Virtus Incendit Vires - Virtue Kindles One's Strength: Ayn Rand

Demetria Diggs
Ph.D. Student in Educational Leadership
College of Education
Prairie View A&M University
Dean of Instruction
Paul Revere Middle School
Houston Independent School District
Houston, Texas

ABSTRACT

Through a code of ethics, leaders respond to the diverse needs of individuals. In earnest
efforts to shape the campus culture, selflessness has been an imperative. Through the
lens of Ayn Rand, employing the concept of objectivism, educational leaders should
delimit their servantship, embracing a modicum of selfishness. It is unwise for one to
desiccate his own sustained leadership capacity, in an effort to appease the overbearing
habits of some within the school community.
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Introduction

The educational area has embraced the practice of servant leadership. This
consists of leaders first ensuring that the highest priority needs of others are being met.
Although one cannot negate that this style of leadership has proven to be advantageous,
this philanthropic concern for human welfare and advancement within the organization
usually comes at an expense to the altruist. From a metaphysical perspective, every
individual has limitations. It’s reality. When is it appropriate for an educational leader to
place a ceiling on his servantship in order to preserve his own equilibrium? Can a servant
leader consider himself a servant if he transforms from selfless to selfish in dire
situations? “No society can be of value to man’s life if the price is the surrender of his
right to life” (Rand, 1961, p. 36).
 Purpose of the Article

The purpose of the article is to substantiate that individuals in educational

leadership can maintain salubrious leadership capacity, and longevity by understanding
the three values of objectivist ethics. As presented in Ayn Rand’s (1961) Virtues of
Selfishness, one will ascertain how virtues of rationality, productiveness, and pride may
safeguard educational leaders as they embark on day-to-day endeavors within their
respective educational organizations. Despite the burden of overbearing behaviors that
rest on their shoulders, leaders must act in some capacity of selfishness to sustain
themselves throughout the duration of their leadership. “The Objectivist ethics hold
man’s life as the standard of value-and his own life as the ethical purpose of every
individual man (Rand, 1961, p. 27).

“Selfishness” Redefined

Typically holding connotations of negativity and disinterest in others,

“selfishness” has been redefined by Ayn Rand (1961). One may wonder how selfishness
can in any way correlate with moral excellence. What could be virtuous about putting
one’s own interests above the interests of others? Ayn Rand (1961), through
“objectivism,” the rejecting of self-sacrifice and renunciation. It is the position that men
should regard themselves as their utmost highest value. Man should continuously act as
his own chief preserver; as the function of our very existence is to survive mentally and
physically. Through her writings, she further contends that the practice of unselfish
concern for the welfare of others opposes human nature. One should not exhaust or
sacrifice himself in an effort to strengthen another. Think of one pitching himself into a
body of water to rescue someone, knowing that through fear and the inability to save
oneself, the person in distress could ultimately contribute to the rescuers demise.
According to Ayn, self-sacrifice is a practice plagued with irrationality. As a result, of
irrationality, one is sure to self destruct.

An organism’s life depends on two factors: the material or fuel which it needs
from the outside, from its physical background, and the action of its own body,
the action of using that fuel properly. What standard determines what is proper in
this context? The standard is the organism’s life, or: that which is required for the
organism’s survival. (Rand, 1961, p. 17)

It is imperative for educational leaders across the nation to consider themselves, and use
their fuel properly. In the context of educational leadership, using fuel properly suggests
meeting the needs of diverse individuals within the school community when those needs
are within rational levels. The results of these logical choices are the sustainability of his
own being, and longevity within his profession.
 The Virtue of Rationality in Educational Leadership

“Rationality is man’s basic virtue, the source of all his other virtues” (Rand, 1961,
p. 27). Educational leaders across the country tailor their professional life and conduct
to moral and ethical principals as warranted by their diverse code of ethics. It is indeed
their charge to act as the primary campus servants, thus meeting individual employee
needs as they arise. Educational administrators engage in multifarious situations in
which they expend low, moderate, high, and even exacerbating levels from their mental
and physical being. The first levels are expected as they come with the position. Some
employees, routinely exhibit exorbitant levels of personality traits which exceed the
bounds of custom and reason. From a metaphysical perspective, this excessiveness can
eventually lessen the duration of a leader’s longevity. Should the leader tolerate
this excessiveness, it could even result in his loss as a living being. It is important for one
to grasp that metaphysics is the division of philosophy related to the study of existence.
It is merely the view of the world around us. “It is the study of the Being as a whole”
(Kritsonis, 2002, p. 100). It is the foundation of philosophy that helps us deal and
understand reality. “Without an explanation or an interpretation of the world around us,
we would be helpless to deal with reality” (Kritsonis, 2002, p.100). In reality, like any
other being, we are equipped with the mental faculties to survive at a certain level, before
our vessel weakens.

Irrational behaviors in the workplace exist; and can have detrimental effects on
leaders over time. Educational leaders lead because they have the ability to maneuver
with ease in the various positive and negative situations that each institution faces. There
comes a time when the leader must take into account their own wellbeing. These
situations usually involve interactions with those who exhibit irrational levels of
personality flaws or emotional deficits. Often, these flaws and deficits have no direct
relevance to the school community. In fact, it is common for extreme individuals to bring
unresolved matters from their past, and personal lives into their place of employment
where he or she feels the leader‘s role is to act as his or her counsel or confidant. Leaders
want to support their faculty and staff in both professional and personal matters when
necessary. Extreme needs lesson the leader’s ability to focus on other matters of the
campus, especially knowing that the primary purpose for which one is employed is to
ensure that the children on the campus get their mental, physical, and emotional needs
met.

