Being Responsible

Leadership is not all that it is cracked up to be. In Mass today, the reading from the book of Numbers tells about Moses who was given the leadership of the nation of Israel when they left Egypt and came into the promised land. At the end of the reading, he says he would rather die than have to deal with his people any more. Yes, it may seem like he was overreacting, but he was not. Leadership is very, very, very difficult.

In America today, the vast majority of people see authority in the same manner as power. Yes, they are related, but they are not the same thing. It is because of this mistake that so many people want authority, and yet they do not want to be under anyone else's authority (quite a self-contradictory situation). If we see authority only as having power over other people, then it might seem like a "fun" thing to have. You could control others and always get your way. Then reality sets in.

If, however, we see authority as responsibility, then we have a different perspective. It would also mean that far fewer people would want it. That is the problem with most politicians, and numerous other positions of authority: those seeking them see only that they can control if they have authority, and so they want to wield power, but rarely ever are willing to accept responsibility.

I am not saying anything really new to most people, but we rarely give it a second thought. We each should give serious consideration to the areas in which we actually have authority, and ask ourselves how well we handle the responsibility of our authority. Are we just trying to enforce power, or are we really accepting the responsibility and acknowledging that we are going to have to give account before God for how we used our authority?