Leadership means feeding people

We are in the midst of a federal election here in Canada and it’s getting nasty. In an effort to counteract some of the negative spin, our public broadcaster CBC has been running a number of interesting documentaries. Today a producer followed three candidates in Toronto who were struggling with how to work with diversity rather than falling into the political trap of polarizing people.

One of the candidates was Borys Wrzesnewskyj who is a Liberal running in the west end of Toronto. He is the owner of the Future Bakery in Toronto, a thriving local chain that was founded by his grandfather. His grandfather came to Canada as a master baker, having earned that designation from the court of czar Nicholas in Russia in 1915. To become a master baker a receive that designation 100 years ago in Russia, one had to study for seven years and learn accounting and morality.

Morality?

Wrzesnewskyj said that bakers needed to learn morality because they feed people. He drew a parallel to politics and suggested that people running for office be similarly trained.

Its obviously a perspective that has sat with Wrzesnewskyj for sometime as this article shows from 1998:

It is nice to see someone connecting work and leadership to a bigger values-based context in the midst of this dirty election.