Lust for…Responsibility?

A wonderful quote from one of my favourite books, “Dune”, the 1965 science fiction masterpiece by Frank Herbert focussed around clans and corporations fighting for power, where power means control of a powerful (interesting that choice of descriptor!) drug that is essential for navigating trade routes, called “Spice”.

As Lord Acton famously noted:

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, “Language, Truth and Trust”, last week I attended a massively thought-provoking talk on language and leadership. At the Q&A afterwards, a gentleman sitting next to me quietly added his wisdom to the conversation.

“power is the ability to make things happen, responsibility is driven by attempting to answer the question: In whose interest is the power being used?”

He then went on to ask us to consider the impact of a shift in language from leadership being focussed around the word responsibility rather than the current association with the word power. in closing his brief contribution, he noted:

“have you ever heard anyone talk about lust for responsibility?”

My own definition of wisdom is:

“something concise that, as soon as you hear it, you feel you always knew it”