The Realist's Satisfaction vs. the Idealist's Amazement

“Real leadership is about responsibility.” -- Tom Heuerman

 

“If a man's gift is leadership, let him govern diligently.” -- Paul

 

“In my role as a leader, I too often enjoy the benefits of what I don’t do.” – Yours Truly

 

As I hide out in my office, I often sit in confusion as to what to do next. It isn’t as if I don’t have ideas, I certainly do. When someone sees me excited, it is because an idea has settled in me, and for that moment, I believe that idea can come true. I love those moments, especially when those moments stretch into hours, days, and sometimes weeks. It is during those times that I feel fully alive, like I matter to Something larger than life, and like I’m fighting for something Good that lasts. It is during those time, looking back, that I have done anything that has mattered.

 

Remaining around people, work, and influences that keep me in that "spot" of ideas, or idealism, is the labor of my life, if I want a life of diligent, responsible leadership.

 

The people that inspire me to stay there are best characterized with words like willing, real, honest, open, dreamer, learner, believer, faith-filled, risky, team-focused.

 

The work that inspires me to stay there is best characterized with words like visionary, promising, imposing, challenging, creative, mobilizing, eternally significant, life on life, risky, costly.

 

The influences that inspire me to stay there are the people, books, play, and work that characterize all of the above words.

 

The death of idealism is the death of integrity. The separation between idealism and realism is what charts the hard work of a leader. Lifting people's eyes off of the realistic, which anyone can do, and putting them on the idealistic, which anyone can do with God's help, is the uncommon leader's charge. Compromise this idealism in your heart as a leader and you compromise your work, and your integrity.

 

Idealism requires faith and inspires it. Realism only requires work.

Idealism summons dreamers to work. Realism summons realists.

Idealism has the risk of really disappointing workers. Realism is completely safe from that.

Idealism has a Source that goes beyond logic and reason. Realism's source is logic and reason.

Idealism sees something that can't be done and pursues it. Realism sees something that can be done.

Idealism has the unlimited potential of amazing its workers. Realism has the limited potential of satisfying its workers.

 

Lots of realists reading this might really be offended, thinking that I'm talking about different kinds of people, elevating one kind over the other. I guess I sort of am, but not in the way you might think. I think these two "people" are inside of me (and you), and each one is fighting for the right to drive my life and decisions.

 

I'd love some feedback on this, because I'm not sure this is right. But to me, idealism feels like life. Realism feels like death. I know it's an extreme, provocative statement, but it's just how I feel (for today). A life of only accomplishing what is possible, safe from risk, doing only what makes logical & reasonable sense, with the ultimate promise of satisfaction in a job well done seems like it should be enough for me. But instead, that feels like death to my spirit.

 

But a life of being inspired to accomplish something I can't do without supernatural help, risking my "life" for it in some way, having to believe in something that I can't see, with the ultimate potential of experiencing amazement in a job that couldn't be done is enough for me. More than enough.