[Vnbiz] Staying to be a leader

[Tran Dinh Hoanh]

Dear CACC,

This message is to follow "Growing to be a leadership" that I posted lat
week (below).   Many thanks for brother Giang, Craig, Hai, Nhon, and sisters
Romi and Thu Huong for your insight and sharing.

We have talked about the concept of servant/leadership, in which the leader
is the "servant" who "serves" his people.  To be clear, servant is called
oshin, nguoi o, in the popular Vietnamese language. This is a concept of
utmost humility and love.  Only a person who really loves his/her people can
be humble enough to act as the servant of his people.  Without this love, it
is impossible.

(As a historical note of my thinking, I get this model of servant/leadership
from the life of Jesus, one of the leaders I admire, who is still at the
head of a huge group of followers 2 thousand years after his death and who,
to teach humility, washed the feet of his disciples several days before his
death.  In Vietnam's contemporary history, pres. Ho Chi Minh was a leader of
great humility and who really "served" his people, albeit with some
major mistakes that I will talk about below).

Anyway, back to our subject of "serving your people."  In this message we
ask these two questions:  You are the leader, so who are your "people"?
And how do you "serve" your people?

1.  Who are your "people"?

This is probably the most fundamental question of them all, and my
observation is that many many leaders around the world don't have the right
answer.

Let's use an example in politics.  We have seen throughout history, many
leaderstalked about loving their people, while executing and jailing
thousands and millions of their countrymen.  These guys truly created much
miseries while talking about loving their people all the time.  They ranged
from Tan Thuy Hoang in China, to Polpot in Cambodia, to Stalin in Russia.
The Vietnamese Communist Party had its share of sin with Tram Hoa Dua No
(jailing many writers and artists for years during the '50s) and Cai Cach
Ruong Dat (killing, torturing and jailing many farmers between 1945-1954)
(Note:  I hope that our young students in Vietnam have had the opportunity
to learn these historical lessons.  If you do not know what I am talking
about, I would be extremely sad, because it means that our VCP
brothers/sisters are still unwise and so uncaring that they keep you and
themselves blind from lessons so important to our national development.
Every bad lesson from the past MUST be learned thoroughly if we want to go
to the future with a wise brain. Please go on the Internet to find some info
to learn ).

Anyway, why did these folks say they love their  people while they killed
and maimed and jailed so many of their own people?  Were they liars? Or
were they just plainly insane?

Having studied human history and leadership for years, I believe that they
all were sincere, but they committed the sin of not knowing who their
"people" were--they only thought about the "abstract people" concept, but
had no clue about "concrete people" who stood right in front of them.

We always say things like "I love our Vietnamese people," "I sacrifice
my life for our people," or "I go to war to defend my people."  The word
"people" here is an abstract concept. It indicates a huge group, a nation.
It is very very very easy for us to sincerely say things in the abstract "I
love all people," "I love mankind," "I sacrifice for my nation."   It is
fine.  Nothing is wrong with that.  Those are good things to say.  BUT, they
mean very little.  Sometimes they really mean nothing when we face the
concrete.

Now, the "concrete people" are the people who stand in front of your
eyes--the neighbor who has a dog that poops all over his yard and constantly
sends that awful smell right to your living room and bed room; the guy at
work who talks to you like you are a dummy every time; the beggar gang who
aims to circle youwhen you are alone with your date; the folks who have a
way of living different than the way to get to heaven that your political
party preaches.

How do we love these "people"?  How do we serve these people?  That is the
true challenge.  And the challenge is so great that it really happens at our
spiritual level.  It happens at the deepest level in our heart, at the level
of how we truly feel about others around us. Do we really love anyone?  Or
we are really lying to ourselves when we say "I love my nation, I love my
people"?

So, let me repeat--It is very easy to sincerely love "people" in the
abstract while hating all the concrete folks who are standing before us.  It
seems that the more we love people in the abstract, the less we love
concrete people before our eyes.   That is how our human mind deceives
ourselves.  It tricks us into loving some UNREAL abstract concept (i.e.,
people, nation, etc.) while making us hate the REAL people who stand around
us.  (The concept of a nation or a people is NOT real.  A nation and a
people is only an abstract collection of many many real flesh-and-bone
humans).  So you can see how many "leaders" of the world got trapped into
this deadly disease of loving the unreal while hating the real.

