Leadership on the Lam

Big Frank has been on the move lately and when one is moving matter, well then, matter takes precedence. As a result boxes were arranged and rearranged but words were not. While some may think that Big Frank is on the lam - not true; he's just moved. However speaking of "on the lam". What a great expression. It's also quite old with a kind of gangster connotation going back over one hundred years. Its origin goes back to the 16th century and stems from the Old English meaning of lam - "to beat". So as with 'beat it' so lam also has the allusion to leave, beating a path away.

One wouldn't think that someone "on the lam" would be capable of leadership. What are the implications of a leader who is not physically within the same context as those being led. In this present age where "global" becomes the recognized context that we all acknowledge, we all potentially could be leaders of any group. That is, the present technological aids to communication enable just about anyone anywhere to influence anyone else anywhere else. This is the productive capablity. Perhaps even more important is the receptive authority - the desire by the audience to be led by the person in exile. There are people who at times look only to the absent for leadership - looking to the person in exile - the leader on the lam.

There are situations where the audience - the followers - imbue a leader with even more potential power than that leader in fact claims. For example the Dalai Lama could have autocratic control over Tibetans if he wanted. Similarly Pope John Paul II during the 1980s in Poland could have been crowned king had he so desired. In these cases it is only the restraint of the leader that curtails their control of the self-captive group.

On the other hand there are examples where the leader in exile is in essence granted less real power by the target followers than the leader claims. Good examples of these are, for examaple the widow of the Shah of Iran between 1979 and 1980, Regent-in-exile Dowager Empress Shabanou Farah Pahlavi of Iran. Similarly Jaroslawa Stecko while living in Germany took over from her husband as President of the Ukrainian State between 1986 and 1991. Neither of these had much of any authority or audience among the group they claimed to lead.

Three of the above 4, all but the Pope, could be described as "Leaders on the Lam". These are leaders who are kicked out, replaced or banned from the group that they claim to lead. Yet they don't accpet that change. It's as though the president of a company would claim after having been fired to not accept the change in position. So, for example, the CEO of Exon could be fired, yet still calim to lead that company. This, as far as Big Frank knows, has never happened. Why is that? What is there about political and religious leadership that makes them less willing to reliquish control than in business or education. I think the answer is moral authority. When morality raises its head, it then can trump all others.

So what does this mean for the man in the street? How about the kid in the alley, or the grandma in the restaurant? This is something that Big Frank notes that few have been talking about lately. Perhaps its time to start the ball rolling. Leadership on the Lam - is it a good thing? Perhaps its time to examine this. With all the leadership training programs, leadership degrees, and leadership books, Big Frank throws Leadership on the Lam into the mix. There is a spiritual analogy both internally and externally that can be drawn on for precedence and for efficacy. The One who calls the shots - he/she who got this all started - that One initiated and then withdrew and all have been looking to that One for guidance ever since the withdrawal - typically dated as post Big Bang, but given that nobody really knows if that One was around prior to the Big Bang - or for that matter whether there even was a pre-Big Bang then we shall have to confine our speculation to the post-Big Bang era. So within the external spiritual world the Leader is viewed by many as being "On the Lam". And yet, the whole universal unit is working - and many would say that the kit and kaboodle is getting better and better - so the leader seems to be doing an OK job - I mean - this is some big organization to run and it is running - 13 billion years and counting. OK, what about the internal spiritual ones - divine spark within and all that. Here again it's "Leadership on the Lam" in that the vast majority of us are not enlightened and really not in control of what happens in our lives. Our minds think they are, and can spin very rational sounding explanations for why we do what we do and why others do what they do etc. etc., but this has little relationship to the true nature of events. However, our true "Self" knows all and like a guardian angel looks after the remainder of us - all those other bits besides the "Self". After all just like a driver needs a car so to the "Self" needs a body, mind, etc. to get around in. And even though many of us feel like we are going to hell in a handbasket we are moving ahead and will in time learn what to do and what not to do. We will learn this not through the acknowledgements of the car we ride around in; no, we will learn this from our leader on the lam - our Self. The truly best leaders are those "ON THE LAM".

And that then turn this all upside down. Look at the Leader on the Lam - he won't abandon the flock - even if its in another country, continent, or (spiritually speaking) universe/dimension or whatever. It is the leader who needs the audience, the governed, the followers - even if they rarely follow; still the leader will labor to effect the group he feels are in need of his leadership. There is a symbiotic relationship here. These leaders on the lam have to pick there messages carefully. The best of them only communicate when the context merits it and the message is most appropriately capable of being received. It is much like the limited moments of 'soulfulness' that punctuate one's life. Wislawa Szymborska expresses this exquisitely in the following poem:

A Few Words on the Soul—
By Wislawa Szymborska

We have a soul at times.
No one's got it non-stop,
for keeps.

Day after day,
year after year
may pass without it.

Sometimes
it will settle for awhile
only in childhood's fears and raptures.
Sometimes only in astonishment
that we are old.

It rarely lends a hand
in uphill tasks,
like moving furniture,
or lifting luggage,
or going miles in shoes that pinch.

It usually steps out
whenever meat needs chopping
or forms have to be filled.

For every thousand conversations
it participates in one,
if even that,
since it prefers silence.

Just when our body goes from ache to pain,
it slips off-duty.

It's picky:
it doesn't like seeing us in crowds,
our hustling for a dubious advantage
and creaky machinations make it sick.

Joy and sorrow
aren't two different feelings for it.
It attends us
only when the two are joined.

We can count on it
when we're sure of nothing
and curious about everything.

Among the material objects
it favors clocks with pendulums
and mirrors, which keep on working
even when no one is looking.

It won't say where it comes from
or when it's taking off again,
though it's clearly expecting such questions.

We need it
but apparently
it needs us
for some reason too.