Leadership isn't inherently good
by Miki SaxonTaking over Leadership Turn got me thinking. People always talk and write about “leadership” with a positive spin, but there are plenty of talented, even brilliant, leaders on the dark side. Leadership skill is neither good nor bad—it just is. Being a talented leader has absolutely no connection with being ethical or with leading people in a socially recognized positive direction.
The article Jonathan Farrington cited on August 14 says, “By leadership, we mean the ability to shape what followers actually want to do…”, but history tells us that people are more than willing to be shaped in socially unacceptable directions—think Jeff Skilling or Hitler.
Of course, if the leader crashes and burns, his constituents will claim that they were led astray unwillingly and/or had no idea what their leader was up to.
And in some cases that might even be true, but, in general, people hear what they want to hear and see what they want to see—consciously or not.
Remember, MAP is an amalgamation of a person’s mindset, attitude, and philosophy; it’s not inherently good and comes with no intrinsic ethical standards. A leader will follow his own MAP, drawing people to his vision and building buy-in from his constituency in order to achieve his goals.
Each group, whether country, business, organization, or family, sets its own standards and, within the larger picture, demands that they be met by its leaders and punishes those who don’t meet them.
As a constituent within the group you have a responsibility to intelligently evaluate the standards to assure that they are, at the least, synergistic to your own MAP, and to further evaluate whatever leaders arise against those standards, rather than accepting them blindly or because “everyone else does.”
The decision to use innate leadership talent and/or hone additional leadership skills should be a conscious one even if forced on you by circumstances beyond your control. Assuming a leadership position with no thought or conscious guidance is to become a puppet—probably not your preferred role or one that you’d enjoy.
The ability to lead doesn’t force you to become a leader, any more than perfect pitch forces you to become a musician.
When it comes to leading, following or opting out there are choices, as there are with all things related to MAP.
Think about them, then choose wisely and well—if not comfortably.
