Author: Dale McGavran

When George Washington was a young boy, he copied down what was known in his time as “Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.”  During a visit to his estate at Mount Vernon a couple of years ago, I picked up a copy of these rules.  Some are quite obvious.  Others are more obscure, seemingly irrelevant for today.  One has to get past the style that the rules are written in.  However, once you do, it clearly is a brilliant guide for how to treat family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers.

Rule number 56 is one that is particularly interesting.  Here is what it says: “Associate yourself with Men of good Quality if you Esteem your own Reputation; for ’tis better to be alone than in bad Company.”  Now, there is a lot of great wisdom in that sentence.  Many parents have warned their children to be careful who they spend time with, or as this rule says, associate with.  No parent wants to witness his or her son or daughter be led down a dark path by someone who is supposed to be a friend.  No one desires to see their friend plummet down the wrong course in life because of bad company.  This only seems natural.  Now, we should not ignore those going down a road of destruction.  We should help those we can, including those walking that dark path, but that is a conversation for another day.

Now, history is full of individuals who had great potential, but because of who they associated with, they are looked upon with a less than stellar reputation.  One such example is Warren G. Harding.  He had such great potential.  Just read the first sentence from his presidential inaugural address: “My Countrymen, When one surveys the world about him after the great storm, noting the marks of destruction and yet rejoicing in the ruggedness of the things which withstood it, if he is an American he breathes the clarified atmosphere with a strange mingling of regret and new hope.”  The end of the Civil War was just a generation past and the First World War had come to an end less than two years prior.  So it is not difficult to imagine Harding uttering the words of regret and hope in the same breath.  Sadly, he died before he could finish his term as President of the United States.  Sadder still is the reputation that followed his death.

Mention the name Warren G. Harding today, and most just scratch their head.  There is no shortage of Americans who know nothing of the man.  Those that might remember his name most likely remember it only because of the scandal surrounding a plot of land in Wyoming, known as Teapot Dome.  In this situation, Harding had authorized the transfer of control of the land to the Department of the Interior, under the direction of Albert Fall.  Fall then leased the land to oil company friends without any bidding competition, receiving money under the table for his assistance in making this happen.  The scandal is much more complex, but this was the gist of the issue.  In the end, Harding’s reputation had again taken a hit even though Albert Fall was the cause.  This scandal and others occurred in part, because of Harding’s involvement with the wrong crowd, or in the words of the rules of civility, “bad Company”.

One can only hope that had he chosen different friends and associates, Harding’s story would be told differently today.  Leaders know that they have to influence the environment.  Leadership involves taking individuals from multiple backgrounds and forming them into a cohesive team with a good reputation, and succeeding in the mission ahead.  Great leaders also know that they may have to rescue someone from going down the wrong path.  But the leader must never become the cause of destruction nor wallow in destructive habits.  Solomon, in chapter one of the book of Proverbs, grabs his bullhorn and warns readers what will happen if they become cohorts, like Harding, with the wrong crowd.  His writes:  “My son, if sinful men entice you, do not give in to them.” (verse 10); “my son, do not go along with them, do not set foot on their paths.” (verse 15); “Such are the paths of all who go after ill-gotten gain; it takes away the life of those who get it.” (verse 19)

Forrest Gump is one of my favorite movies.  In it, Forrest’s mother dies and so he decides to go running.  What follows is a lengthy clip of him running from coast to coast numerous times.  After a period of time, people start to take notice of this strange Alabamian running around the country.  What follows are several scenes where others begin to run with him, one individual even saying that he would follow Mr. Gump anywhere.  Dozens more join Forrest, who by now is sporting a beard.  The sequence culminates with Forrest, looking like something out of “The Revenant”, stopping on a lonely road in Utah.  Someone in the crowd of runners calls for silence because Forrest is about to lay down some earth-shattering thought, some deep philosophical statement.  Instead, the crowd hears that the one they have been following for days, months, and years, is tired and is going to go home now.  I love what one of them says; “Great, now what are we supposed to do?”  What indeed.  The bottom just dropped out their world.  But Forrest had every right to want to go home.  He had run for three years, two months, fourteen days, and sixteen hours.  I run and I am ready to quit after about an hour.  I cannot imagine running for 28,072 hours.  Of course, he slept, ate, and …went (code word for going to the bathroom), as he tells the elderly woman on the bench.  But still, that was a long time.

No one, not even Forrest, could explain why runners (who apparently had nothing better to do than run around the country with a complete stranger) were drawn to him.  But they were.  Attraction is a curious thing.  Men and women are attracted to each other; newly washed cars attract rain storms; moths are attracted to light; my clothes attract the dog’s hair.  Some things can be rationalized, others cannot.

Leaders attract too.  For some unknown reason, individuals see great leadership and want to be near the action.  There is probably some scientific theory that seeks to explain it.  But in the end, it is likely a combination of things…kind of like a recipe.  Heap in the inspiration; pour in honesty; measure in humility; add transparency and integrity; stir in commitment, hope, accountability, and compassion.  Then, and only then, do you begin to formulate what it is that makes up a leader.

General Eisenhower reflected these same kind of traits.  Now, he was not perfect – no one is, except Jesus.  But, one of my favorite leadership stories has General Eisenhower sitting down to write a letter detailing the beginning of Operation Overlord – the D-Day invasion.  In the letter he outlines his confidence in success because of the past work of the men on the ground, the Airmen overhead, and those on the home front building the tanks, ships and aircraft.  In other words, success occurred not because of his wisdom, strategy, or the stars on his shoulder.  General Eisenhower also penned a second, briefer message in case the operation proved a failure.  In this message, Eisenhower took a few sentences to explain that the invasion failed, not because of the troops, the Navy, nor the Airmen, because they did all they could do.  The blame was all on him.  In other words, the mission failed because he did not lead well enough.  Now that is integrity.  That is the kind of thing that attracts individuals and causes them to want to follow another.

Great leaders know the importance of integrity.  They know that without it, they are on a lonely journey.  In the tenth chapter of the book of Proverbs, verse nine states, “Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.”  It is natural to want to feel secure in your mission, your work, your everything.  Proverbs reminds us that security is unquestionably linked to integrity.

We never really find out why all of those people started to run with Forrest.  I guess the director did not feel it was important to the storyline.  It was, after all, a fictional movie.  One thing that is not fiction though is the relationship between great leadership and integrity.  They go hand-in-hand.  If you become a leader with integrity you will find security.  If you become a leader with integrity, you will find others following you anywhere, coast to coast or maybe even on a road in Utah.

As I start on this journey, I want to first convey how all of this originated.  You see, I have been fascinated with history since junior high school.  As a 30-year veteran of the Air Force, I sought ways to communicate leadership principles through the amazing stories of those I read about in the history books that line my shelves.  Then I thought about how I could integrate those two ideas (leadership and history) into the stories of faith that I had studied for years.  This blog is the result of how relating these three areas has inspired me and made me want to be a better person.

My heroes from those books had names like George Washington, Wilbur and Orville Wright, Colin Powell, George Marshall, and many more.  What made them stand out?  Why did they prove to be men and women of greatness?  What propelled them through failure to ultimate success?  As I uncovered some of what I thought were the answers, I wanted to relate them to others.  Again, that is the point of this journey.

Just like everything in life, people will interpret something in any number of ways.  This journey just happens to be how I look at the relationships between faith, leadership, and history.  You, no doubt, will look at it through a different lens.  That is why diversity is such a great thing.

An an amateur just starting out, I welcome conversation, and of course, any positive suggestions for improvements.  Here I go…