Remembrances II

Only A Well-Grounded Person Who Is Willing To Face Great Adversity and Unpopularity Can Be a Great Leader. This Calls For A Very Strong Ability To Remember Who You Are

Making the Popular Decision Everyone Wants To Hear Is Not Leadership But An Abdication Of It

A leader who always seeks to make the popular decision to win the approval of those under their care will soon guide himself and everyone else to disaster.

“This cannot end well, but this is what they wish, and so now I must give them what they want” is a terrible train of thought for any leader to have.

“But you guys TOLD ME that was what you WANTED to do…!”

“They cannot see this course of action they all want to follow will lead us to our ruin, and so now I must stop them from rushing headlong to their destruction and convince them to follow me down a path they do not wish to tread,” is the thought a good leader facing one of the most challenging problems of leadership.

Leader: “OK, I heard you all out…we’re not doing what you want. We’re going to do this other, harder thing instead.” Group: “OH NO YOU DIDN’T!!!”

Being mentally centered means having a deep and confident sense of who you are and your purpose in this world. It means understanding down to the marrow of your bones that you can either be a popular leader or an effective leader, but if you attempt to be both, you will fail at both.

You can decide to lead people toward what you know they need, or you can surrender your leadership role and simply walk behind them as they rush toward what they think they want. But you cannot do both.

A good leader leads from the front

A bad leader just follows the group wherever it wants to go

You cannot both lead and not lead at the same time. Being a leader means remembering it’s part of your job to be deeply unpopular when it is required of you.

“And that’s why I’ve decided to follow this course of action that is unpopular with all of you…”

As the emperor of the latter-day Roman Empire, Marcus Aurelius had ample opportunity to make highly unpopular decisions and watch the results of announcing those decisions.

Many historians estimate the population of the Roman Empire during Marcus’ reign as emperor from 161-180 AD to have been between 4 and 5 million people.

While it can be difficult enough to manage a small company or a family, imagine being in a position where you have to make tough decisions that will affect the lives of several million people. Many of whom were hoping you’d make a different decision or even no decision at all.

One of the first things you learn in a leadership position is that the mere announcement of your decision - especially an unpopular one - is only the beginning of your work. You’ll now need to seek to motivate those under your care to take actions they may strongly disagree with and believe to be wrong.

In the martial art of Aikido, a person who is unstable and unsure of himself is easily rendered off balance, controlled and thrown.

But a person who is centered mentally and keeps a low center of balance is much harder to unbalance and move.

Being Centered Is Key For A Good Leader - And To Be Centered, You Must First Know Who You Are, And Then Be Able To Remember Who You Are While Under Pressure

Your own nature and other people will test you, probing for weaknesses and self-doubt, looking for ways to unbalance you and move you in the direction they wish you to go.

You cannot allow this to happen if you aspire to be a good leader.

The first thing that occurs when a leader announces an unpopular decision to those in his care is disapproval.

It may be from the many or the few, soft or pretty intense, but the verbal and visual feedback will be negative. A good leader must be prepared to handle such firm and disapproving feedback.

In the film “Moneyball,” when Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane reveals who he wants to sign for the upcoming season using a revolutionary new concept called ‘Sabermetrics,’ the team's scouts are first stunned and then ferociously resistant to the direction he wants to take the team in.

A different outcome may have been expected or demanded. Now that the leader has not gone along with most of the group’s wishes and is instead attempting to move everyone together in a different direction, his or her true leadership abilities can now be tested.

When a leader has to make an unpopular decision, it is often the more challenging path, not just for him but for those he will now attempt to move down that path.

If you’re a fortunate leader who hasn’t had to make an unpopular decision yet, and the group has eagerly followed you at all times because you’ve ever and only led them where they wanted to go? That means your fundamental leadership skills have never been truly tested.

As it happens, many of the most critical tools involved in leadership involve getting disappointed and disapproving charges to follow you enthusiastically down a path they don’t want to go down.

What are the most important tools in the great leader’s toolbox?

I would say that they are Logic, Character, Wisdom, Calm Demeanor, and Vision.

I’ll end this Part II by discussing the first tool in the Great Leader’s toolbox: Logic.

The Role of Logic vs Emotion In Leadership

We live in a world where the ability to think and make decisions based on rationality and logic is at a premium.

A leader who always allows his or her emotions to dictate their decisions is ‘following the heart.’ Emotions-based leadership is not only dangerous; it means the leader is often basing their decisions on how outside forces, pressures, and circumstances of the moment are making them FEEL.

A leader making emotion-based decisions is being controlled by outside forces. The decisions this person would make - or not make - are dictated by how others make them FEEL at any given time.

“What can I say? This just FEELS right, guys! FOLLOW ME!”

Emotions cloud reason; the stronger the emotion, the harder it is to think clearly. No one should give in to their strong emotions at the expense of logic. Emotionally, a particular decision may ‘feel’ right, but your logic and reason tell you it is the wrong course of action.

One of the first pitfalls a new leader has to look out for is those who will constantly appeal to his or her emotions; emotionally inflamed people are often attempting to stir up and incite others, often into rash action. They let their emotions dictate what they wish to see happen and will try to sway leadership into giving in and following their desires.

If a leader gets into the bad habit of making decisions based on how those decisions make them ‘feel’ emotionally…they will often wind up in the ditch.

An emotions-based leader should be avoided at all costs. This is why LOGIC is the foundational tool in a great leader’s toolbox because the great leader will strive to make the logical decision for the group no matter how they or others may FEEL at the moment.

Logic is not innate; no one is born with it, so it must be learned.

Many mistake learned intelligence and logic with innate cleverness, but the two are distinct.

Some may have been gifted with more extensive, sharper, and more efficient mental tools than their peers. Still, if those tools are never utilized to construct anything of consequence, mere possession of them does not hand their owners any advantages.

A man who lives in a large mansion with 17 rooms but never uses 16 of them for anything at all is no better off in a practical sense than the man who dwells in a house with only one room.

The world is full of self-professed geniuses who never did anything that is out of the ordinary where others could see and judge it. But they nevertheless remain quite convinced they are geniuses, unrecognized and ignored by a cruel and fickle world.

To become an intelligent person full of wisdom and logic, you must first have the goal of becoming a wise and thoughtful person. That means you must be willing to think long and hard in isolation. Clear and concise thought does not happen amid chattering crowds.

It is often hard work done in solitude while reading books containing various conflicting viewpoints and philosophies. And one has to think hard about what one is learning to benefit from the reading. This takes a significant investment of time.

No one lucks into becoming highly intelligent or a consistently logical thinker. It doesn’t just happen while someone is sleeping or not paying attention and not applying their mind. It does not randomly occur to the lazy like a lightning bolt descending from the heavens, as if from the throne of Zeus. It must be sought and pursued.

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