My last post outlined some reasons why we might consider King Saul to be a textbook case of a toxic leader. According to Jean Lipman-Blumen in her book, “The Allure of Toxic Leaders,toxic leaders are those who engage in destructive practices and exhibit personality dysfunctions, who often “cause serious harm to their organizations and their followers.” Saul seem to fit those descriptions as I outlined in my last post.

In leadership literature there is a tendency to highlight and distinguish toxic leaders from good leaders. The term “good” used here, as Joanne Ciulla (Coston Family Chair in Leadership and Ethics at the Jeppson School of Leadership Studies, in her article, “Leadership Ethics: Mapping the Territory” in Ethics, the Heart of Leadership) clarifies, is used in two senses: as morally good as well as effective or technically good. The danger here is to focus on only the heroic aspects of leaders and to look for super-heroes in our leaders, only to be disappointed when they all come up short. Earlier on, I noted this all too common tendency of “pedestalizing” our leaders (yeah, it’s that word again!).

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More stories on L.A.’s Skid Row, following last Sunday’s Part One of the Series, Demons are Winning on Skid Row, you can find Part Two: A Corner Where L.A. hits Rock Bottom and Part Three: Offering Compassion: Not a Cure on this page. Also on that page you can view photos and video stories of the author, Steve Lopez, a columnist (whose column I try to read every chance I get) of the Los Angeles Times. As I watch this gallery, my heart when out to the thousand or so people who call Skid Row their home, day in, day out, and words of my Savior ring afresh in my ears: “‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’” Perhaps, as you watch the gallery yourself, you might also want to ask God what He would have you do for the least of these.

I can close the browser. I can switch off the laptop. I can look around me, and get busy again, and I can even feel really grateful that my family has such nice comfortable things around ourselves and forget about them. Or I can put some action to the compassion I feel. One small way I have resolved to do so is to make a donation to the Los Angeles Mission, one of many groups providing solace, care and compassion to those who suffer at our doorsteps.