Let us always strive to find our passion and perform our acts with more compassion. For “We are in this world together for a reason. Without the support of one another we would not have been able to survive.”
Innate Gifts and Capacities
Each human being is born with some innate gifts, talents, and capacities. These skills allow us to progress in this life and to make contributions to the community where we live. Peter Drucker who is known as the father of modern management shared the four Cs that all leaders must possess. They include competence, character, compassion, and community. While the first two (competence and character) seem to require more self-disciplined and personal improvement, they can also be influenced by the other two; compassion and community. These four elements of excellent leadership support one another.
Obligation to Our Community
As we take time to identify our strengths and passion and work hard to be the best we can be, we also increase our capacity to make meaningful contributions to our society. Imagine that you are living on an island all by yourself. You possess all the gifts and talents that a person can be endowed with. You diligently cultivate these gifts. You made the all-star team – one man team. The whole island reveres and respects you. You are the king of the entire island. But you have no subordinates. You have dominions over all the animals, the fowls of the air, and the fishes in the oceans. The lilies of the fields even bow at your presence. How wonderful that type of life would be? That is a thought to ponder.
Passion and Compassion
Passion is about oneself. Compassion is about others. This definition offers a simple illustration of how they differ one from another. The similarity is that passion is embedded in compassion. To put it in a simple form, one cannot have compassion without having any passion. Our gifts, talents, and capacities are tools that help us better serve our communities. Our desire to serve our society can influence our desire to increase our competence in a specific field.
What if you were the greatest composer in the world and had no one to enjoy and appreciate your compositions? What if you were the greatest basketball player on the planet and there was no team to play for? What if you were playing on a team and the arena was completely empty? We need our community. Our community needs us. Albert Pike says it best: “What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.”
We Are not Alone
It goes without saying that no one who is reading this article lives on an island alone. We all belong to a community. That community may comprise the members of our families, our work group, our team or department, our town or city, our country, and our world. Our community also includes our customers and other people we associate with. In our quest to develop our gifts and become more competent we must also remember that we need the support of our community. We too need to show more gratitude and respect to the members of our community and for the environment itself.
Let us always strive to find our passion and perform our acts with more compassion. For “We are in this world together for a reason. Without the support of one another we would not have been able to survive.”
Authored by Illens Dort
