The Penalty of Leadership

A note from peter@thewealthyattitude.com for Thursday February 26 2009

Good day there folks and welcome to Thursday.

I'm going to get right to the point today. Here at The Wealthy Attitude we are a non-negotiable stand for leadership and responsibility for ones own life. That's our deal.

In these times you, will undoubtedly discover, that many folks take great pride in knocking those who work their best to rise above their circumstances.. It seems that some people can't stand it when someone declares, and then works towards, making their life experience magnificent. It's the penultimate Mexican crab story.

And it's been going on for century's.

I've pulled an old piece out of our files to give solace to those intrepid souls among you . Never, ever give. You deserve to live.

You'll see with today's offering how a brilliant observer dealt with the issue all those years ago.

The Penalty of Leadership

In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work.

In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction.

When a man’s work becomes the standard for the whole world, it becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work be mere mediocre, he will be left severely alone--if he achieves a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a-wagging.

Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a commonplace painting. Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play, or sing, or build, no one will strive to surpass or to slander you, unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius. Long, long after a great work or a good work has been done, those who are disappointed or envious continue to cry out that it cannot be done.

Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountebank, long after the big world had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius.

Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical alter of Wagner, while the little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued that he was no musician at all.

The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by.

The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy—but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant.

There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as the human passions—envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains—the leader.

Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman, each in his turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages. That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial.

That which deserves to live—lives!

This text was written by Theodore P. MacManus
It appeared as an advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post---January 2nd 1915 in an ad for Cadillac Motor Company