provide proof of life

If you are fortunate enough to be entrusted with leadership — that is, with imagination on others’ behalf — he is clear on what you are meant to do: “I am here to provide proof of life to that ever elusive, never completely believable ‘us.’”

I am here, in that line, is precondition for everything that happens after. Being there, in and of a place, is where leading begins. Then you must move. Songs need to get played, arenas to get filled up. But those are only means. A leader’s job is to embody identity for a community — to give words and flesh to elusive ideals. (Only inside a body does an ideal get to become a story.) A leader’s legitimacy, then, rests upon “how deeply you [can] inhabit your song.”

Gianpiero Petriglieri

"Bruce Springsteen, Artful Leadership, and What Rock Star Bosses Do". Harvard Business Review. 9/27/2017

actions that are unpopular

As a leader, one must sometimes take actions that are unpopular or whose results will not be known for years to come. There are victories whose glory lies only in the fact that they are known to those who win them. This is particularly true of prison, where one must find consolation in being true to one’s ideals, even if no one else knows about it.

Nelson Mandela

Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Back Bay Books. 1995. p. 390