Leadership of the Wise
Ethics, Leadership and the Future of Work
“I hate to be smart.” ~Paulo Coehlo
So you want to be an ethical leader. Then subjugate your own sense of morality to your innate wisdom. More than anything else, ethical leadership is about equality.
Don’t get me wrong. Equality is not about going against merit — quite the opposite — but about looking with equal eyes. Some people call it embracing diversity, others use the word non-discrimination, yet others say equal opportunity.
Ethics is about being fair
Leadership has always been about attitude. The brand of leadership being presented by media has us believe that we’re in some sort of a new era that requires new ways of working and living. That we need a new way of thinking and behaving cannot be disputed, but it has less to do with the coming of a new age and more to do with the speed at which opportunities are coming at us in business, in society … in life itself.
An ethical leader, most of all, is socially responsible and shows the way to a balanced consumption-production paradigm. S/he is smart AND wise. The world of tomorrow is full of opportunities, especially for the business world. Leaders must realise that their power comes from providing opportunities, resources and leadership that afford their ‘human’ stakeholders a real chance to reach their own potential. Meaning,
- Thinking about the larger context of the planet while empowering all those who expect your help, regardless of reporting lines.
- Letting everybody make their own mistakes and being careful not to judge them; people learn by their own experience, not yours.
- Being kind, just and fair and also watchful that you do not condone injustice of any kind.
WTF are Ethics?
We associate ‘leadership’ with governance, and ‘management’ with resources. Rightly so. As opposed to management, I think leadership is about people inspiring people. Which is why ethics plays a big role. Today it’s about people creating value for organisations day after day. And when you think of people as ‘resources’, assigning management folks to control their outputs, things start to break down. We need a new brand of leadership that’s empowering, inspiring and rewarding. And, ethical.
A Google search for the meaning of the word ‘ethics’ results in
“…moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of an activity.”
I think it goes beyond. Morality can be subjective and can consequently result in unfair, discriminatory and unethical (sic.) outcomes for everybody. Hence subjugate your own sense of morality to your innate wisdom. The Bhagavad Gita provides an inside-out perspective to ethical leadership as compared to the western outside-in point of view, stressing the importance of self-leadership for ethical leaders. It has elaborated many ethical values such as determination, body and mind control, freedom from ego, kindness in speech, and freedom from anger, amongst others.
From the Hindu philosophy of Svadharma, that we have a duty to be true to our individual nature —
“It is more enjoyable to be ourselves than to pretend to be someone else. The duties born of our nature can be easily performed with stability of mind and soul. Krishna emphasizes this point dramatically by saying that it is better to die in the faithful performance of one’s duty than to be in the unnatural position of doing another’s duty.”
Bhagavad Gita [Chapter 3 verse 35]
Agreed, in the context of the business world it may, at first instance, seem extreme to import something from a spiritual text but remember we are trying to make a case for ethical leadership. Ethical leadership has to do a lot more with being than with doing. And being wise.
Wise Leadership
There are no born leaders. Leadership is hard work. And it’s relentlessly so.
Prasad Kaipa, a good friend, colleague and leading CEO coach, speaks of Wise leaders as distinguishable from Smart leaders.
From his book, Smart to Wise: Acting and Leading with Wisdom
Finding your noble purpose isn’t always easy. Many leaders have trouble finding it because they look for it externally rather than within themselves. And even when they look outside, they primarily focus on what connects them to the organization they work for rather than what binds them to humanity.
For a leader, it’s important that his personal vision and mission is in sync with the organisation’s. If that’s not the case, then he’s doing it either for the money or the fame and title, which aren’t good enough reasons by themselves.
“If your personal vision doesn’t match the organisation’s you tend to drift, and in turn the organisation will drift as well. This isn’t good for business. To the extent that leaders have clarity on this, they can focus on the organisation. To the extent that leaders have clarity on this, they can focus on the organisation. It’s important to know where you personal North Star is and that you are working towards it,” says Prasad.
(The full Economic Times Interview)
In 2011 Mark Crowley wrote the seminal work Lead From The Heart in which he emphasises the need for a new model of leadership for the 21st Century, because “our traditional model has reached the end of its effectiveness.”
Leaders must now individually change and adopt practices which honour and support the emerging needs of each person in their charge. And this isn’t about inspiring, rewarding or recognising their work. It’s about connecting with them authentically. It’s about genuine relationship building and empathetic listening. It’s leadership of the wise.
It’s the heart, and not the mind, that drives human achievement; gestures that positively affect the heart naturally and reflexively inspire people to perform.
Beautifully put, Mark!
The Future ain’t what it used to be
Yogi Berra is hilarious. And Yogi Berra is profound. His quotes make you laugh and yet make a lot of sense. One thing is sure, “The future’s already here — it’s just not evenly distributed.” (attrib. William Gibson)
This Forbes article lays out 16 leadership skills / traits for tomorrow’s workplace, many of which reinforce the 21st Century Skills listed by the World Economic Forum. Leadership of the wise focuses on human elements first, not on processes and technology, which seem to have taken a life of their own. Creativity, Communication, Collaboration and Critical Thinking follow the ability to empathise with both customers and employees.
Simultaneously there’s technology accelerating at a pace that’s impossible to keep up with.
As Eddie Obeng puts it,
“We spend our time responding rationally to a world which we understand and recognise, but which no longer exists.”
You’d do well to watch Smart Failure for a Fast-changing World at TED Talks
There are several tracks defining the future of work, including the explosion of Exponential Technologies. (Here’s the Singularity University primer). But that’s for another post.
Happy reading!
