Message from the Publisher

Constancy

The leader will never abandon his post. He will stay the course; he will sink with his ship. That’s what leaders are for, plain and simple. Walang iwanan. Marines never leave their dead buddies behind. Parents are our friends forever. Husbands and wives hold hands together till death do them part. We instinctively count on each other to be there for each other. That is constancy; and if we lose it, we lose hope ultimately.

Part of the respect we owe our leaders is due to their staying power amidst the seeming paradoxes of life. A leader is expected to have the fortitude and insights that transcend ordinary mortals, and rightly so. A genuine leader sources his energies from the spiritual. He believes in the Law of Obscurity: genuine sources of life lie hidden; they wait to be discovered.

Heroes in our epics are always accompanied by an animal or a muse; all of which point to the presence of the divine in their journeys and momentous struggles. The hero succeeds not simply because of his own physical prowess or mental acumen; he overcomes everything because he follows the lead of the gods. No wonder then that Greek plays are often characterized by deus ex macchina solutions, wherein an inescapable tragedy is surpassed through the direct intervention of the gods. Or is it human instinct telling us that the gods have been there all along?

The constancy of presence is premised on the constancy of character. The leader sees no need to compromise his principles and beliefs. He is assured by the presence of the divine, thus, he can walk through life with an unruffled heart. The community engages him in a productive relationship because they can more or less predict his behavior. He is a principle-based leader, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. This then is the primordial responsibility of the leader: to assure that the community walks along the timeless principles of the human spirit as reflections of the divine in their hearts. Everything else is strategy.

Thus, there is no room for fear in the servant’s heart. “In the old days, leaders were supposed to make sense out of chaos, to make certainty out of doubt, and to create positive action plans for the resolution of imponderable paradoxes. Good leaders straightened things out. But there’s the rub. Chaos is now considered normal, paradoxes cannot be resolved, and certainty is possible only to the level of high probability. Leadership that attempts to deliver in terms of fixing any of this can only fail. And that is exactly what is happening.“ [Harrison Owen, The Spirit of Leadership, 2. ]

Bereft of constancy, the community reverts to apathy. The servant leader ignites the sense of faith in the hearts of his people. Mystery begets awe, not fear. Paradoxes ignite wonder, not insecurity. Helplessness slows to a mere hump, not the end. Failures become teaching moments, not embarrassing episodes. The community is empowered.

But the present global environment is ambivalent. People have more control over their lives but timeless principles and bedrock beliefs sound so ephemeral as the next fashion trends or the new colored dies we pour on our hair. The uprightness of the human act is sodomized the tyranny of the concrete situation. If the anchor is lost, the ship will drift asunder. And that is what is happening.

“Manalig ka, Pinoy!” The servant leader lives the bedrock principles and values of his community. Our country hungers for these inspiring icons. Whatever happened to Juan dela Cruz? But the fact still remains: the Filipino is a gifted race! Now, try telling that to the ordinary man of the street.