So when we say we love our people and we serve our people, we cannot just
rely on the abstract concept.  We have to think about loving and serving the
real people around us.

And who are the real people around us?

In the family, they are our parents, our spouse, our brothers/sisters.  We
have to know how to love them and how to serve them.

In the neighborhood, they are our neighbors, including the neighbor who is
the subject of our daily prayer: "Dear God, please put into the thick
skull of this idiotic and obnoxious guy some sense of decency and some idea
about right and wrong. He is truly the scum of the earth.  I know you want
me to love my neighbors, but this guy, truly in my heart, I just love to
shoot him.  I really believe that he deserves to be shot again and again, at
least 27 rounds of automatic rifle.  Please grant me a gun and grant me
peace.  But if you think that he deserves to live, even though I strongly
disagree with you, please grant me the strength in my heart to love him,
because without your help, I can't see how I could love this scum bag."
:-)

In the company with many employees, your "people" are firstly the people who
you supervise directly, the folks who deal directly with you on a daily
basis (usually only dozen persons or so).

If you are the teacher, they are the students in your class.

In any government or business office, your people are the folks you
supervise directly.  Say, if you are the department director, your people
are your deputy-directors.

If you are the prime minister of the country, your people are your deputy
prime-ministers and ministers.

In sum, we have to serve the real, concrete people who are standing around
us first.  They will in turn serve their "people," and their people will in
turn serve other people below them.  That's how the "flow of service" will
flow from the top down (or flow from the center out to the many rings
outside).

Other than the people who are in the first ring, which is closest to us
every day, it would be good if we have a chance to personally serve other
people who are at further rings.  But chances are a leader is too busy to
directly serve people at the outer rings, so we have to focus on people who
are next to us, and believe that our example of humility and service
will encourage others to learn, to keep the flow of service going.

Once in a while we will come face to face with some people in the outer
rings, such as when some citizens send a petition to the prime minister or a
lowly employee sends a petition to the company's president.  Then, we cannot
take the road that "My people is the entire country (or the entire
company).  I don't have time for this little guy and his petition.  Get him
away from me."  Of course, leaders are always busy, but we need to find a
way to take care of every individual life we touch the best way we can.

This point is very important to learn because the VCP has tortured millions
of farmers (and killed thousands of them) by -da^'u to^' during its Land
Reform between 1945 and 1954, and has forced millions of southerners to flee
after it won the war in 1975.  The VCP simply loved the "people" in the
abstract but could not hear the cry of the real people standing before its
eyes.

I do not want to bring back our painful past at all, simply because it hurts
my heart tremendously.  I am forward-looking.  To me, only the present and
the future really count.  The past is past, we cannot do anything about it.
But this lesson on leadership has be to learned very well, has to be
understood thoroughly, because too many leaders throghout the world history
have made that same mistake over and over again.  We cannot love our people
and hate the folks standing before us, we cannot love our family and hate
this brother standing before us.  Abstract concepts are not real,
flesh-and-bone people are real.  Love the real people.

2.  How do we serve our people?

This is an easy question.  Serving someone means making her happy, making
her job easier, doing whatever you can to support her in her work, providing
her with whatever she needs, supporting her with whatever way we can, with
the clear attitude that "my job is to serve her."  Any good oshin
understands this principle well.

So if you are a director, serve your deputies the way a servant woudl serve
them.  If you run a project, serve your deputies the way a oshin would serve
you.  If you are an NA representative, serve the citizens you represent the
way a good servant would do.

This automatically requires the great skill of *listening*, because if you
don't listen well, you don't know what your people need so you can
serve.  Listen means listen with boht the ears and the heart.  The ears are
useless without the heart.  Ask yourself: Do I know how to hear someone with
my heart?

