I’ve only served on a few boards because I do not consider myself a natural fit for board work. I always half-seriously tell people inviting me that I am not comfortable being part of any group that can vote against my opinion. As well, I am impatient with the necessary but gradual process of change. As I’ve said before, had I been coaching Jesus on his encounter with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, I would have advised him to say, “You are headed in the wrong direction.  Turn around.  Listen to what I am telling you.”  But he doesn’t.  He walks with them in the wrong direction while explaining things as they go. It’s difficult to do that when you want people to make the right choices. After all, wasn’t the point to get them headed back to Jerusalem?

This week I have been reading the collected letters of J.R.R. Tolkien and his description of the dangers faced by wizards like Gandalf is so appropriate for those of us who are impatient and sometimes overbearing. After all, we only want what is best for the organization. They may be so deep in the weeds or stymied by their own myopia they cannot see from our loftier perspective.

“Power – when it dominates or seeks to dominate other wills and minds – except by the assent of their reason – is evil.” These wizards were subject to the same allure of temptation as the completely mortal inhabitants of Middle Earth and “the chief form this would take with them would be impatience, leading to the desire to force others to their own good ends, and so inevitably at last to more desire to make their own wills effective by any means. To this evil Saruman succumbed. Gandalf did not.”

Wizards could do it with clear reason or the hard-to-refute influence of their wisdom. They could also revert to magic if necessary and that was the deceptive power of the Ring, wasn’t it? Obstacles and objections could be quickly and easily overcome. Reluctance and resistance could be overwhelmed by the impatient use of power. It’s seductive – even for non-wizards like ourselves who think by virtue of age, experience and wisdom we should wield more influence.  We want what we know to be best for the organization implemented and we want it now – even if we have to use whatever sorcery we can conjure up. Max De Pree is rightly respected for his maxim: “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.” However, it depends so much on whose version of reality carries the most weight. My good friend, Chris Wignall, says this of entrepreneurial leaders and it is true of entrepreneurial board members as well, 

“He reads voraciously, dreams wildly, and has had some remarkable successes. His innate (and intentionally developed) ability to envision a preferred future for himself and his organization is phenomenal. But there are times when he can’t live in the future. There are times when he has to deal with the frustrations, foibles and frailties of regular people and current realities that get in the way of accomplishing the things he can imagine.”

That describes many of us well. We have certain expectations about how quickly things should move and in which direction.

A Contented Man

Perhaps, Tom Bombadil who is still mortal but less susceptible is a better example or at least a balance for what we should desire.  A reader asked Tolkien why the Ring had no power over Tom.

“Tom Bombadil is an enigma and is supposed to represent an existence whose key desire is in understanding only. He is not concerned in using this understanding for any purpose. As such power and domination are completely useless to him and have no meaning or effect upon him. He is master in a peculiar way: he has no fear, and no desire of possession or domination at all. He merely knows and understands about such things as concern him in his natural little realm. The Ring cannot affect Tom Bombadil because he is outside the whole issue of Power and Domination; He is a contented man.” As Gandalf says of him, “Tom does not have power over the ring, rather, the Ring has no power over him. He would not find the Ring to be important and would probably lose it.”

Neither the lure of impatience or the innocence of being oblivious but somewhere in between is probably right. Neither Gandalf or Tom. What does it mean to be contented and not feel the desire to dominate or the opposite by taking the easy and perhaps irresponsible route of doing nothing with what we know? What might be our own peculiar way of mastery and responsibility? 

Art by Jerry Vanderstelt