Freedom, Leadership, Responsibility & Humanism

Why is leading people so darned hard? Freedom.

There is a joke in Humanist communities. Leading Humanists is like herding cats.  They all have their own ideas.  The hallmark of a good leader is that they can herd cats.

One of the ways you do this is by feeding them. The same is true of humans. If we are hungry, we will pretty much do anything for the person who offers us food (or money so that we can buy food).

But what has this got to do with freedom?  

Everyone you meet has autonomy, meaning, they are free to choose their actions, for the most part. There are limitations on individual autonomy (freedom) having to do with brain chemistry and conditioning, but it’s pretty clear that free will is something most of us experience.

For leaders, this means recognizing that the individuals on your team, or those you want to recruit to your team have a choice.  They don’t have to do what you say. You can entice them with benefits (money, food and so on). But enticements will only get you so far, especially if other leaders are also enticing those same individuals with benefits. With competition, comes choice.

Why promote responsibility? 

Freedom is related to responsibility. Sure, you are free to act however you want, but your actions have consequences. Most of us understand this instinctively. Responsibility is more than just understanding and accepting consequences.  It’s a choice.

People who chose to be responsible do so because they understand that freedom is bought with responsibility. To gain control over your life, you have to choose your behaviors to maximize the good and minimize the harm.

People also choose to be responsible because it feels good. To be responsible is to respect other people and the impact you have on them. Being responsible helps us feel connected to other people precisely because it causes us to accept their existence as real.

Great Leaders and Freedom

Great leaders are the ones who don’t just simply entice their team, they engage them.  What purpose the engagement takes determines how engaged the team is.  It’s about motivation. And freedom is one heck of a motivator.

To be free, one must not only have autonomy, they must not be restrained.  If you don’t have food to eat, you aren’t free. If you don’t have transportation, you aren’t really free.  Freedom isn’t just about whether there are laws restricting you. It is also about whether the conditions of your existence restrict you.

Why Humanism? 

This is why Humanistic management and leadership is so important as we as a society try to move forward. Humanistic responsibility focuses our efforts on others and on ourselves. If we can create the conditions where the basic standard of living for everyone is good enough that no one is restrained by extreme privation, we are creating the conditions in which we ourselves can thrive.

When a leader engages people in a task this important, they can motivate their team to work together to do great things. Our why is freedom. Our how is responsibility.

Freedom

What does freedom mean to you?

I suspect different people have different definitions. For me, freedom is about choice.  If I don’t have a choice, I don’t have freedom. Because while I may not be actively oppressed, I also don’t have the ability to change things either.

Humanism, to me, is a life philosophy aimed at the reduction of unnecessary suffering. Accept the things you can’t change, change the things you can. It seems to me that in any given life, there are things we can change and things we can’t.

The freedom that is of most concern to me is where I am restricted in my choices arbitrarily for no good purpose.  So – for instance - women not having access to birth control. That restricts freedom unnecessarily, because it restricts choice, unnecessarily.

Money is another thing that restricts freedom. Sure, I am free to travel, but right now I don’t have the ability to – so I can’t exercise that freedom.  Which is why poverty is so devastating to freedom.  Poverty restricts choices because it restricts access to options. It restricts access to education in places where education is not paid for by the state. It restricts access to health care, where health care is not guaranteed by the state. Poverty even restricts access to clean water in most places in the world.

If you do not have the means to secure the basics of life, you aren’t free to do anything but subsist.  Freedom, at that point, is a meaningless concept.

I’m not saying we should set up a welfare state, or that we need equality of outcome to be fair. What I am saying is that ensuring that everyone has access to the basic necessities of life is an essential first step to ensuring freedom for individuals to pursue whatever it is they want to pursue in life.

• At a minimum, children should have access to a free secular education everywhere. Without an education, they’re life choices are severely restricted and their freedom diminished. 

• People should have access to free clean water, at no cost (aside from the taxes that pay for this service). This means privatizing the water supply is not acceptable. Allowing private industry to pollute our common water supply is also not acceptable.

• People must have access to a basic level of health care necessary to ensure their survival and minimum level of health so that they can pursue whatever goals in life they have. And this must be affordable to everyone.

• Living wages – people, who work, should receive a minimum wage that is sufficient to ensure they have enough money to survive.  Whether they can earn more to be able to thrive is another matter. 

• Open immigration and migration.  We must stop restricting the movement of people over national borders.  Yes, states have a right to keep out criminals, but people looking for work, should be allowed to move to where there is work.  Keeping people locked into an arbitrary geographic area to the benefit of the rulers of those geographic areas is not my idea of freedom. People should be free to seek a better life wherever and however, they choose. 

What do you think are the necessary minimal support people need to be free?