And you have to put your people's *wishes* at the top of your list.
This may be difficult at times, because you have your own vision as a leader
and their wishes may interfere with your vision.  The real leadership skill
is in how to blend their wishes into your own vision so that their wishes
become a supporting part of your vision.  You serve your people's wishes in
order to make your vision come true.  That means, you will have to know
the art of mixing and cooking, to contanstly mix new ideas and wishes and
cook them into good meals every day.

When you have a vision and you act like the true servant of your followers,
you are automatically a great leader without tryning to lead, or pull, or
push.

Have a great day!

Hoanh

On 3/12/07, Tran Dinh Hoanh <tdhoanh at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear CACC,
>
> This message is for everyone, but its primary audience is the young
> generation.  And it is about leadership.
>
> We often hear "Growing into a leader" to describe the process that a
> person rises in experience and in rank to become a leader eventually.  So,
> they are talking about a process of "growing" or "growing up."  Well, let me
> tell you.  Nothing is further from the truth.  You don't grow into a
> leader.  You stay the way you are to be a leader.
> When we are young, we are energetic, optimistic, honest and fearless. All
> these are the necessary traits to be a leader.
>
> And as we "grow up," we are taught (by teachers, parents, friends ...)
> things like "You have to be smart to live," (meaning, you have to be corrupt
> to live with all the corrupt guys around you), or "A swallow cannot make the
> spring," (meaning, you don't count), or "Don't be so naive.  Grow up!"
> (meaning, learn to lie and cheat), or "Why waste your time?  No body cares,"
> (meaning, be selfish and careless like the rest of the world), and millions
> of other negative talks that bombard our ears and our mind constantly, until
> we "grow up" into a bunch of mediocre, negative, lethargic adults or,
> worse, a bunch of selfish and corrupt "leaders."
>
> So, when we are taught that we will "grow up" into a leader, we are taught
> the wrong thing.  We stay exactly the way we are--energetic, optimistic,
> honest and fearless--in order to become good leader.
>
> The challenge is how to go through life without being defeated by the
> constant negative teachings from life and everyone around us, to keep our
> mind and our heart  exactly the way they are when we are still in high
> school and college.  This is easier talked than done.  Many idealistic and
> talented college students would become negative and lethargic in later
> years.  Keeping the heart of a kid to go through life is the ultimate art,
> which not many can master.
>
> And if you have graduated from college many years ago, chances are you
> don't need to learn anything new, but need UNLEARN all the negative thinking
> you have absorbed over the years, in order to be good leader.
>
> (This reminds me of Jesus saying: "You have to be like little children to
> enter the Kingdom of Heaven" and "The Kingdom of Heaven is in your heart."
> This man is truly the master in the art of managing the human heart!  So, to
> win your ultimate reward, unlearn all the "adult" things and go back to the
> heart of a child).
>
> Please note, I do not suggest that you have to be stupid in life.  You may
> want to know about all the bad things people do, all the clever ways people
> use to trick each other,  all the lies people can think of, all the smooth
> ways to push a corrupt deal.  You want to know them all, so that when you
> walk your ground, you would know where there may be a trap, where there may
> be thorns.  But you
> want to respond to all that with the gentle, loving, honest and fearless
> heart of a child.  Only a true master can do that.  And that master would be
> a great leader.
>
> Have a great day!
>
> Hoanh
>
> PS:  Another note.  "Why do I keep talking about leadership?  How about
> followership?  Not all of us are leader;  Some have to be follower."
> Well, good point.  But, he truth is, WE ALL ARE LEADER.  Everyone of us
> leads someone--our followers, or our students, or our work associates, or
> our children, or our siblings, or our friends in a project.  We all need to
> learn to be good leader.  A good leader is automatically a good follower.  A
> good leader always knows how to "serve" his/her people; s/he is a great
> "servant."  That means, s/he automatically knows how to be a good follower.
> True "leadership" is really "servant/leadership."
>
> --
> Tran Dinh Hoanh, LLB, JD
> Attorney of Law
> Washington DC
>



-- 
Tran Dinh Hoanh, LLB, JD
Attorney of Law
Washington DC
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