Good vs. Bad: what leaders ought to know

In the last 5yrs of my life, I have become rather fascinated by the concept of good and bad. Is absolute good possible? at least as human beings, it is one of our fantasies.

Great books, movies, stories, plays, etc have been sold on the notion of what is good or evil. Politicians, leaders, and dictators have mastered the art of using these two duos to oppress or emancipate different groups of people.

What is Good or Bad?

You see, it is complicated to attempt to define leadership without looking deeply at other components. The idea of morality in itself is impossible to define without a frame of reference. Trying to create as God would, does not mean playing God. Playing God actually happens when imperfect humans like you and I try to define what is Good from what is deemed as bad or evil.

What this means is that assuming we decide to define Good as - " Anything that elevates or improves our human experience", that would seem simple but if your human experience becomes better at the expense of another human being or even other living things does it still qualify as good? For something to be good it must qualify across all levels.

Imagine a person who makes billions from cheap child labor - he uses his wealth for philanthropy but still, there are millions living in abject poverty in his factory.

Sometimes it seems to me that the aim of philanthropy is not to do good, but a silent form of evil that is not popular, aimed at creating sympathy for the philanthropist that blinds the public from some of his nefarious dealings, by no means does this define all Philanthropic efforts of course. I would come back to this.

I believe that morality cannot be defined without the introduction of a constant in the equation. In the case of Israel in the Exodus, this was God. Our very definitions of evil have been drawn without the consideration of a sovereign being "GOD" and that is why we constantly battle ideologues across different bills or government decisions. Yes! only God can truly define morality by outlining what is God and what is bad. Even for people who are not religious, the entire Universal Declaration of Human Rights is based on Christian Ethos. Well, that is not the focus of this conversation as I am more concerned as to how leaders need to navigate these constructs.

How Can Leaders Navigate These Constructs?

Serving as the regional coordinator of my corpers fellowship during my NYSC days in Nigeria taught me so much. I constantly had to make very difficult and unpopular decisions.

While making those decisions, my concern was not on whether my decisions were good or bad but rather on justness or rightness. As a leader, you need to, first of all, listen attentively to suggestions from different sides. Some would be good, bad, or just pure evil.

• Discernment:

One thing you must note is that most of what people call evil is the popular version of evil. Very few people have the wisdom to discern unpopular evil. As a leader discernment should be your biggest skill. Developing discernment would require that you increase your knowledge bank about the past. Almost every experience we have had while leading people or will ever have has been experienced by others before in some way.

Faced with any situation you can rest assured that human beings would always behave in the same way, again and again. So armed with the knowledge of the past, you can pretty much predict the direction of almost any event or outcome.

• Seek to Understand the Motive behind every action:

As a leader, your critical job description is to look beyond the veil. At one level that requires discernment. On other levels, that requires that you try to understand "WHY?". "Why" is the foundation behind human aspirations. Why does Tony want you to say this? why does Sandra suggest you make this decision?

The popular evil is the kind painted on all our stories while growing up. But the worst forms of evil are never apparent. Hitler's rise to power was not on the promise of killing Jews, no he painted hope. Same as Stalin, Lenin the list goes on and on. Some of the people we celebrate as heroes today may have died just before they had the opportunity to become truly evil or bad.

That is not to say that good people do not exist. But rather, we must understand that as leaders we have to look at every decision backward and forwards and not just end at what seems right, "now".

Conclusions

Hasty decisions about what is good or bad may lead you to regrets. After listening to every suggestion, critically analyze the most pragmatic. Some decisions would be viewed as evil, and inconsiderate now but in the long run your followers may come to understand. Properly communicating your "WHY" would be important because like I said Unpopular evil is not easy for the eyes to see.

Go beyond your organization and understand the consequence of the decision before deciding on what options work best. Some decisions might require really painful actions, firing a lot of people, cutting down pay, etc but in the long run, Good is whatever prevails as the most positive outcome aligned with your goals in relation to those of others.