[May 28, 2017] Many of my commanders in the U.S. Army were among the best this nation ever had to offer but it also included a few of the worst. My first company commander was a man with many faults, one of which was that he often chose to ignore the consequences of his own actions. Ignoring consequences is the by-product of willful ignorance.
“We are free to choose but we are not free from the consequences of our choices.” – Stephen Covey, American educator and businessman
Like my experience with a military narcissist in an earlier post, those who put themselves above others – often with a smug, arrogant, and overconfident persona – are also those who likely overlook the consequences of their actions. To most of us it looks as if they try to exempt themselves from the rules everyone else has to follow.
While it may seem that every politician falls into this role of ignoring what their actions bring upon themselves and others, that is not always the case; fortunately. All are tarnished with the same broad brush stokes because a few have stood out in the most negative fashion and made it their way of business to think of themselves as someone above the common man on the street.
Yet, I see this more frequently in younger adults than those older, more experienced politician. Some have suggested that life’s experiences make for a better set of skills. But I think it is more. I believe that there are those who, for whatever reason, will always be better at accepting the consequences of their actions and while upbringing is a factor, the specific moral lessons they have encountered are what truly matter.
Morality is at the heart of how we act (or do not act) in any given situation. I’ve found that to truly see what a person is like, observe them under pressure. My company commander was notorious for ignoring what happened after he made a decision under stress; in his own words, he’d “moved on.” This was not a matter of intellectual laziness but of not caring at all for his soldiers … caring only for himself.
Whether it be the classic narcissist, the inexperienced junior leader, or an uncaring friend or family member, when consequences are ignored, everyone suffers from the same fate. This is why senior leaders must educate themselves in recognizing those who fall under this rubric of dysfunction and either remove them from their leadership position or place them where their actions have little effect on others.
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