Awhile back Wally Bock wrote what I think is a very important post about leadership that I want to share with you.

It’s something that you should keep in the forefront of your mind, especially during election season this year and every year.

Think about today’s leaders.

Be it Congress, the White House, governors, or politicians at any level.

How many of them would meet the Hickory leadership test?

How many corporate leaders? How many educational leaders? How many religious leaders?

Sadly, I doubt that even 1% would qualify, no matter how you grouped them.

I sincerely wish I was wrong.

At the very least, we deserve leaders who consider us of equal priority to themselves and not a (very) distant second — or lower.

Andrew Jackson and Leadership in Adversity

In January 1813, Andrew Jackson marched south from Tennessee with a force of 2000 to bolster the defense of New Orleans. When he got to Natchez, some 500 miles from home, he received orders to dismiss his troops.

The order was for him simply to dismiss the troops and turn over his supplies to General James Wilkinson. Apparently, Jackson’s men were expected to make their own way home and find ways to feed themselves. They were in hostile territory and, by then, over a hundred of Jackson’s men were ill. Fifty-six couldn’t even sit upright. Jackson turned over his supplies, as ordered, but he vowed to take all his men home.

The problem was that the expedition had only eleven wagons. When Dr. Samuel Hogg asked Jackson what he should do, Jackson replied simply, “You are not to leave a man on the ground.”

Hogg reminded Jackson that the wagons were already filled with the sick. There was no more room. Jackson’s solution was straightforward.

“Let some of the troops dismount. The officers must give up their horses. Not a man must be left behind.”

I can imagine Hogg screwing up his courage then. Jackson was known for a volatile temper. But he also had a horse. Hogg asked for Jackson’s horse for the sick. Jackson turned over the reins.

Jackson led the troops home, paying out of his own pocket for their provisions, and walking all of the five hundred miles. He laid out his thinking in a letter to Felix Grundy.

“I shall march them to Nashville or bury them with the honors of war. Should I die, I know they would bury me.”

Leadership is about accomplishing your mission and caring for your people. And how you do both speaks volumes about the kind of leader and person you are. Jackson’s actions are a stark contrast to “leaders” who put their welfare first.

This incident was the making of Jackson’s reputation as a general. During the march, his men started calling him “Hickory” because he was so tough. That became “Old Hickory,” the nickname he would carry for life.

Boss’s Bottom Line

What I love about this story is that Jackson did what he thought was the right thing, without much thought about the consequences or how things might look. At the time he chose to get all his men home, walking himself and paying for their food, he could not have known how things would play out later in his life. When you lead, we expect you to do the right thing, all the time, not just when it’s convenient or when it looks good.

Resources

Jon Meacham’s biography of Andrew Jackson, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, is a great biography, but it concentrates on Jackson the President and skips over most of his early life. If you want an overview of Jackson’s life, I recommend Robert Rimini’s one volume Life of Andrew Jackson.

Image credit: Three Star Leadership

I love the pithy, brilliant one-liners that have come down through history. The old ones usually specify ‘man’ or ‘men’, because in the era they were said women were ignored—but that doesn’t change their validity, value or applicability to both sexes.

I don’t know how old this Japanese saying is, but it certainly is true if you’re in the wrong corporate culture—“The nail that sticks up gets hammered.”

The same bosses who make free with the hammers often love consultants, but the problem with many of them is beautifully summed up by Colin Powell when he said, “Experts often possess more data than judgment.”

Cardinal Newman said that “A gentleman is one who never knowingly inflicts pain.” Assuming that is true, we have a hell of a lot of folks walking around, on and off Wall Street, who aren’t gentlemen

A similar truth was stated by Pascal when he said, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” Sadly, we have millions of cheerful folks from every religion around the world doing their damnedest more completely than ever before.

Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.” Does that mean that all those people doing something to to those who disagree with them are good people?

Sadly, the one that makes the most sense, and probably answers my previous question, is a true jewel from George Bernard Shaw, who said, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. All progress, therefore, depends upon the unreasonable man.”

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Last week Kristen King asked Should Religion Be Part of Your Brand? She said “I wish companies would keep their religious views to themselves…[it’s] unprofessional and it makes me angry.”

It makes me more than angry.

Kristen used Covenant Transport and a design element on their truck that says “It Is Not A Choice It Is A Child” as her example (read her post, I’m not going to repeat it all here).

One of the comments said, “To try to dictate that I should not stand up for the rights of human beings is tyrannical… Would you want to work with a practicing Murder?”

But as Kristen says, “Morality and ethics according to whom?”

Last year in Are ethical values set or fluid? I said “Universally, murder has always been considered bad, but what constitutes murder is ever changing.”

For centuries killing your wife was considered bad taste, but since she was property it wasn’t a crime; certainly killing your slave wasn’t murder in ancient times and in the pre-Civil War days it depended on where you lived and what you believed.

The Army of God thinks it’s OK to bomb abortion clinics and kill the staff, while Osama bin Laden wants to kill “infidels.”

Religion, like sex, used to be private. Now it is evangelized, advertised and promoted the same way as any other commercial product.

But commercial products don’t vilify you for not buying them.

As I said in my comment, “I am so tired of having almost every person I meet explain to me why
1. I’m a horrible person because I don’t have “the true faith” and will go to Hell.
2. The only true faith is their version and if I don’t switch I’ll go to Hell.
3. They’ll pray for me.
I find number three the most insulting, since it dismisses everything else and assumes their superiority.”

Some defend religion in business as nitch marketing, but where is the line drawn? I’ve been on the receiving end when a “Christian” business owner found out that I didn’t share his beliefs. Fortunately, the court didn’t agree that the differences were an acceptable reason for violating a contract.

There may be valid reasons to mention religion, such as Hebrew National (mentioned by one commenter), but Hebrew National doesn’t spend its money lobbying to make kosher the law of the land.

I passionately subscribe to S.G. Tallentyre’s (not Voltaire) statement, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” only I don’t disapprove, I just disagree.

What I disapprove of is the effort to cram it down my throat; to claim that YOUR morality, YOUR judgments, YOUR beliefs are CORRECT and should color every decision I make or become the law of the land.

What do YOU think?

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