Leadership, with a double-edged Sword

Redefining Leadership vs. Fulfilling Personal Objectives

An edited version of this article was first published in October 2021 in REAL LEADERS magazine under the title “So, What Exactly is a Real Leader?” What follows is an expanded version using the original title as intended:

I was recently invited to interview for a non-executive board position of a leadership program at a prestigious US university. Preparing for the interview gave me pause to consider my thoughts on this matter. What exactly constitutes leadership? And more importantly what attributes sustain leadership over time? Suffice it to say, my views are simply just my opinion derived from my own experiences both personally and professionally on a micro level and my broad observations on a macro, global level. Like everything else in my life these views are not static, they are not from a textbook, a classroom, or a business self-help book. They are from direct experience both positive and negative AND they are in a constant state of flux, ever evolving and changing as am I.

Many of us like to think of ourselves as leaders. And we may possess many qualities that a true leader must possess or learn and integrate, but we may be missing or lacking other attributes which are essential to the whole. Leadership is also earned, it is not usurped, grabbed, or taken. There is something deeply Spiritual and enduring concerning the true essence of leadership. The mantle of power is only given to (not sought by) those who are able to wield the sword, with the recognition that the sword is ALWAYS double-edged. Every individual in a leadership position must keep this awareness front and center and lead with this knowledge and understanding.

So, what are the key attributes of leadership? This is by no means an exhaustive list, but encapsulates the core essentials on the understanding that there are also variables in each of us, which makes every true leader unique unto themselves:

VISION:

Every leader, no matter how small their circle of influence has a vision*, an ideal of a better way of life, a better way of doing things, a better product or service which benefits the community. But this vision must first recognize and accept what is, then build on this with a set of mutable strategic imperatives which gradually move the organization toward that vision of what will be. The acceptance of what is keeps the vision grounded and manifest in reality. But any vision must have substance. It must possess real inspiration, and not just pay lip-service to it. Why?

Simply put, we have entered an era of rapid change where the key watchwords of the day, in business and society are DISRUPTORS and INFLUENCERS. Without substance disruptors simply tear down the old guard, hang out their shingle before the next wave of disruptors break upon their own shoreline defenses. There is nothing enduring here. There is no benefit or contribution to society, no legacy or intention to leave the world a better place than they found it. It is simply a process of riding the next wave of ‘wokeness’ or societal trend, until your time runs out and someone else destroys your sandcastle and builds their own. The term Influencer is probably the most banal, vacuous term yet invented in the English language. It requires nothing of its title holder to do anything of any substance, to leave behind anything of value. At its most vacuous, it is popularity for the sake of popularity. The sum total of more likes on an Instagram or Facebook page than the next person.

Vision in my opinion speaks to an ideal. As much as it benefits the visionary it must benefit society as a whole or those who are impacted by the vision depending on the leader’s circle of influence. And more importantly anyone who claims to be a visionary or have a vision, must think long thoughts. They must understand the power of the double-edged sword which they wield, and actively and constantly strive to mitigate the negative impact of what they do.

* The sphere of influence which is referenced throughout this article is also a sphere of responsibility. In other words leaders are responsible for the influence they exert around them.

CREATIVITY:

Creativity is often seen as the domain of the artist. Not so. Art is a specific subset or skill within a much broader category of lateral or inspired thinking. It exists within both the arts and sciences alike. Vision requires creative thinking and creative thinking should be a constant within the mindset of every leader, cultivated and nurtured throughout their entire organization. Without creative thinking the original vision at best becomes static and at worst dies on the vine because the corporation will inevitably suffer from mass-market inertia.

There is no doubt, it is easier to be creative within a small, relatively young corporation, and much harder in a mature, large multinational. In my consulting days I often critiqued, and harshly so, my clients’ vision and mission statements because they focussed almost entirely on ubiquitous quantitative results. If creativity was mentioned, it was usually by slipping in the word “innovation.” But again this was little more than lip-service. The real innovation, more often than not, came from regional start-ups which the bigger fish snapped up during their corporate shop ’til you drop spending sprees. While these market dynamics are seen as normal behavior, there is no reason why a mature corporation cannot be structured to innovate without the need to gobble up the small fry. But, it requires a leader with vision, a creative mind and an organizational structure that can nurture innovation without the intolerance of short-term ‘failure.’ The problem with most large corporations is they want innovation to have instant, mass-market appeal and profitability - CEO’s have shareholders to appease and their bonuses depend on it, which often makes them risk-adverse, uncreative and inflexible.

There is an old saying used in the preamble of corporate brainstorming workshops that there is no such thing as a stupid idea. In my experience this is true. Ideas beget ideas and even ‘stupid,’ outlandish ones have the ability to spark profound creative thinking which can develop into real, visionary advances. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean they will lead to implementation - sadly, most of them don’t. Nonetheless, this saying should be central to a leader’s ethos - the ability to actively listen, unfiltered, to both themselves (inner voice), their executives and employees. This, in turn, requires a high degree of FLEXIBILITY and RISK both within the personality and the organizational structures - creativity by nature engenders risk. There is no safety net when it comes to originality. Beyond this, it is a matter of managing shareholder expectations. After all, investors should inherently understand the need to invest in the vision, beyond it simply being an ATM cash machine for themselves.

