This past Saturday morning I had the opportunity to attend a memorial walk for my neighbor, Bill. He passed away about a month ago after a battle with lung cancer. Bill was 80 years old and if you would have asked him, which I had the opportunity to do, he would have told you he lived a rich and meaningful life.
Everybody in the neighborhood knew Bill. He made it a point. Bill is the kind of guy who would look around and move toward you like a heat-seeking missile.
Bill Was Socially Responsible
I have no idea if he recycled or cared about global warming. He didn’t drive an electric car and he never talked about things like boycotting Nike because of child labor practices.
He did not do any of the typical things, that I know of, that we would relate to as being socially responsible. What he did do though was bring a smile to people's faces. He had what we call in the emotional intelligence world “Social Responsibility”.
A Socially Responsible leader is one who has a social consciousness and is generally a helpful person. At a deeper level, these leaders are willing to contribute to society and show concern for the community that they are a part of. This was Bill!
He was a leader in our little neighborhood without being on the Homeowners Association board or being chair of any committees. Bill was a leader because he had tremendous Social Responsibility.
Bill Cared
When I first met him, about six years ago, he was a jogger. He would jog six miles every morning. Never in a hurry. Always at his own pace. More importantly, he stopped along his run and talked to everyone. I mean everyone! He talked to all the neighbors walking their dogs. He talked to all the folks who clean the swimming pools and mowed the lawns. He talked to the heating and air-conditioning repair people, and the workers fixing roofs.
He would tell me often that if I ever needed work done at the house, to just ask him. He had all the best contractors scoped out. He would say after a 30+ year career at General Motors he was pretty adept at deciphering who really knew their stuff and who to stay away from.
My wife used to tell Bill that she was praying for him and his response was classic. He would tell her, “Kim, you keep praying, I need all the points I can get.” With all the good Bill did, it always seemed he was looking for a way to do even more for others.
As far as I know, none of you who regularly read these posts ever met Bill. That does not mean we cannot learn from him.
Developing Your Social Responsibility
When thinking about developing ourselves as leaders, it is always good to have a benchmark set of competencies to use as guiding principles. Let's think about Social Responsibility for a moment and think about what goes into a leader who is Socially Responsible.
Social responsibility is that moral compass directing your behavior toward promoting the greater good and contributing to society and one’s social groups.
A moral compass relates to the values a leader holds and informs their ethical decision-making. It is the beliefs, objectives, and judgments that a leader holds when it comes to something being right or wrong.
The English word moral is derived from the Latin “mos” or “moris” which refers to “conduct” or “a way of life”. For leaders, morality is a set of culturally transmitted standards of right and wrong. In order for leaders to be able to do the right thing, they must have objective standards to rely upon. Without these standards, the leader can do whatever they wish, for whoever they wish.
The Rabi In Heaven
There is an old story told about a small town in Eastern Europe. In this village the people were very poor, the Rabi was very holy, and the skeptics were very doubting.
The poor people believed that on the Jewish New Year their Rabi went up to heaven to intercede on their behalf. They needed to eke out a living for the next year and they had hopes for good health and that their children would have good matches when they married.
One New Year’s Day, one of the skeptics decided to hide and watch the Rabi. The skeptic was convinced that the Rabi did not go to heaven and was just deceiving the people. So the skeptic hid under the bed of the Rabi. He watched him dress in the morning, putting on boots, a sturdy belt, and a heavy woolen shirt. Then the Rabi picked up an Axe.
At this point, the skeptic was sure he was discovered and that the Rabi was going to kill him. But the Rabi slipped the Axe into his belt and walked deep into the forest. When the skeptic caught up to him he found the Rabi chopping down trees and organizing them into big logs, smaller branches, and twigs. He then took off his heavy wool shirt and put the wood on it and drug it even further into the woods where there was a small cabin.
The Rabi knocked on the door and an elderly woman answered. “Who is it?”, the woman asked. “It is Ivan the woodcutter,” The Rabi told her. He had brought firewood because he heard that she had been sick and the winter was very cold.
At daybreak, when the Jews went to synagogue they encountered the skeptic. One said to him, “Well, last night our Rabi went to heaven and surely next year will be better for us. But you do not believe us do you?”
Quietly, the skeptic said, “Yes I do. He indeed went to heaven and maybe even higher. In fact, I saw him do it.”*
The Lesson I Learned From Bill
Concern for others promotes healthy relationships. Neighborhoods and societies function more effectively when individuals help each other. The world is a better place when we take the time to just get to know each other.
There is a lot of pain and suffering in our world today. Would the world be a better place if we all just went on a neighborhood walk and got to know each other?
I think Bill would advocate for this.
Bill, Rest In Peace.
*This story was adapted from Ethics in the Workplace by Craig E Johnson.
