I am a man
it takes an entire village to raise a man
Courageous Leadership
The other day our General Manager (I am not sure if she would want me to name her) carried a bouquet of flowers through the office. As I do, I said, “I have never seen any man in the company ever given flowers”.
That was kind of silly because I am actually, possibly the only man that the company has given flowers to, 7 years ago when I was in hospital. I had forgotten about that at the time.
A few hours later, the GM re-appeared, this time carrying a bunch of red Gerberas, one for each male member of the team. Attached to each flower a personal note of gratitude for the unique gift that the member of staff brought to the company.
This was stunning, perhaps the most courageous piece of management that I have ever witnessed. An example, a story that I will hold to for a very long time.
As I write this bog, on the wall in front of me here at home, I have posters of Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly Checklist For Giving Engaged Feedback and her Daring Leadership Manifesto (find them here: https://brenebrown.com/downloads/)
From these posters, I paraphrase some of the most pertinent and my favourite statements:
We want to take risks, embrace our vulnerabilities and be courageous
We ask that you engage with us, show up beside us
We ask that you show up, let yourself be seen and be courageous. Dare greatly with us.
Model the vulnerability and openness that you expect to see from us.
This was an example of truely daring leadership.
But maybe even more fascinating to me was the re-action of the men recieving the flowers. The awkwardness, in some cases the suspicion. Men struggling to know, to understand what this act of apparent love, of caring and of kindness meant. How to re-act and how to even say thank you.
We have so much to learn. Not only could many men learn from their female leaders and peers how to be vulnerable, we could also learn a great deal about true courage.
The reconciliation of the genders
I have been deliberately quiet here for a long time. I needed to stop and to listen.
I heard a whisper, the faint sound of change. The faint sound of resolution. And when I was silent, then I heard it. It was there, it is there: acceptance and forgiveness.
And that is when I began to recognise a familiar pattern to what was happening in this whole feminism / masculinity debate. This awakening.
It is the stages of grief, 5 or 7 it doesnt really matter:
- Shock
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Testing
- Acceptance
It turns out that this is how some many of these things happen. They follow the sequence. We need to go through each stage before we can move onto another and that is why I am so hopeful about this whole gender role discussion that the world is having.
Sure, it got ugly at times and it will get ugly again, but eventually we will find forgiveness and acceptance.
We will have done the bargaining and the jostling and the testing and we will redefine how the genders work. We will know so much more than we knew when we began and we will learn to love again.
I have faith in humanity. We will reconcile our differences. We always have done, always do, eventually.
In the meantime lets just keep on talking. No more denial, no more anger and no more blame.
Photo by Vera Arsic on Pexels.com
Its hard to imagine that any toddler boy would aspire to a life of abuse and addiction. That he might want to grow up to become a rapist or a murderer.
But it happens.
What must change?
What must we change?
What should you change?
What can I change?
I can change.
Photo by Emir Kaan Okutan on Pexels.com
Have a ‘good’ day
I have struggled with this post for a very long time. You see the more I discuss issues around masculinity, the more I read, write and listen. The more I observe the feminist movement. Whether it be racism, sexism, oppression, political ideal, religion or any other cause, I have become convinced that we humans really have no idea of what we are doing. We simply do not understand human nature enough to be able to put things right without having an adverse impact on others and we probably never will.
At the very least a fight will create a new divide among us, between us. A new category of people to blame, persecute or fight for.
Worst of all because of the very human nature that we share, history has shown that the very act of taking up a cause will corrupt us.
It requires that we take on a fight that we simply must win. But to what lengths are we willing to go in order to ensure victory? How far are we willing to push the boundaries of our moral being? Are we willing to make such a sacrifice that we will willing violate our own values in the name of the cause?
What price is too great to pay?
Fighting for a cause requires that we see the bad in others. That they be wrong in order that we be right.
And what about fame? In order to fight for our cause we must ensure that we get noticed. It is all a part of the fight. Some among us are willing to give up our privacy our personal freedoms in the name of a cause but how many of us are truly immune to the corruptions of fame?
So, if the issues are too vast for us to comprehend let alone deal with and our very nature as humans makes us almost certainly corruptible, how are we to ensure fairness for all human beings?
Goodness. Focus only on being good to all people. Focus on doing good things, small things. Understand that we are not just inherently good, that we are also inherently bad. We are corruptible and given to pride. Being good requires a constant effort to do good things, to think good thoughts. But we cannot be good to others until we agree to be good to ourselves.
Work at bringing out the human goodness in yourself and you will become good to others. They in turn will be good to you.
It is time to give up the fight. Fights are divisive. We are all humans. We have all been wronged, we have all done wrong.
Forgive yourself and have a good day. It requires just a little effort.
I wish you happiness!
I am a man 