Snippits from interview with Bishop Desmond TuTu - by Academy of Achievement

On Leadership

The leader is the servant. So leadership is not having your own way. It's not for self-aggrandizement. But oddly, it is for service. It is for the sake of the led. It is a proper altruism. Now that paradigm sounds hugely unrealistic, idealistic, something for dreamers, namby-pamby -- when you think of our current world as a world of cutthroat competitiveness, dog-eat-dog, where stomach ulcers become status symbols, survival of the fittest, everyone for himself, herself, and the devil take the hindmost. And yet, you see, if you live by this latter code in your corporation, in your school, in whatever organization, you may indeed succeed, but it is at very, very great cost. You end up being feared rather than loved, as happened with a former state president of South Africa's, P.W. Botha, when the knives were out for him. No one, not even his closest associates, mourned his departure. And so they frequently say, "On your way up, be nice to those you meet. You might encounter them on your way down."

Our Lord Jesus Christ provided a revolutionary paradigm shift for what a leader should be, turning sort of topsy-turvy the prevalent conventional views according to which the leader is one who lords it over his underlings. Basically they have to know their place.

Someone said, "There are two rules in this operation. Rule number one: the leader is always right. Rule number two: in case the leader is wrong, refer to rule number one." It is that we think of the one who leads as a person who uses verbs in the imperative mood. "Do this!" "Jump!" You ask, "How high?" Now Jesus said, in fact, the real, the authentic leader shows the attribute of leadership in a kind of paradoxical way, almost an oxymoron.

Almost all seem to want to see in the leader the attributes that they wish they themselves have: integrity, compassion, gentleness, magnanimity -- the things that make you and I proud to be human, to say, "Ah yes. There are awful things about us, but I realize I am actually made for the transcendent. I am made for goodness. I am made for laughter. I am made for caring. I am made for sharing." And those leaders who somehow embody these things show that it is achievable. Yes, the sky is the limit, and we are meant to reach for the stars and dream God's dream.

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On God and Ministry
There was a cartoon that showed God looking at a poster that said, "God Is Dead." And God, looking somewhat quizzical, said, "Oh, that makes me feel so insecure." We, each of us, need so much to be affirmed. For each of us has -- gnawing away at the center of our being -- a sense of insecurity, some more than others. And frequently, the more insecure, the more aggressive we become. The more we like to throw our weight about and say people should recognize us. If they don't recognize us for goodness, then they will recognize us for being stroppy (obstreperous).

What is rewarding about the priesthood is, one, that you have an incredible privilege of being privy to some of the most extraordinary things about people. I mean, as their parish priest, you visit people who are sick, say, on their death bed, and they tell you things that they probably have not shared with any other person. You are privileged to bring the Holy Sacrament to people at a time when they are probably at their lowest. But you also have the privilege of meeting up with people at their moment of great joy, when they are getting married, or when they have a child baptized. And you know, you are given the privilege of connecting people, as it were. Connecting people with the transcendent, connecting people with their God. And in many ways, each one of us, of course, is expected to be an icon, an image of that which is invisible, an image of God. Each one of us, because we each have been created in the image of God. So people actually, if they want to know, "What is God like?" they would have to look at you and me and see us as being compassionate, because God is compassionate, as being loving, because God is loving. God is invisible. People wouldn't know about God except through those who are God's representatives, you and I and all of us.