With great power...

comes great responsibility.

I am a comic book geek.  I remember and still own the first comic book I ever purchased.  It was Amazing Spider-Man #149, in 1977. 

Please keep the 'old fool' jokes to yourself. 

It cost $0.25 and I was so proud of myself for investing the quarter in a comic that I could read over and over, versus buying some candy or gum that I would have enjoyed for five minutes and then would have been gone forever.

Now, I wish I still had every comic that I bought when I was a kid, but the fact that I still have the very first one still means a lot to me, and that I will be able to pass it on to my son is special to me.

The key message of Spider-Man was always, 'With great power, comes great responsibility'.  Peter Parker (Spider-Man's true identity) constantly struggles balancing his 'responsibility' to use his tremendous powers to battle evil with his desire to have a 'normal' life, and be happy and content. Of course throughout the Spider-Man saga, his responsibility to fight crime leads to tragedy and pain in his personal life, and many times he battles the urge to simply walk away from it all, and just live his life as a regular man.

This is an incredibly unsettling time.  Jobs are disappearing, investment portfolios are worth half what they were a year ago, and everyone is looking over their shoulder waiting for some bad news.

If you are a leader or manager of employees, you too have a 'great responsibility', sometimes one that you don't always relish.  Your employees are looking to you more that ever for leadership, guidance, and most importantly, to make the right decisions that may mean the difference in saving their jobs.

It is not easy, it is not fun, it is incredibly hard to hang in there, to give your best day after day under this kind of pressure.  But you have to.  If not you, then who?  You are Peter Parker. You are Spider-Man.

With great power, comes great responsibility.