On Leadership

Yesterday I posted a longish bit where I exhorted the audience to become their own leaders and heroes instead of giving up on the entire institution.   I have a few issues with that post, not because I don't believe in it, but because I am all too familiar with people on the internet who seem to enjoy willfully misunderstanding anything not explained, as if to a child.

Rather than turn a long post into a longer post I thought I'd break off my sidebar discussions on various elements into separate posts spread out over a few days.

So lets talk about leading people.

First of all, what Leadership is not: It is not telling people what to do. Sure, a leader might order people around, but saying that is 'leadership' is rather like saying using high beams is driving.  Its something done under very specific circumstances that can easily be misused.

So when I tell you to be a leader, I'm not telling you to go around bossing people.

Likewise, Leadership is not Management.  This is something deeply and erroneously conflated in the modern corporate culture. Not that management doesn't have its role, its place, but its not leadership. People rarely look back fondly on that time their manager totally managed them at work, but scratch a vet and chances are he'll have a story or two about the time he got his ass chewed, and deserved it.

I suppose a remarkably banal way to express the difference is that a Manager makes sure you've checked the box on form ID-10-T, while a Leader makes you the sort of person who checks the box without being told.

I think that captures the essence in about the worst possible, yet still accurate, way.

Of course, in the military its easy. The military is explicitly a hierarchal system, as many male focused groups tend to be.  The leaders are appointed, usually with seniority, over the followers, and in many cases given specific training on how to lead. This training is reinforced by the use of creeds that summarize the leadership philosophy of their rank and role, such as the NCO creed and the Officer's Creed, which are memorized and recited during training.   Thats not to say every leader in the military is good at it, that wasn't my point. The point is that being a leader is easy if you have a clear code and followers appointed for you.

How does this translate to you, Joe on the Street, looking to make a difference in the world?

Well, start with the code.  What we are missing isn't really 'leaders'. We've got plenty of them, its just that they all suck, right?  Why do they suck? Because they are self appointed, smug assholes who use borrowed power to get their way. They have no moral center, no creed but power itself.  They are selfish, and if you read the other post you know that selfishness is antithetical to civilization.

And yes, I will probably have to do a post regarding selfishness and self-interest on another day.

In your personal life there are probably very few people you can simply boss around without looking like an utter tool, so begin a leader is a bit more challenging. That's ok, though: leaders should be able to rise to challenges.

I don't want to make this a simple listicle, and there are plenty of decent works out there that cover the finer points, so I'll try to keep this portion brief. Like I said at the top, this is a sidebar to explicate my terms.

To be a leader you have to be worth following, to be someone you, and others, can respect.  Emulating great men of history is a decent starting point, being solicitous of others, having a moral code and actually sticking to it... these are all good starts.

Know your people. Not your 'followers', but the people you interact with, up and down your hierarchal chain and outside of it.  Be an active participant in your life, and be reliable and helpful.

While I'm far from satisfied with this post I'm going to call it with a piece of advice that runs contra to the advice we hear so often.  If you are not naturally a leader, then don't be yourself. Be the man you want to be, not the one you are comfortable being.

It really is that simple.