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Leadership Principles of the Warrior - Series Two – Being a Leader

By Randy Gonzalez

From an earlier work, entitled Leadership Principles of the Warrior, those aspects ascribe
relevance to being a leader of such quality and character as to suggest the essentiality of an
extraordinary and exceptional maturity. By extension, the intention is the expression of a higher
plane of neural instigation, to the extent necessary to self-evolve beyond the mundane, the
normal, and the commonplace. Individually and fundamentally, it is difficult to lead a cavalry
charge for the sanctification of any cause, if you’re afraid of horses.
And as well, if you’re too immature, too self-absorbed, or fearfully seduced by your
cowardice, then you’ll be unable to muster the forces necessary for higher ascendency. To be
grown up, mature and assert evolutionary revolution of one’s inner powers reflects the potency
of personal distinction. There are no wining, sniveling malcontents, acting like crybabies among
the elite ranks of leaders. That is to say, true leaders in the martial tradition, reflecting the noble
attributes of the highest order as in the historicity of the knight or the samurai warrior. As many
will misread or otherwise misinterpret the metaphorical implications, so be it. Leadership in the
warfare of life dealing with the inevitability of death transcends many societal statuses.
In connection with this, most people aren’t interested in their assertion of freedom for the
liberation of their minds. They’d rather accept at faceless value that of someone else. Instead, for
most the preferred inclination proclaims stupidity or foolishness, as in juvenile kinds of behavior.
That’s because to be willing to lead in the individual arena, in which one finds oneself, requires
responsibility. To be responsible invokes the terrors of accountability. Illusions of superficiality
in the pretext of social intercourse conjure manifestations for myth and magic disguised as
doctrine for the dogma of some mystical belief system.
As such, the leader is potentially indifferent, perhaps even skeptical, in dealing with those
who refuse to enact their personal persistence toward sensible states of maturity. For those in an
official capacity, who exercise authority over others, each must evolve a reasoned, intelligent and
responsible reliability of trustworthiness. Appeals to emotionalism, fallacies of inference, hastily
assumed conclusions, and idiocy of rhetorical hyperbole, are not leaders. You find them among
politicians, significant numbers of the general public, and the news media. Not so with you
however, who hold yourselves out to be among the leader class. Leaders live by their time tested
and years worn ethical attributes that adjusted for growth and insight.
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Additionally, the individual who wants to be a leader must be of humble spirit, transforming
wisdom, evolving mindset and a servant character of discipline and seasoned rationality. Being a
leader, as defined for instance by the U.S. Army, suggests three basic aspects of leadership: the
truth of being, the wisdom of knowing and the heroism of doing. Becoming a leader, as a
servant warrior, is a demonstration of something really and truly unique and foreign to most
others. Sometimes it is humanly very difficult. A self-evolving leader is characterized by a life
of obedience to realistic precepts, and unassuming character of service to others.
Arrogance is not among the arrows in the quiver of the spiritual warrior, or along the bladed
edge of the sword in obedient service to well-differentiated leadership principles. And, we dare
not forget, that being alive and active in the surrounding landscape, means one becomes a leader
through the tests and trials of life and the experiences that accompany it. While pen and sword
are of one accord, there times for peace and times for war. Pleasures are not truly appreciated
without the painfulness of lessons to be learned. There are no easy steps, no simplistic answers,
and no shortcuts. Sooner or later you’re going to get cut. For that, you must be alert and vigilant
to the vagaries of deception among most people. Don’t be afraid to be skeptical.
No doubt, it is not easy to become or be a leader. There is much responsibility and
accountability associated with leadership. To be a leader, in the essence of “being”, is to express
without hesitation the courage to exhibit the authenticity of who you really are. You must be
willing to risk it all, face criticism and confront your detractors. Do you know who you really are
and what your calling is? Leaders must examine themselves and their relationship against the
delicate balance of what you believe. And, you must be willing to have those beliefs tested in
varied trials by combat with the world. Serious introspection and self-analysis is vital.
Of the essential ingredients in the quest to know, do and be, comes the acknowledgement that
your reality is tainted by your perceptions. Cognitive bias clouds the ability to freely observe the
fullness of the diverse fields of engagement. These might be erroneous and personal checkups
are necessary. None the less, absent the arrogance of egoistic self-gratification, you must have
the courage of your convictions, regardless of the risks, to lead in a forthright manner. So, get
your mind, in other words your “own house” in order, be satisfied with what you have, and ask
nothing of anyone. Living simply means you can walk away at any time without remorse or
regret. You can’t look back and neither can you live in the past. Whatever glories you perceived
by your own illusions, simply aren’t there anymore. Everything dies eventually.
