?

A new paper in the Review of General Psychology, “The Varieties of Self-Transcendent Experience,” defines these states as transient moments when people feel lifted above the hustle and bustle of daily life, their sense of self fades away, and they feel connected to something bigger. In such states, people typically report feelings of awe and rapture; of time stopping; and of feeling a sense of unity with other people, nature, God, or the universe.

The transcendent experience is marked by a subsumption of the individual self in an all-encompassing reality. The boundary between the self and the outside world is broken and a more expansive perspective diffuses throughout all aspects of one’s experience.

All the while, Gorelik (2016) theorized that the Self fizzles out and gets replaced by something greater than one’s self. Such experiences are often accompanied by the revelation of some heretofore hidden, inexpressible truth communicated by a higher intelligence or all-pervading sentience.

This implies that a certain level of understanding must be reached to transcend from the self to an encompassing state where one will become aware of the need of others, his environment and the feeling connected to others.

Meditation is an act of training in awareness and getting a healthy sense of perspective. The person is not trying to turn off his/her thoughts or feelings. The individual is learning to observe them without judgment. And eventually, one may start to better understand them as well. It is in this state when the person becomes aware of his connection to all other elements surrounding him/her.

But we fail to remove ourselves from the hustle of the world. We are looking for “happenings” all the time so not to be bored. Boredom is actually a by-product of NOT confronting ourselves, our feelings and the things that affect us including the needs of others, the plants, animals, insects and the universe in general.

This writer has started to have an intensive reading literature related to this to come up with a theory related to leadership. The leaders that we have and will have must possess this meditative and reflective state to be able to situate themselves to the needs of other people and the place and the natural elements around to become of service to them.

Do we have these types?

The Queue

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An manhatag nan pagkaon satanas na? The words of Antonio Parlade NTF-ELCAC spokesperson reverberated in online portals as he likened the intentions of the people behind the community pantries as that like of Satan. Parlade is confusing people of good intentions to be the demon.

Alexis Romero of the Philippine Star reported on April 22, 2021: Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) spokesman, has admitted that the task force is "checking" the situation in areas where community pantries are located. He has also likened the Maginhawa community pantry, the first stall to provide free food to the needy, to the apple given by Satan to Eve.

The community pantries are a form of placemaking, which, in the language of planning and urban studies, means creating places for general welfare by tapping community potential. Specifically, the project employs techniques from the ‘lighter, quicker, cheaper’ model in placemaking, which has allowed its exponential replication. As a movement, this can join projects around the world using the same strategy: Simple, low-cost, doable, immediate, tactile, and flexible (Palma, 2021).

It can be understandable when people in authority question the validity of such movements since these actions (putting up community pantries) might communicate the administration’s incapacity to provide for the people. Also, power might be toppled when the masses would rather see the HELP the pantries provide as the more “powerful” ones.

Pablo Sendra and Richard Sennett wrote about politics of the city in “Designing Disorder: Experiments and Disruptions in the City,” “...we cannot talk about freedom without talking about power.” A sense of powerlessness, which comes from the constraints and perils of the country’s pandemic management, has triggered a response, shared by many, therefore creating collective action.

Yet, the Palace mentions that they are not against community pantries as presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said: I will repeat it, itong mga community pantries represent the best of Filipino in the worst of times. Ang general policy natin, we welcome these community pantries.

One of the Department of Education’s core values is Maka-Tao (humane). The students are trained and taught how to do humanitarian acts to develop and embrace this value. This will allow the learners to be holistically developed by enhancing their affective competencies as well. Therefore, it is an innate value of most of us to be humane.

Humanitarianism is at once a broad dedication to and belief in the fundamental value of human life. Though lacking an agreed definition, this central ethics of humanitarianism crosses cultures and history. As a systemic response to crisis, humanitarianism involves addressing the needs of people affected by conflict, natural disaster, epidemic and famine. In these crises, the focus of humanitarianism is, to varying degrees, placed upon basic or immediate needs of assistance and protection, as distinct from (though increasingly linked to) work more directly aimed at development, peace building, rule of law, etc. (phap.org).

There is nothing evil in helping people especially in giving them something to eat. The very long queues where the pantries are located show that there are people who are hungry. If paranoia among our authorities thrives, this mental state can oppress rather than provide for the basic needs of the people.

There were observations shared by a number of netizens, who also noticed that the pantry slogan “Magbigay ayon sa kakayahan, kumuha batay sa pangangailangan” is derived from a famous quote of German philosopher and socialist Karl Marx. The slogan then raised red flags among some authorities and “profiled” the organizers leading to the red-tagging to some of the organizers.

Ana Patricia Non, the organizer of the Maginhawa community pantry, posted some screenshots on her Facebook account showing that the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, which has been previously involved in red-tagging controversies, shared posts saying that community pantries are being used for propaganda of the CPP-NPA-NDF.

At present, lawmakers are proposing to disband the NTF-ELCAC. The ripples caused some senators to react when their spokesperson likened the organizers to Satan.

But amidst the analyses and technicalities and red-tagging, people continue to queue. Concepts and analytical debates cannot be eaten. The hungry do not over-analyze.

