October 2015 Leadership Reflection

Leadership Reflection for October 2015:

The Qualities of a Leader

          Much ink and manifold pixels have been spilled by authors who have sought to describe the personal qualities that characterize great leaders. In verse and prose, writers throughout the centuries have provided us with much food for thought on this subject, but I have found no better guide to leadership than the following poem – one of my mother’s all-time favorites – which is often recited at commencement exercises and other coming-of-age ceremonies throughout the world. Its list of leadership qualities (resiliency, perseverance, courage, prudence, and so forth) reads like a poetical job description and reminds me of the ideals that my family and my teachers instilled in me during my elementary, middle, and high school years.

          So now, without further delay, here it is (insert drumroll here, and cue the spotlight) – my favorite leadership poem of all time! :)

“If” (First Published in Rewards and Fairies, 1910)

By Nobel Laureate Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

1. If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

2. If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;

If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build them up with worn-out tools:

3. If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

4. If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son.