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Leaders must be an inspiration to others. They must feel confident in what they see in their
leader’s capabilities. The leadership vision of what they are doing and where they are going
must provide the basis by which followers willingly follow. This means that leaders must be
good at organizing, directing, controlling, confronting, planning, communicating and a number
of other essential managerial tasks. Strategy, as in the way of the samurai warrior, is crucial to
the mission of the leader. Effective strategy helps get things done according to a timeline.
Success or failure hinges on the ability to get things done effectively, efficiently and on schedule.
Your leadership strategy must be supported by the courage and inner strength of your own belief
system. You cannot accept an ideology at face value, without testing the truth of it.
So, a leader's courage must be strong in moving people in an organization to challenging
heights of significant progression. Leadership requires the development of leader lead team
spirit, or, as it is sometimes called – the daring nature of "esprit de corps". It is important that
the leader organize and energize her or his team, in order to get things done. As a leader, you
must reinforce the notion in yourself and others that mind, body and spiritual power comes from
a sober reality from within. It is of your divine nature that counts. Effective leaders who are
spiritually strong remove barriers to communication, confront discord and dissent head-on, train
followers to do their jobs effectively with competent efficiency, keep the groups focused on the
mission, and help people grow and mature with less and less negativity.
Leadership is not salesmanship, or management or supervision. It is entirely something else.
It is about superior qualities and virtues. Neither is it about querulous or complaining
unconstructiveness about the state of things in the group, the organization or the community.
Leaders meet negative tendencies with positive contingencies. It is about taking charge and being
in command with hesitance to do so. A leader knows that he or she can do all things through the
power of her or his self-confidence. The tasks of leadership become challenging in confrontation
with acts of immaturity, selfishness and intentional ignorance.
Leaders must conduct a daily walk with the search for inner truthfulness for the changing
necessity of self-transformation. They are not afraid of their rationality, the application of logical
deduction and provability of facts over fictions. They deal in facts and abhor the illogic of
emotionalism for the sake of immediate gratification. Above all, they do not shrink from
accountability or responsibility and fess up when miscalculations are made. When called to
serve, they do not hesitate, nor do they abdicate their role as a leader.
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Leaders express positive manly or womanly qualities that reflect security in their evolving
personhood, in spite of worldly disapproval to the contrary. They work hard to make sure their
ego is under control and they act with humility and humanity. In becoming a good leader, she or
he sometimes falters even when she or he thinks they are doing their best. In our growth and
maturity efforts to seek perfection, we occasionally fall short. And yet, we pull ourselves up and
get moving once again. As humans, trapped for a time in this mortal body in the earthly realm,
we stand in physical separation from an unknown eternity we cannot discern.
In response, we assert our fortitude, frugality and valor to be unafraid of each step toward that
eventual finality. We know all things must end at some point in our present time-space
conceptions of life and the mysteries of death. As such, it goes without saying, but is said any
way, time is of the essence for this dimensional existence, and there is precious little of it. So
much more so, that a leader presses on and is not intimidated by his or her mistakes and accepts
the consequences of all actions. Good or bad, you will sooner or later disturb someone’s sense
of self-gratification in their blissful ignorance for personal regression.
By progressive necessity for enhanced maturation of neural enlightenment and distinction in
liberation, a leader’s belief system must evolve. Forthright perseverance against the
“zombification of the human species, as it regresses into devolution, the leader has to continue
onward in spite of spiraling stupidity. That is to say, she or he must transform to the highest level
possible, regardless of those around him or her, and which does not mean necessarily formalized
educational processes. But more so, the educational experience of life and that deals with
deathfulness, which takes years in the drive toward the summit of insightful transcendence.
With the maturity of thinking, we come to understand the elemental importance of making
effective logical assessments of people, places and properties within our surrounding spectrum.
You ought to evolve to a healthy perspective on human nature and accept the adversity people
often provoke. If you’re different, independent and nonconforming, you invite opposition by
your presence. Most people are afraid of life, let fear rule them, and feel threatened when things
do not fit a simplistic view of the world. One aspect of the possibility is to accept the fact that
most people, including those you command, refuse to change very much. Thus, humans can be
seen as devolving, metaphorically a “zombification”, and the organic progeny of a species that
may have long since vanished from planet. Whatever illusions make you salivate intellectually,
then so be it, your beliefs are exactly that, your believability, but not someone else’s.
