Is self-interest essential in business leadership? Learn how self-interest is different from greed and why serving your self-interest can lead to success.
Contrary to what Gordon Gekko says in Wall Street, greed is not good. But what about serving your own self-interests? In this video, Paul Lushin makes the case that it is good to be selfless and that it is ruthless to be greedy, but that serving your own self-interests is vital to the preservation of the things you value most.
There is a difference in serving self interest vs. greed. Greed is taking it too far - that’s ruthless. To provide for our families, perpetuate our business, causes and life, we do need to be a bit selfish. This will allow us to build our leadership skills and with regard to sales, become a good sales consultant.
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Video Transcript
There's a continuum. And the continuum, I would say, would start with being selfless. Then there's serving one's self-interest. There's selfish. Then we get to greed.
And we think about in the 80s, Gordon Gekko, Wall Street, he said, "Greed is good."
Well, I disagree with that. And I'm a free enterprise guy and I disagree with his statement.
But I do believe in serving your self-interest. I do believe in that. And I think that even as God ordained.
In fact, if you think about the lion in the Serengeti, and she's got some cubs. And I think that's what lions are, cubs.
Who eats first when she kills the gazelle? She does. Why? Because she needs strength for the next hunt.
So self-interest is good. We have to serve our self-interest to perpetuate our enterprise, to provide for our families.
Now, we go to the next level. And that's being selfish.
And I'm selfish at times. I think we learned at a very early age to be selfish, meaning that the first time that Susie has to break a candy bar in half to share with her sister, and she sizes up both sides of the candy bar, well, her younger sister gets the smaller one.
And I think that's-- we all have a bit of that.
One thing that frustrates me about myself is that I call myself sometimes civically lazy. I'm selfish with my time. And I know as I get older I've got to change that.
But greed, greed is taking it too far. That's ruthless. That's where we have this arrogance to assume that everything out there is for one's own consumption.
And we have to watch ourselves. But we also need to be OK and not feel guilty about serving one's self interests. Because that's just-- we have to do that to perpetuate our business, our enterprises, our causes. And to help our kids to excel greater than what we have been.
In conclusion, or should I say, in the end, Gordon Gekko is wrong.
