Don’t Put Yourself in This Position

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2:26Don't put yourself in this position. We take the job because it pays well. We take the job because it gets us closer to where we're trying to go. It gets us closer to the center of power. It's the opportunity we trained for, we worked a lifetime for. It's a job we're good at. It's a job that a lot of people and things depend on. But still, we have our reservations about the effect our industry has on the world, about the character of our boss, maybe about what that job is doing to us, our health, our family. It's a timeless situation. Our ambition writes checks that our conscience has to cash.

3:03Our drive keeps us busy, but in the quiet moments, doubt, concern creeps in. In her fascinating and must-read book Pontius Pilate, Anne Rowe, you can listen to her podcast here, she sets the scene back in the year 26. It is not hard to imagine dinner parties in Caesarea at which Pilate's guests visiting from Rome would regale him with the blood-soaked stories and sexual details that would make women cover their ears, she writes, while Pilate would listen in the awful sinking knowledge that this was the man to whom he owed his career, from whom he drew his authority and whose safety he prayed for.

3:41Doubtless, in some sense, he could disconnect the man from the office as people under any regime can close their eyes to the personal sins of their rulers. But there may have been times when he could not, when amidst the genteel litter of wine beakers, chicken bones, and roses, and clowns, the prefect of Judea would find himself suddenly sickened by the obscenity of his protector. This must have been the same sickening, creeping sense that Seneca had working for Nero. Perhaps in his own way, Stockdale had some sense of this, as the Nixon administration went on. And certainly General Mattis, a man of great integrity and discipline, would have felt this during his time as Secretary of Defense.

4:22But what we can't do, as Seneca did for too long, as Pilate did, is push away that feeling, just continue to go about our business. Because eventually, inexcusably, we become complicit. A leader stands up, steps up, or in other cases, walks away. That's leadership 101. How do you manage up and down? Also, how do you manage when to walk away, when to draw the line, when to do something that is in the interest of your country or your cause, but perhaps not in the interest of the organization or the institution or the company? I talk a lot about that in the Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge. We talk to some great leaders, generals in the Air Force, heads of sports franchises, leadership experts, all sorts of folks that I think you can learn a lot from.

5:11If you want to check it out, you can go to dailystoic.com slash leadership challenge or click the link in today's show notes. I think it's one of the best courses we've done over at Daily Stoic. I think you'll really like it. And do check out that Pontius Pilot book by Anne Rowe, just absolutely incredible.

5:37Thank you.