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All materiality is but vanishing vanity in the long run, and you must decide what is or is not
of relative necessity. In our calling to leadership, as disciplines of a “warrior class”, you cannot
afford the luxury of unsophisticated and naïve forms of thinking. Logic is your blade, facts are
the razor’s edge of that reality, and reason is the fortitude of your strategy. Emotionalism is the
fleeting moment of glimpse to something that soon disappears. No, you are much more than that,
because you claim a title connected to that which is perceived as leadership. In these times, as
long since before, we cannot be timid or hesitant.
Leadership is a dramatic transformation to be “born again” with heroic sagacity. It began at
the very moment we accepted and confessed to ourselves, and embraced the ideation as having
leadership potential. From that point on, we became disciples of a special pathway for which no
other chooses to take. As a leader, we have been called to be responsible for others. There are
many mission fields in which followers are called to be leaders in business and commerce,
government and community service. The conceptualization of the basic equation, leadership
equals maturation, means accepting the calling for strenuous training, discipline, devotion and
commitment to grow individually toward and beyond self-actualization.
The behavior exhibited by the leader is observed and interpreted by the followers. This
creates a strange mix of human interpersonal reactions. But, reactivity you don’t need. When
people react they are usually thinking with their feelings in the depths of cognitive bias. For the
sake of subjectivity in order receive the comfort of validation; emotions stimulate the myriad
fallacies of inference. What you need is responsiveness in intelligence, factual and
knowledgeable advisability. From decision making to action plan, the exhibition of proper
qualities, such as courage, persuasion, authority and implementation are important within the
area of human behavior. Anyone can criticize, but few actually analyze.
The ability to be assertive, and, when necessary, aggressive, are relevant aspects of competent
leadership. Often, what followers perceive in their "leaders", is what leaders get in return from
their followers. Leadership perceived, many times, is leadership received. Leadership should
reflect a sense of freedom in knowing that you have been called to a higher service. We should
be audacious in our independence from fixed legalistic rules, rigid worldly beliefs, inflexible
notions about ideologies and unrealistic dogmas perpetrated by misguided toxic "leaders". In
order to succeed, we must make every effort to overcome our inner being that clings desperately
to selfishness and egocentric inclinations, as well as the glorification of material things.
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It is important that one bear in mind his and her necessity to keep things in proper
perspective, control emotional over-reactivity, and remain patient in understanding, especially
when dealing with people. You have to work hard to be at peace within yourself. Often a leader
faces situations where decisions must be made and there is no possible way, in the natural sense,
to receive all the facts or information needed. To make the right decision or to give the proper
advice, or reinforce positive behaviors, sometimes is based on limited information sources.
None the less, you still make your decisions with confidence.
Developing the "warrior spirit" is a journey in productive progression supported by personal
differentiation. Old habits have to be given up, and that is difficult. But, the leader must be
careful with regard to the external influences of the world, and evolve as a better version of the
original. The ability to be a good leader must be cultivated by clear and focused meditations on
the right things to do in diverse situations and encounters with others. It must be understood that
we are involved in psycho-physical-spiritual warfare within ourselves in this earthly realm.
Leadership thinking is above the normal range of collectivist communal ideation. Whereas
normalcy might be viewed as basic “survival” needs, in terms of one’s next “happy meal” for
immediate gratification, a leader’s ideation is beyond that. It is differentiated in a
multidimensional framework that involves wakefulness and sleep state processes. And inside this
psychic structure, dreams become necessary connections to the awakened state of individual
experience. By understanding and developing this interactivity, we generate the capacity for our
separated oneness from the surrounding emotional distractions of mediocrity.
By living the separateness of intellectual distinction, we work diligently to instill uniqueness
in the clarity of personal principles and visionary awareness. As precepts transform over time,
experience and expertise, an individual ought to be willing to assert one’s will, and freely
diverge in the exposure of his or her authentic perspectives. Reactionary and envious opposition
can be expected from the unexpected, as people can be negatively critical and foolishly ugly.
Never underestimate the undermining efforts of subordinates for any selfish purposes. If you are
willing to speak out, act differently and be daring in your action, you will be confronted. And
yet, confrontation is potentially instructional in order to test our beliefs. Persistence in moving
onward with confidence becomes critical to personal ascension. Self-regulation through
consistent introspection is crucial to monitoring the balance between feelings and rationality.
Self-knowledge for the sake of self-control promoted the leader’s transformation.