Thoughts on Leadership

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I had an epiphany on Sunday. We were sitting in church and it was time for the service to begin. The organ started playing and the congregation began to sing. We didn’t sound too bad but I at least didn’t feel comfortable. The chorister wasn’t there. I have sung in other churches that don’t use choristers and I have the same feeling. I need guidance.

Then from out of the congregation, a volunteer walked to the front and by the second verse we had a chorister. I felt a quiet change in the congregation’s singing. We sounded more assured, more of a unit. We had a leader.

I think many of us human beings like to think someone is in charge. It gives us a feeling of direction.

What should you do if you’re a leader and one of your subordinates place you in a moral dilemma? Should you stay true to your values, or go along with the crowd?

What is your responsibility to your group as a leader?

As we look at the upcoming elections, what are we looking for in the offered leadership? Vote your conscience, but VOTE!

The Church's twelfth article of faith states, “We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.”

A Caring Community: Goodness in Action

By Elder Alexander B. Morrison

Of the Seveny

From an address to the Utah League of Cities and Towns on 21 January 1998.

A Caring Community:

“How our world would be transformed if the vast reservoir of goodness in individuals could somehow be focused and harnessed for the uplift and betterment of society as a whole. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said, “Somehow the world is hungry for goodness and recognizes it when it sees it. … There’s something in all of us that hungers after the good and true” (quoted in Parade magazine, 11 Jan. 1998). I agree: goodness is the attribute most needed and longed for not only in our individual lives but also in families, communities, states, and nations.

If we are to effectively foster and utilize the great goodness of the people around us, we must strengthen both our families and our communities. The family is without question the God-given primary vehicle for the development and expression of personal goodness. But we also live in communities. One dictionary defines community as “a body of people having common organizations or interests, or living in the same place under the same laws and regulations.” People are by nature social beings whose lives and feelings are eternally connected and intertwined with those of others. Almost invariably, individuals reach their full potential only in association and in community with others.

These words of John Adams, the second president of the United States, ring with special force: “Our Constitution was designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other” (Reply to the Massachusetts Militia, 11 Oct. 1789).

Some other thoughts on leadership.

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.

Peter F. Drucker

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

Dwight Eisenhower

A leader is a dealer in hope.

Napoleon Bonaparte

The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it.

Elaine Agather

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader? 
Benjamin Disraeli