Exemplary Leadership

The best leaders are themselves examples of virtue and righteousness. A society will be blessed when its elite members—politicians, business leaders, professors, celebrities and sports heroes—recognize their duty to be examples of honesty, integrity and morality. When they become role models, the common people will naturally follow their example.

We can identify three aspects of exemplary leadership. First, it begins in the family. The manner in which a leader cares for his or her spouse and children and manages the household is the starting point for his or her work in the wider spheres of government and social responsibility.

Second, it is leadership that governs by educating hearts and minds. In China, Confucius and his followers set forth the ideal of exemplary leadership against the views of Legalists who taught that leadership flowed from law and its vigorous enforcement— “power by the barrel of the gun” as Mao Zedong would later put it. Confucius countered that all the state’s power would not banish discontent if the leaders were corrupt; on the contrary, the people would only learn violence and oppression.

Third, we have examples of exemplary leadership in the saints and religious teachers whom God sent to this earth. Jesus of Nazareth did not just teach through the words of his sermons, but also by his practice of sacrificial love. The Christian who walks in the footsteps of Jesus asks, “What would Jesus do,” and does likewise. Jesus loved his enemies on the cross—a difficult example to follow—thus laying the basis for Christians ever since to love their enemies and pray for their persecutors. When the political leaders follow these saints’ examples, they can establish world peace without doubt.

These qualities of exemplary leadership are summarized in Father Moon’s teaching called the Three Subjects Thought. The standard of leadership is to be a “true parent, true teacher and true owner.” Such leaders partake of the nature of God, our Heavenly Father, who superintends this world as its Owner, cares for all its creatures with deep parental love, and continually educates us to the true way of life.