READING THE OMENS:

Having said that there is no safety net when it comes to creativity, a leader cannot allow a business to become unbridled. Creativity must be blended and balanced with left-brained thinking i.e. strategy. Strategy provides the organization and its creative output, product and services with structure within the context of a competitive environment. As with life itself, all corporations experience lifecycles and a leader must be able to read the omens and respond accordingly - there is a difference between creating/responding to market dynamics and reacting to them. The former takes initiative, the latter is almost always because the organization is operating on its back foot.

There is a time for expansion and creativity and equally there is a time for consolidation and refocussing. Handled probably, brand portfolios can provide the business an opportunity to balance these cycles simultaneously i.e. individual brands ebb and flow through their own unique lifecycles while the umbrella corporation acts as a ballast, ensuring long-term stability to the successes and failures of the micro-brand businesses underneath it. Embracing these lifecycles and sometimes failures, is essential to innovation, as long as they are balanced with successes in the broader context of portfolio management. Nonetheless, innovation does not exist without failure. That is simply the nature of innovation. To repress failure, is to repress innovation and to invite personal and organizational stagnation.

MOTIVATION:

Every leader is by nature motivating and empowering others within an organization to work toward fulfilling their vision. Think about this carefully for a moment. It doesn’t just NEED careful consideration it DEMANDS careful consideration. As a leader you are motivating and organizing a business and its employees to act on your behalf. Pay aside, you are essentially asking someone to do your dirty work if that is what is required to fulfill the corporate vision. In effect, as the leader of an organization, the author of the vision, you are the parent asking your children to behave in a certain manner. To act on your behalf. They are your charges and how they grow up and in turn become leaders or how they remain followers of your vision, is your responsibility. That is the mantle of power which rests solely and firmly on your head as a leader. Shakespeare could not have said it better in his HENRY IV, Part II: “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.” And it should, because if you're not uneasy then you're not sufficiently aware of the double-edged sword which you wield.

SPIRIT

While leadership bears a huge amount of responsibility, a sense of adventure and playfulness is essential to keep a fresh, open perspective. Boardrooms can be stuffy places where serious decisions are made which can make or break an organization, its relationships with its employees, customers, consumers and investors.

But without a sense of adventure and playfulness the mind stagnates, innovation and ideas become stifled and risk is avoided. Organizations are like inverted funnels i.e. the higher up the organization the narrower the neck becomes. Leaders should not just be gatekeepers, they should be creatives and innovators in their own right. Leadership requires an odd balance between the authority exemplified by the conventional suit-wearing executive and a child’s ability to let the imagination run wild where time seems to vanish. It is not about immaturity or on the other side of the coin, an overbearing seriousness. It is about combining authority with an active imagination. Authority being the ability to green light a project, to get behind it and bring it into manifestation, filtered through an ACTIVE imagination that CREATES with a sense of excitement and a SPIRIT of adventure and fun.

Authority and adventure properly blended could one day create some of the most dynamic organizations from truly inspired leaders.

STEPPING DOWN:

There have been more than a few occasions in my old consulting days when I took an elevator to the executive suite which didn't stop on any other floor, or the executive offices were in an entirely different location altogether. While I believe that time in the ivory tower watching the clouds slip by is essential to creative thinking, allowing our brains to slip out of the beta and into the more dream-like alpha state, it is also essential to step down and visit the shop floor and with increasing frequency, particularly, with the growing disparity between executive bonuses and workforce wages as they are. This should never be an internal publicity stunt, but a real attempt to relate on a human level and to understand what each function within the organization requires. But here’s the rub, don’t just ask what is required, ask to be instructed by your employee to show you what they do, day-in and day-out and do it, under their supervision. If asked and incentivized to do so, it is likely they will have a lot to offer in terms of improving the organizational efficiency than management often likes or wants to appreciate. As a leader it is your job to relate to your workforce and to cultivate an environment whereby the workforce, as individuals, are able to relate to you. In other words, don’t just lead from the front, get behind your employees and lead from behind as well. It is an entirely different mindset from the traditional view of leadership. This is especially true with large multinationals. Why?

Large multinationals have become floating behemoths roaming the planet moving from one tax shelter to another. At the top of the organizations they have lost touch with the local communities which they serve and in which their employees live and raise families. They build plants to take advantage of city and county tax breaks, then move along as soon as those rebates end, leaving empty shells and unemployment behind them.

While leadership has a responsibility to the bottom line, it needs to expand its understanding of what a bottom line is i.e. a real leader needs to embrace a new definition of “profit,” which encompasses and benefits its entire circle of influence. This is where the double-edged swords comes into play once again. Leaders should not just look at cost analyses as a means of shoring up profits, but look at what the REAL costs are of those decisions on a long-term basis and how they impact our collective future at all levels of society - “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,” indeed!

