Role model

“ Eventually the life of the individual is the measure of the totality of social influence, and the institution should be studied in the light of the personality development of the individual. And as we accumulate records of personal evolution, with indications of the means by which the wishes seek expression and of the conditions of their normal satisfaction, we shall be in a better position to measure the influence of particular institutions in the formation of character and life-organization and to determine lines of change in the institutions themselves. ”

“ Have you ever observed how in childhood, or at the early stages of social life, we create a model for our own imitation, with our own hands as it were, and often without knowing it? The banker's clerk, for instance, as he enters his master's drawing-room, dreams of possessing such another. ”

“ If you are to be the model after which the boys and the girls—the most priceless product of the state—will both consciously and unconsciously fashion their lives, you must be in all things a worthy model. ”

“ All of you have the trial of yourselves in your own power; each may undergo at this instant, before his own judgment seat, the ordeal by fire. Ask yourselves what is the leading motive which actuates you while you are at work. I do not ask you what your leading motive is for working—that is a different thing; you may have families to support—parents to help—brides to win; you may have all these, or other such sacred and pre-eminent motives, to press the morning's labour and prompt the twilight thought. ”

“ Behold then all human faculties developed, memory and imagination in full play, egoism interested, reason active, and the mind almost at the highest point of its perfection. Behold all the natural qualities in action, the rank and condition of every man assigned him; not merely his share of property and his power to serve or injure others, but also his wit, beauty, strength or skill, merit or talents: and these being the only qualities capable of commanding respect, it soon became necessary to possess or to affect them. ”

“ Then when your hero grows up, what are his interests? To what profession or kind of work does he turn? Where does he find the satisfaction for his energy that searches an outlet? Does he, like Thomas Carlyle, try one and another profession only to fail and be driven, finally, into the one work in which he could find the answer to the life-problem that his personality presents? When his profession is chosen, what are his interests? ”

“ Once you harmonise the minds of the people, it becomes easy to understand that though our roles in the drama may be different, our drama is one. Roles are small and big, there is a hierarchy of roles also, some are big and some are small roles, but we have equality as individuals. Jobs may be small or big but the bigger goal for all is the same. If you have to achieve big results, make impossible things possible, then we have to work in that spirit. ”

“ The manifestations of discipline and morale, and the various appeals to inspire them, differ in accordance with the work to be done by the members of the group and with the personalities of both the leader and his men. But all spring from an application of the same principles—and making this application to the specific case in hand becomes the interesting study and exercise of wit for the leader concerned. It is for him to arouse just the kind of spirit he needs for the special work and with the particular men he has. ”

“ On every hand we see illustrations of the transforming power of the ideal. It is outpictured in the faces we see in the street, in trains and shops, in theaters and churches, wherever people congregate.
How quickly we can select from a crowd of strangers the successful business man. His initiative, leadership, executive ability, speak out of his face and manner. The same is true of men in other vocations,—of the scholar, the clergyman, the lawyer, the teacher, the doctor, the farmer, the day laborer. ”

“ We can sum it all up in just about this: that you begin to think seriously about yourself in your job, and determine that you are going to be natural, genuine, fair and self-controlled; that you realize that your instruments are human beings and that you have got to control them through your own personality; and that therefore you determine to study your personality and your tools so you may use them intelligently. Observation and personal application of its results are the great things.
No two leaders may act exactly alike, for each must use his own personality. ”

“ I repeat in closing that it is only by giving personal thought to these questions and deciding upon your own personal methods and conduct that you will acquire success in handling men. Let your purpose be clear and [Pg 162] worthy, and your policy based on square dealing; be yourself genuine, unselfish and just; make your men partners with you in the enterprise, and your personality such as to admit their loyal co-operation and following; keep in mind that your object is to increase their manpower through their developed individual manliness and character ”

“ Your own personal qualities, your knowledge and your power of administration, and among greater things your rank and position in Society give you advantages in such a work which no other person possesses. ”

“ From the weary experience of working in constant intercourse with men whose temper and practice and many of whose theories were directly antagonistic to his own, although identified with them in the public mind by a common responsibility, he learned to subdue those elements of his temperament that worked against the success of what he had most loyally at heart. ”

“ For the most part the various vocations are said to be actuated by much the same motives, the leading satisfactions being honor, truth, position, beauty, progress, fees or salary, and welfare. These enumerations, of course, help us in no way to distinguish between the particular satisfactions or interests involved in the different types of work. Quite the same thing is true of the abilities required. Most of them call for energy, industry, judgment and ability to deal with people. ”

“ Somehow, character must be built up, and character depends upon industry, upon thrift, upon morals, upon correct ethical perceptions. To have control of one's powers, to have skill in labor, so that work in any occupation shall be intelligent, to have self-respect, which commonly comes from trained capacity, to know how to live, to have a clean, orderly house, to be grounded in honesty and the domestic virtues,—these are the essentials of progress. ”

“ Out of the depth and breadth of his personal character, bounded only by the unity of experience, he must ever react against the narrowness and the factional ritual, and taking this ritual—or special professional technique—to be valid mediately rather than immediately, in spirit rather than merely in letter, must ever seek to translate his factional experience, its skill and its insight, to all parts of human life. ”

