... Or What We
Can Learn from Horrible Leaders.
Effective leaders know how to lead in the past, present and future. Their success stems from an ability and willingness to understand what it means to be leading in time.
Effective leaders know how to lead in the past, present and future. Their success stems from an ability and willingness to understand what it means to be leading in time.
I once asked
the captain of a sail-training ship a pointed question as we sat together on
the quarterdeck in French Polynesian waters, “What’s the most important lesson
you want these students to learn?” “Anticipation,” he replied without
hesitation. “I want them to understand that what they do or don’t do in a given
moment matters. It can have life or death consequences.” I wrote his words
down. It was a profound insight.
Effective leaders
understand the past, using their earned and learned knowledge of history to navigate
the present course of their words and deeds. Authentic leaders who inspire us
with vision, capability, confidence and humility also understand that their
present course creates a future destination, too. They think and act like savvy
chess or billiards competitors, envisioning and shaping outcomes four or five
moves away. They condition future events because they know they
must lead beyond the indulgence of existing only in the present. They possess
sufficient emotional intelligence to think and feel beyond themselves, too; serving
as both participants in and observers of their own leadership.
People ask what
we can learn from horrible leaders such as an Oval Office grotesquerie who understands and practices
none of this. Are there useful, substantive insights to be derived from somebody born of an id that is unrestrained by any functioning super-ego? What
are positive, productive lessons from an individual who acts only on present
impulse, unguided by the wisdom of the past and divorced from the anticipatory
skills needed to understand the future consequences of his words and deeds?
We can learn
plenty, but these lessons must reach well beyond the “do the opposite of
everything he does” bromide. That’s too easy. Those of us who lead, observe
leaders and teach leaders-in-waiting can start by understanding leadership as a
dynamic practice of connecting past, present and future. We can insist that people
who expect to be called leaders – and respectfully treated as such – demonstrate
they can make decisions drawn from an understanding of history coupled with humble
acceptance as stewards of our future that their words and deeds will attempt to
create an even better history ahead of us.
Image courtesy of Susan Rowlen.