[Note from Kathie Malley-Morrison: Today we welcome guest author Norman Provizer, who reflects on the themes of duty, service, and power in the life and leadership of Golda Meir.]
In Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Proteus explains why he betrayed his close friend Valentine with these words: “My duty pricks me to utter that [w]hich else no worldly good should draw from me.”
It is that idea of duty which, perhaps more than any other single concept provides the best lens for viewing the life and legacy of Golda Meir. After all, whenever there was conflict between her sense of duty and her personal desires, “it was,” as she put it, “more duty that had the prior claim.”
When she was told to travel to America to raise funds for the fledgling Israeli state, Golda simply said, “I’m only a soldier called upon to do my duty.” When she was named to various governmental positions, including foreign minister and, eventually, prime minster, she accepted, because it was her duty, not because it was her desire. In that regard, she would never fail to ask: Why me? What do I know of such matters?
In short, there is the lure of power versus the call to exercise it through service. Golda, called “the greatest woman of the twentieth century” by Fidel Castro of all people, stands as a striking example of that latter view.
Of course, though she responded to the call to exercise power through her service, she was not at all passive in that exercise. She could be controlling, and inflexible, and plain stubborn. And she could say, “I know myself too well to like myself…I am not what I would like to be.”
Still, she was more than most of us could ever hope to be. Duty may be a double-edged sword; but wielded properly, it is a potent weapon when it comes to leadership and beyond.
Norman Provizer, Director of the Golda Meir Center for Political Leadership and Professor of Political Science, Metropolitan State College Denver