Dr. King: A Leader and His Values
Today, in honor of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we join the nation in celebrating the legacy of his leadership. We share the following excerpts from previous posts reflecting on the strength and conviction of the values Dr. King lived by and died for.
As We Value, So We Lead
A leader will find it difficult to articulate a coherent vision unless it expresses his core values, his basic identity...one must first embark on the formidable journey of self-discovery in order to create a vision with authentic soul.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
There are many effective models that can shape and form our leadership style—conscious, transformational, adaptive, servant—all manner of approaches to bring out the best leader in us, yet no advantage can be gained from any leadership model if there are no sustaining values. Where we sometimes fall short is not behaving in a way that upholds our values.
Richard Barrett, author of Building a Values-Driven Organization, defines values-based leadership as "... a way of making authentic decisions that builds the trust and commitment of employees and customers." He says that leaders who are attuned to their core values: 1) make better choices that are comfortable for them to act on; 2) are likely to build better, more trusting, less stressful relationships with followers; and 3) are more likely to feel aligned with their 'authentic self'.
An organization’s culture is a reflection of its leader’s values. The values we hold deeply guide our behavior toward a new set of possible actions. Leaders should draw on their own and their followers' values for direction, inspiration and motivation. Clarity about your core values is essential to becoming the most effective leader you can be.
My friends, all I’m trying to say is that if we are to go forward today, we’ve got to go back and rediscover some mighty precious values that we’ve left behind. That’s the only way that we would be able to make of our world a better world.
—Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr. King’s Core Values
As seen above, knowing your core values is crucial to becoming a mature adult and effective leader. Today we celebrate a holiday in honor of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Think for a moment: what were Dr. King’s core values? Another angle on core values is what theologian Paul Tillich called “matters of ultimate concern.”
Many of the conflicts tearing apart the fabric of American society today could be better managed if leaders of the warring groups understood and honored the matters of ultimate concern they actually share in common with the leaders of their opponents.
The following quotes, shared in honor of Dr. King’s legacy and living memory, point to his core values, transcendent spiritual insights from the Black American religious heritage he derived from, higher octaves of possibility for the nation whose promise he died for:
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”
Love is creative and redemptive. Love builds up and unites; hate tears down and destroys. The aftermath of the ‘fight with fire’ method which you suggest is bitterness and chaos, the aftermath of the love method is reconciliation and creation of the beloved community. Physical force can repress, restrain, coerce, destroy, but it cannot create and organize anything permanent; only love can do that. Yes, love—which means understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill, even for one’s enemies—is the solution to the race problem.
“Everybody can be great … because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.
“I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.”
In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
“Our goal is to create a beloved community—this will require a qualitative change in our souls. as well as a quantitative change in our lives.”
