Posted on Jul 20, 2015
The Standard of Leadership - Do you consider it a critical factor in protecting people and preserving personal freedom?
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ENTIRE POST AND ARTICLE IS INCLUDED BELOW!
The Standard of Leadership
By Curtis K. Chocholous
World history abounds with lessons in leadership. We have an abundance of causation evidence of the rise and fall of nations throughout the millenniums of recorded time on earth. We can read of great triumph and success and dismal error and failure. Every great societal success and failure can be directly traced and linked to vigilant maintenance or permissive deterioration of standards, respectively.
REASONS FOR HUMAN ERROR
The Military Academy of West Point cited four major reasons for human error:
1. Standards are unclear, impractical or nonexistent: Standards Failure
2. Standards exist, but are not known or ways to achieve them are not known: Training Failure
3. Standards are known, but not enforced: Leadership Failure
4. Standards are known, but are not followed: Individual Failure
Reasons 1, 2 and 3 can be viewed and debated as Leadership Failures. Reason 4 appears to highlight a fact of human nature that people have an innate and compelling tendency to drift outside the safety and protection of well-meaning boundaries. Parents who have reared children quickly develop intuitive instincts regarding such behavioral patterns. Sadly, some children fail to leave their child-like behaviors behind well into their years of adulthood – a consequence that is often rooted in these reasons for human error.
ESTABLISHING & MAINTAINING HIGH STANDARDS
The key, or operative word within each reason for human error is ‘Standards.’ Without an appropriate Standard we have nothing to unify or measure against. A Standard can be defined as a rule or principle that is used as a basis for comparison and judgment. Morals, ethics and values define a society and resulting behaviors become evidence by which leaders should be evaluated and held accountable.
Great leaders understand the vital connection between human nature and a lack of standards. They know the world is not going to end when we fail or make an error. The Declaration of Independence teaches us, “That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among them are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Clearly, it is impossible to secure these rights without Standards and nations that have lessened, ignored or abandoned their Standards have suffered great decline or perished.
DEVOLUTION OF STANDARDS
Alexander Fraser Tytler in his book entitled, The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic wrote, “The world’s greatest civilizations have all progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back into bondage.”
Every society, community and organization rises and falls based upon its cultural standards and the character, competence and courage of its leaders to uphold them.
The Standard of Leadership is the most critical factor in protecting people and preserving personal freedom. It is where accountability and grace meet and good success and prosperity sustained.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/standard-leadership-curtis-k-chocholous?trk=hp-feed-article-title-channel-add
The Standard of Leadership
By Curtis K. Chocholous
World history abounds with lessons in leadership. We have an abundance of causation evidence of the rise and fall of nations throughout the millenniums of recorded time on earth. We can read of great triumph and success and dismal error and failure. Every great societal success and failure can be directly traced and linked to vigilant maintenance or permissive deterioration of standards, respectively.
REASONS FOR HUMAN ERROR
The Military Academy of West Point cited four major reasons for human error:
1. Standards are unclear, impractical or nonexistent: Standards Failure
2. Standards exist, but are not known or ways to achieve them are not known: Training Failure
3. Standards are known, but not enforced: Leadership Failure
4. Standards are known, but are not followed: Individual Failure
Reasons 1, 2 and 3 can be viewed and debated as Leadership Failures. Reason 4 appears to highlight a fact of human nature that people have an innate and compelling tendency to drift outside the safety and protection of well-meaning boundaries. Parents who have reared children quickly develop intuitive instincts regarding such behavioral patterns. Sadly, some children fail to leave their child-like behaviors behind well into their years of adulthood – a consequence that is often rooted in these reasons for human error.
ESTABLISHING & MAINTAINING HIGH STANDARDS
The key, or operative word within each reason for human error is ‘Standards.’ Without an appropriate Standard we have nothing to unify or measure against. A Standard can be defined as a rule or principle that is used as a basis for comparison and judgment. Morals, ethics and values define a society and resulting behaviors become evidence by which leaders should be evaluated and held accountable.
Great leaders understand the vital connection between human nature and a lack of standards. They know the world is not going to end when we fail or make an error. The Declaration of Independence teaches us, “That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among them are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Clearly, it is impossible to secure these rights without Standards and nations that have lessened, ignored or abandoned their Standards have suffered great decline or perished.
DEVOLUTION OF STANDARDS
Alexander Fraser Tytler in his book entitled, The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic wrote, “The world’s greatest civilizations have all progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back into bondage.”
Every society, community and organization rises and falls based upon its cultural standards and the character, competence and courage of its leaders to uphold them.
The Standard of Leadership is the most critical factor in protecting people and preserving personal freedom. It is where accountability and grace meet and good success and prosperity sustained.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/standard-leadership-curtis-k-chocholous?trk=hp-feed-article-title-channel-add
Leader
Leadership
Leadership Development
Standards
Edited >1 y ago
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 14
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Great article and so disturbing all at the same time. If we look quantitatively at where the U.S. is right now, I would say we are on the edge of slipping from dependency back into bondage? The understanding or definition of “Standards” has never changed for me. Bing the best, setting the bar higher and higher was engrained into me by those Drill Sargent’s so many years ago. Even before that my father imparted into me the same before I ever dawned a uniform. Unfortunate, that is not the state of affairs in our society, military or even our own government any longer. In establishing and maintaining a “standard” I believe they are present. Through the strictness of decisions, they have been established and exist. They have been enforced throughout time. I believe in our current state of affairs, they are ignored or mitigated regularly. Our Military is commanded by Civilians structure who have great influence over published regulations and standards of conduct, procedures, ethics and measures of performance. Because we have seen a societal breakdown (legal genocide, loss of values, shift in definitions related to family, marriage, value, ethics Etc…). I believe these have direct impact to everything we know. This is not in keeping with the current talking points and may find un-favor here, but when was speaking the truth ever easy! And if you are taking notes, I am not about the easy wrong over the hard right decisions...
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COL Mikel J. Burroughs
LTC (Join to see) I don't find any anything unfavorable with your comments. I was looking for agreement or disagreement and feedback. Great feedback and something we should be paying attention to from a leadership standpoint. A few of our RP members out here could be some of our future leaders facing these issues. Thanks for taking the time to elaborate and read the article!
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I believe that giving up standards, competence & character in favor of individualism & political correctness has led to a degradation of society. There is little that binds us together in the modern era and recent history shows that this will only get worse if the leadership of this country is not galvanized to effect positive change.
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We are all products of our previous leaders, mother, father teacher, etc... That being said each of us have different values and beliefs that provide us with our moral compass. As an enforcer of standards I believe all should adhere to the prescribed standards. I do see it as a critical factor.
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