Page 18 - The Twelve Concepts for World Service

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Concept IX

Good service leaders, together with sound and appropriate methods of choosing
them, are at all levels indispensable for our future functioning and safety. The
primary world service leadership once exercised by the founders of A.A. must
necessarily be assumed by the Trustees of the General Service Board of Alco -
holics Anonymous.

“ o matter how carefully we design our service structure of
N principles and relationships, no matter how well we apportion
authority and responsibility, the operating results of our structure can
be no better than the personal performance of those who must man it
and make it work. Good leadership cannot function well in a poorly
designed structure . . . . Weak leadership can hardly function at all, even
in the best of structures.”
Due to A.A.’s principle of rotation, furnishing our service structure
with able and willing workers has to be a continuous effort. The base of
the service structure — and the source of our leadership — is the General
Service Representative. The G.S.R. is the service leader for his or her
group, the indispensable link between the group and A.A. as-a-whole.
Together the G.S.R.s are A.A.’s group conscience — and together, in their
areas, they elect the area committee members and ultimately the delegates
and the area’s candidates for trustee. Groups who have not named
G.S.R.s should be encouraged to do so. And as the G.S.R.s meet in area
assemblies, care and dedication are required. Personal ambitions should
be cast aside; feuds and controversies forgotten. “Who are the best
qualified people?” should be the thought of all.
“No society can function well without able leadership in all its levels,
and A.A. can be no exception. Fortunately, our Society is blessed with
any amount of real leadership — the active people of today and the
potential leaders of tomorrow as each new generation of able members
swarms in. We have an abundance of men and women whose dedication,
stability, vision, and special skills make them capable of dealing with
every possible service assignment. We have only to seek these folks
out and trust them to serve us.
“A leader in A.A. service is therefore a man (or woman) who can
personally put principles, plans and policies into such dedicated and
effective action that the rest of us want to back him and help him with
his job.
“Good leadership will also remember that a fine plan or idea can
come from anybody, anywhere. Consequently, good leadership will often
discard its own cherished plans for others that are better, and it will give
credit to the source.