\u201cWhen we donate to a good cause, it \u2019says\u2019 to our associates, \u2019Look, I\u2019m willing to spend my resources for the benefit of others. I\u2019m playing a positive-sum, cooperative game with society.\u2019 This helps explain why generosity is so important for those who aspire to leadership. No one wants leaders who play zero-sum, competitive games with the rest of society. If their wins are our losses, why should we support them? Instead we want leaders with a prosocial orientation, people who will look out for us because we\u2019re all in it together.\u201d
What I take from this quote is that even the most basic animal-like instincts want to see others playing cooperatively as leaders. In a strange sense, it is a hopeful statement because we can expect idealism to generally come from our leaders since it\u2019s what we want to see from them.
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