Commitment is the second of the five F3 Leadership Virtues–the Habits and Ethics of moral excellence. Commitment has two components, unwavering loyalty to the Group and unflinching determination to accomplish the Group’s Mission. The former is focused more upon the Group as an entity and the Members that comprise it while the latter concerns the Purpose for which it was formed. Because he is Committed, the Virtuous Leader is both loyal and determined.

Loyalty is firm and constant support and allegiance manifested through the subordination of one’s own well-being to the Prosperity of the the Group. A Loyal person puts the interest of his Group and the needs of its Members before his own. In his decision making, he is concerned first with the impact a course of action will have on the Group and only secondarily upon himself. His relationship with his Group and its Members is that of a fiduciary, in that he is charged with a special duty of Trust that obligates him to safeguard its Prosperity in everything he does.

To be Loyal a man must be obedient, meaning that he must willingly submit to higher authority within the Group. Note that obedience alone is not Loyalty, as a man can be obedient without being Loyal. Most convicts will obey the warden’s rules without a shred of Loyalty to the prison system that appointed him.

The inverse however is not true. Loyalty to the Group requires thoroughgoing obedience to its Governance. I cannot be a loyal American if I reserve the right to disobey the just decrees of its duly elected and appointed officials whenever I find them personally inconvenient or morally repugnant. Nor can I be a loyal Member of my church if I am

determined to decide for myself which of its doctrines I will accept based on my own theological views.

In either case, if I found that I could not submit to the authority of the Governance I would only have two Virtuous choices. I could either depart the Group–in recognition that remaining and disobeying makes me disloyal, or I could stay and become a member of the Loyal opposition that obeys the Governance while openly seeking to change its policies or composition. To remain and disobey is not a choice, it is disloyalty and thus un-Virtuous.

There is an exception to the obligation to obedience, in that it is not disloyal to actively resist unjust decrees promulgated by a Governance that is not duly elected or appointed. In fact, Loyalty to the Group may require disobedience to its Governance where it has exceeded its delegated authority or is abusing it to the Disadvantage of the Group or its Members. Within any Group (other than those that are inherently unstable), this would be a very rare occurrence. Before embarking on a course of Loyal disobedience, the Virtuous Leader must exhaust all other peaceable alternatives and deliberate sufficiently such that his conscience leaves no other option. Anything less risks brigandry.

This call to Loyal disobedience finds its logical and ultimate end at the heart of the founders’ sober declaration of our nation’s uncoupling from England:

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Because they believed the crown to have exceeded its authority, the signatories of the Declaration Of Independence did not consider themselves disloyal in their disobedience to its dictates. And, because they were men of Virtue who recognized that Loyalty cannot be divided, they publicly announced their determination to do so. Thus, it was with regret that Thomas Jefferson wrote:

Believe me, dear Sir: there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America.

In their decision to Loyally disobey, Jefferson and the other signatories to the Declaration placed the interests of the Community of American Colonies far above their own. Through their deep sense of unwavering Loyalty they subordinated their own wealth, lives and liberty to a cause far greater than their own advancement. By this, they demonstrated Commitment of the highest order.