Not nearly enough investment bankers, real estate agents, investment advisors and financiers have been caught and held accountable for their role in bringing about the credit crisis and ensuing recession.  We all know the statistics by now, tens of millions of people have lost their livelihood.  Worse, millions more  have lost their life savings and retirement.  They find themselves figuring out how to make ends meet thanks to a flawed system and a bunch of scoundrels who took advantage of it with no concern for the greater good.  Doesn’t goodness count for something? Isn’t there a reckoning for people who abuse their positions at the expense of others or of mankind?

Not really I’m afraid, but maybe there is some vindication for the people wearing the proverbial white hats. That hope, I think, is the gifts we receive only when we practice the courageous act of self-awareness.

The practice of self awareness opens us up to genuine connection with other people and enables us to feel the full range of human emotions, from grief to joy and everything in between. Connecting with people and goodness, I believe, go hand-in-hand. Integrity, honor, honesty and trustworthiness  arise from the inside out, not the outside in, and the way they are developed begins with understanding one’s self. Sure, you can fake it to make it.  Look at all the thieves of the recession. They’re a  charismatic (egomaniacal), personable (sociopathic)lot.  But what did they sacrifice to win other people’s riches? I think they sacrificed something that, ironically, they will never develop the awareness to understand.  They may be surrounded by people, but not by love.  They may have lots of “friends” but not the deep surety of mutually trusting friendships.  To paraphrase Howard Jones, they  “can look at the menu,  but they can’t eat. They can feel the cushion but they just can’t have a seat.”  They have the skills of intimacy but not the ability to be intimate.  They know how to win trust, but they don’t know how to give it. How horrible. How tragic. How ultimately just.

Self awareness connects us with the possibilities inside ourselves. It allows us to be simultaneously capable of humility and courage.  It helps us hold passion and patience in the same space.  It enables us to be simultaneously wise and curious, knowledgeable and naive.  People who actively practice self-awareness  are fallible human beings just like the rest of us. And when a leader practices self awareness, their decisions show it not because they win unanimous support or because they are more “right” than the rest of us, but because the depth of thinking that went in to the decision is evident. We may not agree with them, but through their acts of vulnerability, we can see the logic that led to their decision.  A self-aware leader is able to remove their own filters and biases in the process of making a decision.  The common good takes priority to the personal good and right or wrong.  They can see the difference, and their self-awareness practice helps catalyze their character.

In the 18th Century, Christian theologian John Wesley said “Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, to all the souls you can, in every place you can, at all the times you can, with all the zeal you can, as long as ever you can.” For the human experiment to succeed, this is the work of enduring leaders and we need to celebrate them whenever we see them, for they are our best hope. Good people are our best investment in a better future.