Loyalty

John Minford, #SunTzu 9: 52 "Discipline troops before they are loyal, and they will be refractory and hard to put to good use. Let loyal troops go undisciplined, and they will be altogether useless."

I've made both mistakes, over and over again. I am fierce when I shouldn't be, and soft when I shouldn't be, and I foolishly oscillate between them. I've confessed for decades that I suck at leadership. And yet, the older I grow, the more leadership is demanded of me.

I had a great joy, last night. I was on @JohnBWellsCTM show, and we spent a fair amount of time discussing how we have destroyed - how we have allowed the Alinsky curriculum into - our educations system. My interview starts about at 1:30:

Consider the classroom of today. Are the children or teenagers loyal to their teachers, to their school, their community or nation? Obviously not, that is 100% NOT the goal of education today. Yet, we weakly attempt to discipline them with no basis of loyalty at all.

It should be most obvious that in reality we allow the students to go undisciplined, and this ensures their uselessness altogether. Point, painful, sad point to Master Sun.

In my youth, I was a tutor in a program in a dicey part of town. It was a remedial program for high school students, and I was a pretty good tutor. The program found it needed more than just tutors, though. It needed people to lead the after-hours class and I was promoted.

Understand, my $5 per hour pay did not increase. It was just a promotion from tutor to instructor, which only meant I now had responsibility for the class itself, not just this or that student I was attempting to help. And, I almost got fired immediately.

My first error was natural, I enjoy working with people one-on-one. I love the light that shines from new understanding behind the eyes. It's always been my motivator. So, of course I just kept working with individuals and let the class itself run a bit wild.

The second aspect was a bit more, well, nuanced. I was only 20 years old, and the girls were aged 15 - 18. Obviously, I spent more time with the girls than the boys. The nuance is that the boys were jealous of me, a bit, and all much bigger, stronger, and meaner than me.

What I didn't realize, although I had no problem admitting they intimidated me with their attitude and physical presence, was that they wanted and needed my help every bit as much as the pretty girls did. And, they needed me to run the class, properly.

When my boss called me into his office to speak with me, he kindly but sternly informed me that while I was the best tutor they'd ever hired, he might have to fire me. He sure got my attention. He told me my real problem. I wanted to be popular with everyone, even the boys.

I was humble enough to instantly come to full attention. After thinking it through, I shared my fear of confrontation with the boys who could all easily pound me into the ground if they decided to. He smiled, and told me he was hoping I'd ask him about that.

The answer was the heart of simplicity. He explained that no student had the right to be in the program, and they all wanted to be. All I needed to do was inform the boys that their boisterous, challenging behavior was not conducive to the purpose of the program and had to stop.

The only power I required, he told me, was the knowledge that I could write up bad behavior as a report. Once would get a speaking to. Twice would get a warning. And upon my 3rd write up, the student would be expelled from the program. Funny, I had no idea of that beforehand.

My boss was a brilliant chess player and had seen all these moves from the moment he gave me the promotion. In fact, I came to believe he gave me the promotion more for my benefit than anyone else's. He knew I needed to learn to let go of my quest for approval.

Of course, he also knew that I was headed for trouble if he didn't make me enjoy my time with the girls a little bit less. It's not easy for a 20-year-old to walk away from a high school girl's infatuation, you know? But my boss got through to me, and I've always been grateful.

As you probably anticipated, I stopped being too nice, and with my boss's help, did not become too fierce, either. I haven't had many fabulous bosses in life, maybe only one other. But what an incredible mark of benefit they leave.

As we turn to the #100kMAGATeams, we must 100% embrace Master Sun's guidance about Command and Discipline. Let's talk about that a bit in closing, today. Sure, I was my classroom's leader, but if I wasn't able to follow my boss, I'd have failed. I was his honored follower.

At my website, I offer two articles on this topic. The first is about leadership, and I hope you'll find it worthy. The second is about followership, and please contemplate its title: A Proud Follower's Ambition.

The very hardest part of leadership is the ability to end participation with followers who find no pride in following. There is only one way this can occur. If you're a leader, you must have the strength to do so, of course, but you must also mast the art of recruiting.

When, as in Master Sun's counsel today, you discover that you've been too fierce in discipline, expecting loyalty before you've earned it, you must confess and improve. But if you allow loyal followers to go undisciplined, you'll destroy all usefulness in your endeavor.

You must, on the other hand, accept your own imperfection. There are no perfect leaders. You will not be the first. After you discover your failures, and if you've lost the followership of your followers, you must replace them. That means recruiting. You must recruit.

As we delve tomorrow's verse, we'll discuss the glory of followership more. What does it mean to win the confidence of your troops? Are you able to discipline others, at all? Can you subordinate your ego to the mission so you can actually lead, no matter what it takes?

280 verses completed, 176 to go. To return to previous sections in our #WarForAmerica2020 and #SunTzuForMAGA series, don't forget to head over to @WarForAmerica21. You'll find the digital table of contents for this series, there. Please retweet each entry you enjoy.