The Ranting Tree

An excerpt from Chad’s book “Thinking Aloud: Reflections on Ethical Leadership”. We hope you enjoy the essay – and perhaps introduce the questions below as a way to start conversations with your teammates. – ELA Team

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The Ranting Tree: A Shortage of Wise Adults

My youngest child, not yet 2 years old, has discovered Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree.   “Tree! “Tree!”  He begs, pleads, and ultimately demands.  I have read it to him four times today.  It was a light day.

I hate The Giving Tree.  I remember it vaguely from my own childhood, where it was read to me, presumably without incident.  More recently, reading it to my own child left me deeply, inconsolably sad.  As I thought about it (and given my son’s appetite for repetition, I had plenty of time to think about it), sadness turned to anger.

As you may recall, the book is an illustrated poem, telling the story of a relationship between a female tree and “a boy.”  In the boy’s youth, the tree was the center of his abundant free time.   The tree was delighted to share her leaves, her apples, and her shade, for the boy’s company and the pleasure of his joy.  As he grew older, the boy made increasing demands of the tree, who ultimately invited the boy to take everything, leaving the tree with nothing, a stump, utterly alone.  The story closes with an elderly “boy” sitting upon the stump, who was again “happy” to be giving to the boy, and to be in the boy’s company.

What a terrible story! One character sacrifices herself utterly while the other exploits her.  Is Silverstein extolling this relationship as an ideal for love?  The debate about this work has gone on since its introduction in 1964.  I am cursed to read this story, over and over, to a cheerful toddler…who just takes and takes….

Then I realized that throughout the story, the exploitive character is identified only as “the boy.”  He is depicted in his youth, in adolescence, through early and late adulthood, and ultimately in very old age.  In contrast to the illustration, in the text he remains “the boy.”  This simple convention reveals the source of my angst.

I am struck by a global shortage of adulthood.  Our political debates have devolved to childish oversimplification, name calling, and, all too often, fear mongering.  I work with many wonderful (adult) leaders, but I also encounter too many business people – and business students – who try to cover naked selfishness and short-sightedness with a cloak of “market discipline” or “commercial rationality.”  They seek short-term gains, at all costs.  I work with fire and law enforcement officers, some of whom pursue personal agendas or foster petty resentments at the expense of their missions.  These individuals don’t believe in building trusting relationships, because they are equipped neither to trust nor to earn trust.  They are boys and girls, engaged in exploitation.

These traits are acceptable, even unavoidable, in a toddler.  Even the tree was equipped to meet the needs of a young child, sustainably.  While the “boy’s” body and desires grew, he did not mature.  He gained neither foresight, nor any concern for the tree’s well-being.  Adults care for those who love them.  Good adults care about the well-being of others, more generally.  Wise adults have foresight.

Conversation Starters

Young children simply take from others.  Good adults care about others, and often care for others.

• What, in your opinion, are the essential features of adulthood?
• Do you see concern for others as a trait that comes with maturity? What promotes or inhibits its expression?
• Why do we seem to have fewer “wise adults” in the world today, and how do you think we can go about changing that?

At Ethical Leaders in Action we believe that most, if not all people, can develop themselves to play leadership roles in many different spheres both large and small. The foundation of this development process is a short but powerful list of virtues which can be developed and improved through conscious effort. For more information feel free to take the Virtues of Ethical Leadership Self Inventory (VELSI) which breaks these virtues down into features that can be individually developed. The results of the VELSI come with a quick reference guide to help you understand how the virtues and their individual features fit together. https://ethinact.com/velsi/

See a list of other posts in this series at Blog Post Series

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