„We can´t accept“, he says receiving the Nobel Peace Prize „a world in which people are denied opportunity and dignity that all people yearn for: the ability to get an education and make a decent living, the security that you won´t have to live in fear of disease or violence without hope for the future.”
Statesmen and entrepreneurs sometimes share the same basis, which is the economical principle, because still it is the business, more explicit, the profit which makes it possible to create a world of opportunity and dignity in which potential is unlashed to be educated in a way which secures the material and physical existence as well as the mental balance in the presence with meaningful perspectives for the future.
You achieve this by sharing profits and by taking care for the whole, the entire social system – of your company, your city, your nation, your planet, and the universe.
Things could be so easy. Education leads to a set of values which might secure a joint striving towards this common denominator. A world like this is the basis for peace. And socialization as well is leading towards this kind of balanced world: shaping and re-interpreting our fundamental values and principles. “Our” means in the best sense the humanitarian values and principles. It means the language of our hearts, the language of our needs – and less the language of functional duties, to do´s and figures.
Obama once expressed what these values are for true himself:
- Personal reliability
- Hard work
- Stamina
- Personal responsibility
These four values or principles can be taken the basis, you need as an attitude doing change management. Changing the paradigms of the company you work for – or of company you own (which, in this case, would mean to change your own personal convictions, beliefs, paradigms). They are necessary to change social systems like society, nations, and even our global world.
To be personally reliable means to be credible as I understand it. You walk your talk. Your behavior is predictable because it is the reflection of your set of values. People will trust you – and you will be able to trust people, to empower them and finally lead change and give moving and inspiring direction. It is also one way to express care.
Working hard means in my eyes to undergo the learning circle form unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence via conscious competence to unconscious competence – after a long period of learning and may be of personal failure to be finally a virtuoso in your field being thus reliable and credible. To work hard for a cause that matters is a caring attitude.
Stamina – this is taking the challenge. An adventure – this is what Hans-Peter Eisendle, our mountain guide, told us, is an experience of which you are happy when it is over. A challenge sometimes is the same. Sometimes you have to take personal risks and sacrifices to archive what you deeply believe in. Your personal faith in your cause is examined by something philosophers call fate. Striving for the impossible, striving for peace for example, managing conflicts, to face it and stand it, is taking care by challenging fate. Winston Churchill once said: Never, never, never give up.
Personal responsibility: you always decide yourself. Always. To be personal responsible means to get out of the victim´s loop, to take action and take the lead for the personal cause, the personal life, to be self-autonomous and to through limits and inner objections overboard and to allow inspiration to flow, your inner voice to sing celebrating your moment of excellence. It means to take care of your own happiness.
Endowed by these personal values and principles you are able to lead change.
And today Obama continued honoring the recognition: “But I know these challenges can be met, so long as it is recognized that they will not be met by one person alone or one nation alone.”
Only a team, a group of people, taking jointly care of a cause, the organizational system, society, the organization of nations is capable – and responsible – to find the magic balance of all interests called peace.
“It´s about the courageous efforts of people around the world”, Obama said today.
A world of balance, of peace, a world of mutual interest and of mutual respect is a world of care, which is “is a call for action, a call for all nations to confront the common challenges.”
The circumstance that Barack Obama was honored before real and sustainable achievements could be seen shows how enormous the impact of leading by meaning and purpose is. How deep the impact is, how moving, if you as leader understand the underlying, deeper needs of those you lead, of those who grant you the responsibility to lead them in certain contexts by responding to these basic and still unsatisfied needs.
Peace, opportunity, dignity, education, life, security, health, and hope – difficult are the simple, the obvious things.
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