The Critics Circle

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Kamo da lamang, yay ako labot. We hear this statement from people who do not want to take part in a group’s effort to accomplish something. The reason why these individuals detach themselves from taking up responsibility is FEAR. You see, most of them are the ones who are fond of criticizing others. They do not take action since they fear they might commit mistakes and they will be the object of criticisms from others. They want to preserve their egos by doing nothing and sound like experts through their criticisms but in truth their insecurity is clouding over reason.

Hypengyophobia is the irrational fear of responsibility. Someone suffering from this condition can expect to experience a very high amount of anxiety from merely thinking of responsibility, let alone actually being responsible. Someone suffering from hypengyophobia may find themselves avoiding that which they fear. They may take this to the extreme by ensuring that they cannot be exposed to responsibility in any way. For example, someone with this condition may refuse to take on any responsibilities of any kind. Such excessive worry and irrational thinking is likely to be one of the main causes of their mental anguish (psychtimes.com).

Reflective persons may notice their recurring avoidance of doing their part that they take actions to solve the problem by allowing themselves to collaborate with others. But the worse types, those who feign superiority will continue to put up a façade of strength to the point that they even encounter conflicts since they protect their egos by finding a scapegoat – someone who will take the blame to divert the attention from their deficits.

They may also fear competition, especially the potential elements of loss of closeness and failure that can come with the experience of competition.  For many people with the fear of responsibility, the fear of being at odds or against someone and the fear of doing worse than other people can, could, would or will do is enough to make them avoid taking responsibility for something altogether (Teal Swan).

People fear the unknown because it’s unclear, but if they knew what was expected of them then they’d be able to ascertain what skills they need relative to what skills they already have. Having clarity is an important step in the right direction. Yet, even with the clear terms of reference and roles, these people close their minds and indulge to their fears. They even sacrifice relationships just to “protect” themselves from exposing to the risk of committing mistakes.

Blame culture is defined by David Wilkinson at Oxford as an environment where people or teams are singled out for blame and criticism – a situation that can lead to decreased job satisfaction, higher levels of staff turnover, a reduction in work engagement and productivity, and decreased innovation and creativity. According to Naresh Khatri at the University of Missouri, blame culture damps down willingness to take risks, a necessary part of innovation and creativity.

The blame culture also discourages individuals from taking responsibility because of fear of criticism or punishment. Alessandra Gorini and colleagues at the University of Milan asked 249 healthcare providers to express their fear of blame and/or punishment if they made a medical error. Practitioners at all levels feared being blamed – even more than they feared punishment.

If these concepts prevail (Hypengyophobia and blame culture), productivity and the capacity to serve will be hampered. But the worse part would be the cascading of conflict to others because of selfish intentions.

William Runciman, an anaesthetist at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, encourages us to consider the difference between blameworthy behaviors – those that must be reported to ensure proper regulation of professional behavior and maintain trust – and inevitable human error. If it’s the latter, blame is unhelpful (The Daily Telegraph, 2021).

Afraid of taking responsibility is often seen among people who are under confident. However, there are several reasons why people are afraid of taking responsibility. One of the biggest reasons is laziness. Laziness somehow kills a person's interest and hope to do something in life and that is when that person tries to lose all his responsibility (Swarnali, 2017).

People are quick to blame themselves for failure. But by not doing something because you’re afraid to get started isn’t going to help you grow.

These are modern times. The deeper understanding of the self is needed for us to become contributors NOT part of the problem. Self-assessment and self-growth are two things deemed necessary for us to have a meaningful life.

If not, we simply exist and fail to reach our full potentials.

Those Who Kill the Spirit

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Jaon kawad-an kaw nan gana… There are plenty of times when people are going to lose their motivation to do their best whether in work and personal matters especially when there are those who constantly dowse their interest. These people, the dowsers, are mostly in higher in authority – parents, teachers, supervisors or the direct boss of people.

Motivation is the driving force that allows people to achieve their goals. It helps a person understand their “why”. The reason that allows people to be focused enough to complete their goals has a lot to do with how they see themselves within the goal, and the reason why they want to complete it. When a person is motivated to accomplish something, they usually have a strong reason to do it.

With this being said, one may wonder why some “productive” persons suddenly lose their light in being active in the attainment of a group’s goals or the person suddenly seem to lose the vigor in performing something.

One of the fundamental aspects of social interaction is that some individuals have more influence than others. Social power can be defined as the ability of a person to create conformity even when the people being influenced may attempt to resist those changes (Fiske, 1993; Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003). Bosses have power over their workers, parents have power over their children, and, more generally, we can say that those in authority have power over their subordinates. In short, power refers to the process of social influence itself—those who have power are those who are most able to influence others.

When the leader, parent, teacher or other authority fail to appreciate the people around them, these leaders might operate in a bubble and engage in group think. We then hear such managers complain that “my employees/children won't speak up”. The simple truth is: the motivation to be a part of the team is starting to go to the drains.