INTEGRITY:

Whenever leadership falls from grace or more realistically never cultivated grace in the first place, it is from a lack of integrity. It is often the missing link, the missing attribute between a leader who uses their leadership skills to exploit and those who wish to contribute to humanity. Profit and purpose are not mutually exclusive. The fixation on the stock price as the singular most important value within an organization has led us to the current economic and environmental imbalance in which we now, collectively, find ourselves - Milton Friedman has a lot to answer for, along with all those who followed his single-minded focus on profit, to the detriment of all else, including his advocacy that a business does not require any social responsibility whatsoever.

Organizations and their leaders, including politicians and so-called celebrities who hide behind public relations campaigns whilst behaving in a duplicitous manner behind closed doors have no integrity. In truth, their “vision” is nothing more than a personal, ego objective. They appear to give with the left hand and take with the right. It is a sleight of hand that should not be called a vision, because these people are not leaders. It is a wholly inappropriate title for these so-called leaders, disruptors, and influencers.

The adage “as above, so below,” also applies to “as within, so outwith.” In other words, the inner motivation and the outer action must match. They must be seamless or at least be striving to find the balance where they mirror each other. When they oppose each other it is called hypocrisy.

MORALITY VS. LEGALITY:

This is a particularly interesting aspect of leadership. Should a true leader take advantage of loopholes in the law and tax law or differing environmental regulations, which have been created by the rich for the rich or at least by their lobbyists on Capitol Hill or in foreign countries?

I believe the answer is that morality always comes before legality. Morality is part of what the Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu referred to as The Constant Way, whereas legality is part of the myriad manifestations which shift and change like the desert sands, according to the whims of the ruling classes.

HUMILITY:

People tend to give their power away to leaders and the wrong type of leaders readily and greedily accept that power from those people. Any leader worth their salt will never allow anyone within their circle of influence to give them this power. Tyrants are made this way. Many leaders portray themselves as humble, but this is often false humility. One sees this a great deal with spiritual teachers. They project a sense of humility in public and behave as abusive tyrants behind closed doors. Equally, leadership is not about self-aggrandizement which is as damaging to leadership as is false humility.

Put anyone on a pedestal and eventually you will become disappointed and disillusioned. A wise friend once said, “the degree to which you seek approval is the degree to which you will be manipulated.” Wise words indeed!

A leader must also have the ability to be self-reflective, to admit when they have erred in judgment and course correct when needed.

TEMPERANCE:

A Samurai sword is tempered over-and-over again. Forged in the fire, first softening the metal, hammering it into shape, then plunging it into cold water to harden and hold the shape in place. This is done layer-after-layer before finally polishing, sharpening and finishing the blade, which must be maintained as it is used over the years and decades which follow.

A true leader evolves through this same process. They must recognize that they embody both the teacher and student role in equal measure. They are the blacksmith and the sword, as one. They are not in fact teaching anything but forging and tempering themselves and leading only by example. As soon as they believe they are a solely the blacksmith (teacher) and everyone else is the sword (student) they hammer into shape, they have nothing left to learn or teach and are lost to their own ego. Growth instantly ceases, either temporarily or in some cases permanently. They are energetically stripped of their leadership title, even if they still hold that title within the corporation. They simply become an individual pursuing a personal objective and paying others to execute that strategy - a pretender in a leadership role.

IMPERMANENCE:

The difference between a true leader and a disruptor or influencer is this: a true leader recognizes that they are the guardian of a vision, a torch lighting the way to an ideal - a bridge between two worlds. They recognize there is One Light and many lanterns. They also recognize that they cannot complete this work themselves, that at some point they will need to pass the torch onto the next leader coming up through the ranks. They may not even know this person(s), but they are the one(s) who will carry forth and evolve that vision for the benefit and betterment of all who exist within their circle of influence. They do not seek power for the sake of power, but readily relinquish it when the time comes. It is the opposite of a dynasty that seeks to hold onto power generation after generation and the opposite of a disruptor or influencer who attempts to fulfill their objectives themselves for themselves within their own lifetime. While there is nothing inherently wrong with either of these two latter approaches, they make true leadership difficult to thrive, free from the bonds and obligations of personal or familial objectives.

In summary, and in my opinion, true leadership is a practice inextricably linked to a philosophy, which holds up a creative vision, an inspiration toward a better world. Anything else, is simply fulfilling a personal objective. It is not leadership.

“If the sage wants to stand above people, he must speak to them from below. If he wants to lead people, he must follow them from behind.” Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching).

Link to Real Leaders Magazine article:

https://real-leaders.com/stories/leadership/so-what-exactly-is-a-real-leader/

Gavin J. Chalcraft is an artist and CEO/Executive Producer at Golden Ratio Media Group, a film, television, and theatre production company. Prior to working in the arts, he owned and ran Isosceles Consulting, a global brand development and management consulting firm.

*** Gavin Chalcraft and Golden Ratio Media Group, Inc. strictly prohibits the use of any generative AI software to upload and analyze any material attached to or contained in these Substack posts. ***