Note: This post started as a response to Rhett Laubach’s comment, but got a little lengthy.

My main argument, and the thread that’s been running through many of my posts, is that it’s the court of public opinion after the fact that confers the title of leader. I’d like to see people stop holding leadership up as some kind of brass ring on the merry-go-round of life and do more living to the best of their abilities. Sure, people can add to their abilities, but they should also lead when it makes sense and follow when that makes sense, ignoring positions and power and influence, which are situational.

Let me tell you a story.

Back when I was in Civil Air Patrol during high school, a friend and I were on a search that was supposed to be more of a good hike than anything, when we found the crash—and the bodies. I say hike, because the teams that included cadets always searched the areas that had a minus 99% probability of finding anything, but, of course, you never could tell. That plane was way off any logical course, but every so often someone went flying without filing a flight plan and the little hills west of Denver called the Rocky Mountains just ate those idiots for lunch.

It was not a situation that any of us had ever faced, but I’ve never forgotten who took the lead. It was an insignificant little guy around 20, skinny, nerdy (in today’s language), and without an ounce of charisma. He’d never said much previously, but he talked us past the shock, developed a plan, because we had to take the bodies with us (long explanation), and got us out of there.

Nothing was mentioned about who was supposed to be in charge, there was no discussion, we just did what we needed to do. Even afterwards, there weren’t any big discussion of lead*, nobody really thought about it, we just accepted it.

I think two things from that experience sank deeply into my brain.

1. Don’t fly with idiots, especially those who don’t file flight plans; and
2. it’s not what you look like or who you are that matters—it’s how you think, what I’ve come to call MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy)™, that comes to the fore when needed.

I think that’s why I’m in such total agreement with Paul Wright’s comment (see 9/17) that “leadership is for instances. How people react to the things that happen around them—that’s the crux of life”

Leading isn’t an elite function or stored in your DNA; it’s not conferred upon you through an exclusive education nor does it come wrapped in an MBA.

I think that there are brilliant visionaries who can’t lead and talented leaders who aren’t visionaries—and some who can do both. Some managers are termed leaders, but leaders can’t always manage.

Steve Jobs founded and ran companies, developed products, some brilliant and some total duds, but I never heard him called a great people manager and it was decades before he was publicly hailed as brilliant. Steve did what he believed was right to do and did it with all his idiosyncrasies and his idiotsyncrasies intact, just like the rest of us, but with far more sustained passion than most of us can conjure up.

And that’s a large part of what sets Steve apart—his passionate, unshakable belief that he’s right and his willingness to ignore the naysayers.

Of course, that’s also what set Hitler apart.

And that’s the other thread you’ll find running through my writing. While leadership is neutral, good, bad, ethical, etc. are situational, subject to the definitions of their times. As I keep saying, murder has always been wrong, but the definition of murder keeps changing.

Leadership is no longer something that people do, it’s become an industry and as an industry it can only prosper if people believe in its mystique (yes, I realize that if it wasn’t an industry with mystique this blog wouldn’t exist:), but I’ve seen too many really great leaders in the instance who don’t believe in their own abilities because they never studied leadership.

And I find that very sad.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 28th, 2007 at 10:12 am and is filed under About Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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