Don’t let them ruin your day. Most importantly, it is your day and you cannot
allow anyone to take it from you. Be strong, supportive, and listen to a certain
degree. At some point you may have to move on and leave the person to paddle
on his or her own. Stress is a reality and must be positively dealt with to survive.
(Conners, 2000, p. 104)
 Rationality means reason and sound judgment. Educational leaders must be careful, and
make the commitment to preserve themselves as they reach out to preserve the wellbeing
of others within their respective organizations. Holding the pseudo opinion that one can
truly carry the entire emotional burden of a school community on his shoulders is myth.
One must make the decision to place a rational ceiling on his natural ability to assuage
the ailments of every person within the school community, especially those whose needs
exceed normative levels. Leaders who believe that there is no need to place some
boundary on his or her selflessness may be dealing in irrationality. “Irrationality is the
rejection of man’s means of survival and, therefore, a commitment to a course of blind
destruction; that which is anti-mind, is anti-life (Rand, 1961, p. 28). Ayn Rand suggests
that man should first, take into account his or her own being, and his survival therein.
What would one gain if one exhausted himself completely; and for those for which he
exhausted himself survives and the exhausted fails to survive? “No one can work in a
profession as difficult and challenging as education and be fulfilled without taking care of
her or himself” (Conners, 2000, p.100).

The Virtue of Productiveness in Educational Leadership

The virtue of productiveness is the recognition of the fact that productive work is
the process by which man’s mind sustains his life, the process that set man free of
the necessity to adjust himself to his background, as all animals do, and gives him
the power to adjust his background to himself. (Rand, 1961, p. 29)

Great educational leaders, who lead with rationality, understand the importance of
making those extreme individuals whose personalities have the ability to thwart the
success of the leader and the school community adjusts to him, and he not to them.
Educational leaders understand the importance of the entire school community achieving
at high levels, and will work to transform any barriers that may impede the success of the
school community. Leaders desire to engage in productive work. They have consciously
chosen the career as a rational endeavor. Knowing that administration is a high-stress
occupation, leaders must balance their profession in an effort to prevent self destruction.
“It is not the degree of a man’s ability nor the scale of his work that is ethically relevant
here, but the fullest and most purposeful use of his mind” (Rand, 1961, p. 29). Leaders
must use their mind to the fullest capacity. The only means by which a leader may utilize
his mind to the fullest capacity it through self preservation. Unnecessary stress in
leadership can be waned by adopting a sense of selfishness when it comes to dealing
with individuals with unrealistic needs. Those in leadership should not feel obligated to
over stress themselves in an effort to satisfy the few employees whose emotional
demands diminish the leader’s capacity to lead appropriately. When leaders feel
overwhelmed in such a manner, he should remove himself from the snare of the excessive
employee. “The physical sensation of pain is a warning signal of danger, indicating that
the organism is pursuing the wrong course of action, that something is impairing the
proper function of its body, which requires action to correct it” (Rand 1961, p. 18). “My
philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as
the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and
reason as his only absolute (Rand, 2005, p.1).

The Virtue of Pride in Educational Leadership

Educational leaders must achieve their own perfection, or trueness to themselves

by altering their character in a manner that makes his profession worth sustaining.
Leaders must not adhere to virtues of irrationality, and practice only the virtues deemed
rational. Educational leaders should not feel guilty because they refused to embrace the
illogical of those who’s weight of life is more than anyone would want to bear. They
must keep in mind that controlling behaviors in his or her midst should not reign over his
focus of keeping his or her school community and his wellbeing intact. Leaders should
not be expected to be the sacrificial animal.

Concluding Remarks

In conclusion, educational leaders have many choices in the actions they choose
to take in the workplace. He can ensure that the entire school community gets every need
met regardless of the intensity of those needs and the effects on his person.
Many variations, too many forms of adaptation to its background are possible to
an organism, including the possibility of existing for a while in a crippled,
disabled or diseased condition, but the fundamental alternative of its existence
remains the same: if an organism fails in the basic functions required by its
nature-if an amoeba’s protoplasm stops assimilating food, or if a man’s heart stops
beating-the organism dies. (Rand, 1961, p. 17)

The more rational choice would be not to sacrifice one’s well being totally to the
organization, and not expect the organization to completely sacrifice itself to you.
The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that just as life is an end in
itself, so every living human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends
or the welfare of others-and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake,
neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing other to himself. (Rand 1961,
p.30)
 References

Rand, A. (1961). The virtue of selfishness. New York: Penguin Putnam,

Incorporated.
Rand, A. (1957). Atlas shrugged. New York: Penguin Putnam, Incorporated.
Kristonis, W. (2007). William Kritsonis, PhD on schooling. Mansfield, OH:
Bookmasters, Incorporated.
Conners, N. (2000). If you don’t feed the teachers they eat the students. Nashville, TN:
Incentive Publications.
Rand, A. (2005). The Atlas Society Web. Retrieved February 13, 2009, from
www.objectivistcenter.org