“ Factional life, as we know, develops through imitation and repetition, but personality through invention under guidance of the flashing analogies. Invention, too, the application of special development beyond the sphere of its origin, is only the psychological term for what sociologically is leadership. In the theory and in the practice of art, morals, religion, politics, science, and all the other special sides of experience, the factional and the personal are ever to be distinguished in this way—the one imitative, the other inventive. ”

“ Every decision made, every conflict resolved, is a step in the further organization of the individual. It may be a step in a good direction, or in a bad direction, but it is a step in organizing the individual's reaction-tendencies into what we call his character--the more or less organized sum total of his native and acquired tendencies to reaction, with emphasis on those reactions that affect his life and social relations in a broad way. ”

“ The following passage, from a recent article in the PALL MALL GAZETTE, will commend itself to general aproval:—"There can be no question nowadays, that application to work, absorption in affairs, contact with men, and all the stress which business imposes on us, gives a noble training to the intellect, and splendid opportunity for discipline of character. ”

“ THE INDIVIDUAL AS A WHOLE, INTEGRATED OR PARTIALLY DISSOCIATED
People differ not only in intelligence and efficiency, but in an intangible something referred to as "personality". If your acquaintance is applying for a certain position, and has named you as one of his references, you will be asked by the appointing officer to tell what you know of the candidate's experience, his knowledge and skill in the field where he desires a position, his character and habits, and his personality ”

“ I perceived that in worldly wisdom I had acted like a child, and I said to myself, 'Conduct is fate.' But since has come the question, What is conduct? and I am inclined to believe that, in the end, here, even here, honesty is the best policy, principle is the surest guide, and, like the mariner who steers his bark by the compass and the star, though we may look ahead for the breakers or the reefs, the permanent guides to our course are aloft. ”

“ The character they give it varies not only with sex and age, race and religion and social position, but within these cruder classifications, according to the inherited and acquired constitution of the individual, his faculties, his career, the progress of his career, an emphasized aspect of his career, his moods and tenses, or his place on the board in any of the games of life that he is playing. ”

“ He animates them all by rewards and distinctions. In fine, his superior mind directs the management of his domestic concerns, with the same ability, activity, and regularity, which he evinced in the conduct of public affairs, and which he is calculated to display in every situation of life. ”

“ The peculiar experience which a successful business career gives—the power both of handling details and managing large interests; the capacity of organization; the energy and the careful judgment and knowledge of men which such a life develops,—are the qualities most needed in managing moral and benevolent "causes." ”

“ We may therefore define character as an expression of the organization of the wishes resulting from temperament and experience, understanding by “organization” the general pattern which the wishes as a whole tend to assume among themselves. ”

“ I want to emphasize the fact that we want you to grow in the direction of character—to grow stronger each day in the matter of character. When I say character, here, I mean to use the word in its broadest sense. The institution wants to find you growing more polite to your fellows every day, as you come in contact with them, whether it be in the class-room, in the shop, in the field, in the dining-room, or in your bedroom. No matter where you are, I want you to find yourselves growing more polite and gentlemanly. ”

“ But what carries a person over these hard stretches is not loyalty to duty in the abstract, but interest in his occupation. Duties are "offices"—they are the specific acts needed for the fulfilling of a function—or, in homely language—doing one's job. And the man who is genuinely interested in his job is the man who is able to stand temporary discouragement, to persist in the face of obstacles, to take the lean with the fat: he makes an interest out of meeting and overcoming difficulties and distraction.
3. Intelligence and Character. ”

“ Your superiors will esteem you for your respectful treatment of them; your equals will love you for your kindness and familiarity; your inferiors will respect you for your condescension and meekness.
“Attention in company will be advantageous to yourselves. Like the industrious bee, which sips honey from every plant, you may derive some benefit or instruction from all kinds of society. Some useful remark or information; some sentiment which may allure you to the practice of virtue, or deter you from a vicious perpetration, may repay your labor, and be serviceable through life. ”

“ He had not only the intellectual and moral qualifications but also the temperament of a leader, and a leader, too, who would attract the best part of the community in point of morals and intelligence, as a trusty personal following. ”

“ It was early that I learned the lesson that if I would occupy a supportable position in life I must ‘work’ people; I must cultivate will and tact—how I hate the loathsome word—and study the natures of those about me, and play upon them ”

“ Meantime there are certain "practical" men who combine thought and habit and who are effectual. Their thought is about their own advantage; and their habits correspond. They dominate the actual situation. They encourage routine in others, and they also subsidize such thought and learning as are kept remote from affairs. This they call sustaining the standard of the ideal. Subjection they praise as team-spirit, loyalty, devotion, obedience, industry, law-and-order. ”

“ So the object of every step in this discussion, the psychologic object of every step in leadership, is to secure better discipline and morale, more intelligent initiative, keener loyalty and better teamwork. The student must keep these objects ever in mind in both study and practice, as furnishing a purpose or guide in all that is said or done. The accomplishment of these objects is a constant inspiration to a good leader ”

“ As it naturally happens, when a number of minds are drawn together by a common and strong interest, some men, by circumstances, or by strength of conviction, or by the mutual affinities of tastes and character, came more and more into direct personal and intimate relations with the leaders, took service, as it were, under them, and prepared to throw themselves into their plans of work. ”