"With great power comes great responsibility". While popularized by Stan Lee in the Marvel Spider Man comics, the phrase can be traced back through the French Revolution to the fourth century BC in the allusion of the Sword of Damocles. While I have been making a case that leadership and power are not synonymous, the leadership lessons from this saying are incredibly important. Leaders are called to a standard that is and ought to be above the norm. Retired General Ann Dunwoody called it A Higher Standard:
“After managing nearly sixty-nine thousand employees, one thing is clear to me: there is a higher standard that provides the foundation upon which every effective leadership journey is built. It’s the difference between the leaders who excel and the leaders who fail. It’s their thought process, attention to detail, and execution that enables them to inspire and motivate their workforce to create and sustain high-performing, successful organizations.”
Character, honor, integrity, trust; call it what you will, is critical to effective leadership. Retired Lt. General Robert Caslen put it this way:
"Leaders who are competent in their field but who lack critical character traits such as integrity and honesty may be successful over the short run, but will ultimately fail."
Those who lack character will never become truly effective leaders. Character is to leadership as oxygen is to life. It is essential!
Excerpt From: Ann Dunwoody & Sheryl Sandberg. “A Higher Standard.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/a-higher-standard/id1209978179
Excerpt From: Robert L. Caslen & Michael D. Matthews. "The Character Edge: Leading and Winning with Integrity." St. Martin's Press, New York. p.2
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