What is a "Real Man?"

For the past year, a very dear friend of mine has been harassed by an ex of hers...not a recent ex, by any means, but someone with whom she split almost a decade ago and who, for reasons not entirely clear, suddenly decided that he wanted to make her life a misery.  He has long since re-married, has a child with the new wife and has much deeper pockets than she and yet, he has openly admitted in text messages to her that his only goal is to see her ruined.

It's not my intent to blog about that situation.  It has, however, prompted me to dwell a bit on the ridiculous American notion of the "real man."  I've come up with a fairly straight-forward list of what I'd consider a real "real man" to be but, as disinterested in gender-stereotypes as I am, I find that what this list really defines is what it means to be a decent human being.  Because so much of our country does appear to buy in to this notion of a tough, unflinching, never-crying, get-what-I-want-at-any-cost "ideal," I will phrase many of these bullets in ways that quite deliberately takes aim at a gender stereotype which, sadly, is now well-entrenched not only in the imaginations of many people but in the very behavior of far too many of our elected officials and self-proclaimed "leaders"  (and I probably don't need to add that many of the characteristics below are also applicable to the definition of a "real leader" as well as the mythical "real man").

1. A real man does not prey on the weak, he cares for them.
2. A real man does not vent his anger on others, he has the courage to confront the anger itself.
3. A real man accepts responsibility for how his life looks and how people treat him...he does not berate, bully and abuse others to hide his own sense of inadequacy.
4. A real man knows how to say "I'm sorry..." not in a way that makes excuses (e.g., "I'm sorry you think that was wrong of me...") but in a way that really shows him taking ownership of a mistake. (There's a nice little tweet from Adam Grant about this very topic).
5. A real man believes in the concept of "win-win."  He does not need to "crush" his opposition, whether in personal relationships or in business.
6. A real man "fails forward"...rather than finding someone to blame or scapegoat for his own mistakes, he acknowledges them, learns from them, and becomes a better person, businessman or public figure as a result of that learning.  (John C. Maxwell's book "Failing Forward" is good reading on this topic, by the way).
7. A real man loses graciously.
8. Equally, a real man wins graciously.
9. A real man is able to be moved (and, sadly, I have to qualify this one by saying "be moved appropriately") by both comedy and tragedy...whether their own or somebody else's.  This includes the willingness to cry over someone else's loss, to acknowledge greatness in another and to smile deeply, warmly and whole-heartedly at someone else's relief, deliverance, good fortune or joy.
10. Finally, a real man (and definitely a real leader), is tolerant of others' beliefs, life-styles, customs, manners and values.  There's a lot more I could say about this one but it starts to get quickly into issues of moral philosophy and I'll be writing about that in more detail further down the road.