Learned leaders

Let’s pretend you are invited to give a commencement address to 2015 graduates.

What role models should we recommend to these future leaders? Most subjects have been touched on by earlier speakers like Steve Jobs (get going) and Jill Abramson (get real).

Let’s brainstorm, or SWOT, to find a more realistic leadership model.

First is King David.

Courage in battle and faithful in life.

Yet, on the roof top, he had a momentary lapse of judgment (so was the IMF guy): he wanted another man’s wife (to add to his collection of thousand).

One false start led to another i.e. murder plot (sending Beersheba’s husband to the war front to qualify her as widow).

Lesson: that which gets you there, in this case – courage, won’t keep you there.

Second is Hitler.

Norman Mailer’s A Castle in the Forest explored Hitler’s childhood, surrounded by and observed how bees behaved. Result: an efficient army – killing machine and coding machine (one way or another, a precipice for  our digital world today, with IBM being slightly tainted). 6 failed assassinations, only to succeed at the end: he took his own life.

Lesson: efficiency alone is good only for managerial and logistic layer. Leaders need to place the ladder on the right building, not just climbing efficiently up.

Third is Colin Powell

He distilled war wisdom out of the Vietnam experience. The Powell Doctrine states that one only engages in a conflict when there is 70+ chance of wining it. Once in, one needs to deploy overwhelming force to ensure swift and decisive victory. In short, no quagmire. Sun Tzu knows this well: the best  battle is the one one doesn’t get involved in.

Fourth and last. Water Margin (Chinese Confucian Robin Hood)

To lead a band of 108 brothers who curse, drink and have strong disregard for the “corrupted” authority was no easy task. Yet Song Jiang, a filial and moral but defunct officer managed just that. He took humility to heart. Song Jiang bowed and stuck with them more than stuck it to them. Instead of saying “go ahead and make my day”, Song Jiang often untied his captives and recruited them into the fold. To win hearts and minds. To him, it’s easier to destroy than to build, to revenge than to restore.  Lesson: what one believes affects how one leads.

So graduates, from this day on, choose your leadership style. What’s your core belief; self-assessment or self-aggrandizement?

Are people to be manipulated or motivated, humiliated or honored?

What kind of aim and end do you wish? At what costs? According to Mr. Powell’s manual, go ahead and place the ladder on the building even in the thick of smoke, only after you have ascertained and arrived at 70% confidence. Like King David, one wrong can lead to many more down that road. The end never justifies the means: if you can’t be taken down after six attempts, you might end up doing yourself in any way, Queen Bee or worker bees.

Leaders learned what not do to most of the time. You have learned what to do. Now comes the hard part. From here on out, it’s not a case study to be graded. It’s your life-long learning on how to lead.