FollowtheLeader.indd

FOLLOW THE LEADER

of the cost? What cause or purpose for me is greater than all possible negative
consequences? In his book, The Heart of an Executive, Richard Phillips
asks:

Is there anything you are willing to go down in flames for? When

it comes right down to it, is there anything to which you are more

committed than self-preservation?^7

Phillips concludes:

To be a somebody you must be willing to display personal loyalty

at great cost, to stand up in the face of danger, in defense of what

the past has achieved, to step off the sidelines and offer yourself

to something greater than yourself...Leadership feeds on the vision

of something great.^8

There is a flip side to the issue of giving yourself to a cause that is greater
than you. It is a question of ownership. In other words, does the cause own
me or do I own the cause? Many leaders started out compelled by a great
cause. Gradually, they started acting like the cause was their own private
property. It increasingly belonged exclusively to them. They began to
speak about the “common cause” with personal possessive pronouns. In
the Christian realm, leaders sometimes speak about the “cause of Christ”
with phrases like: “my vision”...“my spiritual gifts”...“my church”...“my
people”...“my”...“my”...“my!”

When this happens, Richard Phillips warns: “It is only a small step from the
commitment of yourself to a cause, to the commitment of the cause to yourself.”^9
When any leader treats the vision or cause with an exclusive spirit, others
soon lose interest. There’s no longer any real place for them in the vision.
The cause has ceased to be inclusive. As the leader’s ego has increased,
the followers have been decreased. They have been shrunk down to being
the helpless and hapless slaves of the leader’s ego. They have become
little more than nameless and faceless pawns that are used...abused...and
reduced to refuse by the leader. They have become “cannon fodder” that are
expendable for the leader’s cause! At the end of the day, there is nothing
in it for them. They gave themselves to the leader’s cause – but the cause
gave them nothing in return. At that point, the passionate cause has been
reduced to an exclusive personal cause. This personification of purpose in
one person is very dangerous. Exclusive authority and centrality of
leadership is one of the chief characteristics of cultic groups. A possessive