Recently I have watched two movies about the use of drones in war, one of them was a few weeks "Good Kill" with Ethan Hawke, and recently "Eye in the Sky" with Helen Mirren. They are both excellent movies and very thought provoking in regards to the moral validity on using drones to target dangerous enemies.
The latter movie "Eye in the Sky" centers the dilemma on whether to justify a drone operation to kill a group of terrorists in a small village while there is moderate probability on killing innocent people who are near the area. This is about a joint operation with the US, Great Britain, and Kenya. And there are military personnel, and a few British cabinet ministers monitoring the situation. But once this dilemma arises, among the military personal and British ministers were not able to agree in the next course of action. The movie gets really tense while trying to solve this situation (to go or not with the operation), and also a bit frustrating because it starts a cycle of "decision referral" (basically trying to get in contact with a person of higher authority so that he can make the decision).
The person with "higher" authority within group of people monitoring the operation could not decide, so he has to refer to another minister, and so on, until they reach the Prime Minister. So basically no one really wanted to take the burden on making this decision. It is also interested how they portray the difference between the US and British on how they determine whether collateral damage is justified or not.
It is not my intent to discuss about the use of drones, as I don't know enough to comment, but I want to focus on the weight a decision have for leaders. In the above example, it is about political leaders, and though it is very entertaining to read about the US elections, it is also a serious matter as it will determine the next leader of this powerful nation, which can influence in decisions like the one described above.
On a "very lesser" (not sure about my grammar) example, when I go out for a meal with friends, it can be time consuming to make a decision on where to eat, because either no one has a strong preference or there are opposing preferences (e.g. "no fast food", "no healthy food"). On my recent trip to Japan, there was a point where we were a group of 8 people, so whenever we have to decide for food, we would stand on a circle, and each of us will go to Yelp to find options, and then we discuss about them, and so on... it takes quite a bit of time. Of course, there were times I have to make an executive decision, and though that "solves the problem", it does put a burden on me. What if the food is bad? What if the service is awful? At the end, I do feel responsible for everyone's experience with the choice I made (even though I know my friends will not blame me even if the experience was bad).
On recent group trips, I was a major part of the trip planning, and I have to admit that during the trip there were moments where I would feel relief that nothing bad happen with the decisions that I have helped made, which is kind of silly because it does distract me from enjoying the actual trip.
These last examples are kind of silly, but it can tell us a bit on how leaders feel when they make big decisions. For example, pastors, church board, fellowship executive committee, etc. I was privileged to serve on various fellowship and small group leadership roles, and it is a big responsibility because decisions we make might affect the spiritual lives of the people we serve (to a certain degree, as God's sovereignty is in the picture). I remember the wise words a good brother told me a long time ago, reminding me that we should serve with seriousness as at the end we are accountable to our Great Maker and Creator.
No comments:
Post a Comment