Research suggests leaders need to praise at least three times as much as they criticize to keep employees happy. Instead of being quick to criticize, be quick to point out some of the great things they see their employees are doing. This will not only reinforce these positive actions but also encourage other employees to do the same (Hyacinth, 2019).

A highly motivated workforce feels empowered by their work and valued by the organization. When it comes to keeping your employees motivated, there are a number of factors to keep in mind—from communicating goals and expectations to showing interest in your employees’ professional aspirations. The right approach paves the way to a well-balanced workplace and ensures the future success of your business.

Micromanaging your children produces similar results to micromanaging employees. It builds resentment, damages relationships, and robs children of valuable learning experiences. When children have the opportunity to plan their own work and take responsibility for their actions, they become more mature and wise. Parents often tell others how frustrated they are that their children aren’t interested in school. The problem is that parents often demotivate their children unintentionally (Wong, 2020).

Studies mentioned that 70% of kids quit sports by the age of 13. Think about that, that’s A LOT of kids. And the way you parent can have a large influence on your child’s motivation to stay in their interests and succeed. But unfortunately, too often parents use techniques that they think are helping, but in reality they are doing the exact opposite.

Students who are not motivated will not learn effectively. They won’t retain information, they won’t participate and some of them may even become disruptive. A student may be unmotivated for a variety of reasons: They may feel that they have no interest in the subject, find the teacher’s methods un-engaging or be distracted by external forces. It may even come to light that a student who appeared unmotivated actually has difficulty learning and is in need of special attention.

These are things to ponder. We may be in a position where there are people whom we are working with or children whom we are nurturing. Others will leave. Children’s light will be switched-off. You see, it is really true that if you hang around un-motivating people you will fight an uphill battle to stay motivated.

Let us not kill the spirit! Instead, let us rekindle others' interest to live, love and serve.

 

 

The Seemingly Perfect

 

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Amoy hanapon an sajop. It has been a mystery why people often look for the mistakes of others, they seem to enjoy looking for the minutest mistake and dwell on it. A lot of persons dwell on that smear forgetting about the white space around the dot. Sometimes, they forget that nobody is perfect and that other persons are also waiting for them to commit something that they could feast on.

There are those who exaggerate and blow other people’s mistake out of proportion without any tangible praise for their efforts. The most malignant ones can even make others believe some people are unworthy, incompetent, and even unlovable.

Magnification, also known as catastrophizing (Ellis and Harper, 1997) occurs when a negative event, mistake, imperfection is blown totally out of proportion. As a personal development and empowerment coaches put it, they are celebrating people’s uniqueness than fixing them. Some people don’t really need fixing because they are not broken. They are actually uniquely wired and really need to be celebrated rather than criticized for a minute imperfection.

The negativity instinct, according to Dsouza (2018) is your tendency to spot cons before the pros. For example, if someone comes to you for feedback, you think of suggesting improvements before identifying the positive aspects. Even if you have good things to mention, the negatives come to your mind in an instant. You may find some positives to talk about or none at all.

When someone presents an idea or someone is being celebrated by others, finding a flaw or an improvement makes you feel superior. It gives you an illusion of knowledge and expertise irrespective of whether you possess it or not Dsouza continues.

Fault finding is a universal habit, no matter who we are, where we live, or what our circumstances may be. We are taught not to point fingers at others, but this habit persists. Fault finding is a clever device of the ego. It serves a purpose as far as the ego is concerned. The ego does not like to bring attention to itself, and fault finding helps draw attention away.

Besides taking attention away from the ego, fault finding provides a subtle lift to our self-esteem by diminishing the value of someone else. To gain self-confidence, there is an easy way and a hard way. The hard way is to work for it, but finding fault with others is an easier way out. When we find fault with others, there is a silent inference that we are better. But that feeling of being better ultimately makes us feel insecure as it depends on the existence of a fault within another, whether real or not. Fault finding propagates this subtle psychological lift (Seshadri, 2019).

This, if sensed by those who are trying to deepen their existence though understanding the inner person can be a turn-off. The aforementioned causes are manifestations of lesser self-awareness and poor self-control. Yes, how can one control the self from fault-finding when the person even do not understand that s/he is feeding on it, making the deed as a crutch?

We all have sensitivities that are specific to our upbringing. It all comes down to whether you have a system of monitoring how and when you share what bothers you about people. Your pet peeves color the way you see the world. They are part of the central framework you use to interpret other people’s actions.

Dr. Greg Kushnick (2015) mentions that the habit of constantly pointing out people’s faults is most likely a reflection of what the fault-finders’ struggle with in childhood. It is a manifestation of an insecurity about the very things that they judge other people for most often. Some people who have difficulty taking responsibility for their own actions have a tendency to project onto others that with which they struggle. In fact, the avoidance of responsibility and a difficulty apologizing to people they’ve hurt are the trademarks of the constant fault finder.

The world would be better if we celebrate the goodness of others and NOT willingly look for their mistakes. It is good to give feedback to friends and family members about the glaring mistakes they commit but to make a habit of looking for the mistakes of others is another story.

Again, mental health (which others limit ONLY to depression) is an important thing to nurture in these trying and difficult times. Let us nurture rather than destroy.