A New Kind of Leader

People expect leaders to have certain traits. Or at least to pretend to have them. But each age expects a different set of traits: In the 18ᵗʰ Century, being laissez-faire got really hip. Later on, being aligned with the oppressed became important. That one is still important—even Donald Trump must pretend to be aligned with oppressed.

When these traits-of-a-good-leader change, new people come to power. New social visions emerge , and new principles are used to judge everything from businesses to schools to clubs.

In this series, I want to get at all of that. I want to get into new principles, new visions. But I’ll start practical—with five things that we might want leaders to be good at, in the next age of politics and society.

Idea #1. Leaders should be immune to bullshit wisdom.

The 19ᵗʰ and 20ᵗʰ Centuries saw the rise of Science. We built engines to collect, distribute, and certify scientific knowledge — e.g., textbooks, laboratories, and universities. We have also developed methods to verify this knowledge: scholarly debates, laboratory replications, the proofs of mathematics, and so on.