Why Every Leader Should Be Vegan
Harry was a Tyrant, with a capital "T". He would walk around our head office dropping F-bombs with total disregard for the customers sitting in the waiting room. He would scream and yell at my direct reports and make them cry. I also noted that he displayed sociopathic tendencies … "disregard for the feelings of others, a lack of remorse or shame, manipulative behaviour, unchecked egocentricity, and the ability to lie in order to achieve one's goals". For example, while he was being nasty to my direct reports and not caring about their feelings, he was all sugar and spice to his distributors because they generated great revenues for the company.
For 30 years, Harry was allowed to get away with this behaviour. No one had the courage to stand up to him and tell him his conduct was unacceptable. Most everyone was afraid of him, of the wrath that would be unleashed.
To his credit and to the best of our knowledge, Harry never sexually assaulted anyone; however, #metoo could be applied to spiritual abuse which can often be more debilitating than sexual assault. I am guessing that #metoo will morph into stories of spiritual abuse in the workplace. It is time.
One day I had had enough of Harry's bullying, spiritual abuse. Springing into action I spoke with the President to whom I reported. With my heart open I shared how his actions were suppressing our business success because he instilled fear into people - made them afraid to speak up or share creative ideas.
President Dave said, "Well, Betska, if you can figure out how to stop it, please do." Armed with his blessing I contacted a wonderful communications expert from Chicago, the late Robal Johnson. Robal had each of us Executives go around the board room table and with full transparency tell each other what we felt about each other. When we came to Harry, every single one of us told Harry that he was a bully. Harry violently opposed our comments. Robal, calm as a lake on a windless day, told Harry to sit down and truly listen to what his colleagues were telling him.
From that day forward, whenever Harry would 'fall off the wagon' and be nasty again, the National Sales Manager and I would walk into his office and sit down. We wouldn't say a word. That was Harry's cue that he had exhibited bad behaviour again and we invited him to fix it. We needed to help him because his subconscious belief was that, "People always betray me and therefore I betray them back."
November 1st is World Vegan Day. Vegans inherently practise non-violence.
An experiment in Washington DC studied the effect of a large group of meditators on social trends. Before the project, violent crime had been steadily increasing during the first five months of the year.
The Transcendental Meditation researchers were led by John Hagelin, a renowned quantum physicist. The idea was to show how easy and simple it is to reduce crime and social stress by using meditation. The researchers had publically predicted that the coherence group would reduce the trend of crime by 20%. The Washington Chief of Police laughed at this prediction knowing that Washington has one of the highest crime rates in the world. He responded by saying that the only thing that would decrease crime that much would be 20 inches of snow! In the end, the maximum decrease was 23.3% below the time series prediction for that period of the year. TM meditators are usually vegetarian or vegan.
So what does this have to do with Harry? It is very clear that if a TM group of vegetarian vegans could reduce the crime rate by 23.3% in a city, then if global leaders ate vegetarian/vegan and meditated every day they would at the very least reduce their own violent and bullying tendencies. Hmmm. Maybe Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un need to be Vegan.
"For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other." ~ Pythagorus
A report published by the Worldwatch Institute shows that a staggering 51 percent or more of global greenhouse-gas emissions are caused by animal agriculture including dairy.
This is another reason why Harry and all leaders need to be role models and Go Vegan.
3 steps to standing up to a tyrant boss:
1. Take your power back. "They cannot take away your self-esteem if you don't give it to them." ~ Ghandi. If the tyrant has silenced you and continually abuses others as well, it is time to truthfully bring their behaviour out into the open.
2. With compassion, suggest ways for the tyrant to heal:
a) Straight conversation. Call a spade a spade. Be prepared that your words may not fully register because the tyrant may have low awareness of his behaviours. At least you will plant seeds.
b) Free on-line behavioural change techniques such as www.TheBrainWalk.com
3. Ask the tyrant for a signal that he can respond to when he falls off the wagon. For example, whenever his bad behaviour shows up, you could tap your forehead twice.
Happy World Vegan Day - a wee bit belated!
