[April 03, 2014] Leadership works and (supposedly) it does work because of rational decisions of humans. But consider that leadership may be an outcome of trial and error in human affairs1. Maybe it’s the result of some people wanting the easier path, avoiding responsibility.
In an earlier blog (link here) we discussed how leadership is not linear because it is complex, multifaceted, and requires a mental focus to learn; additionally, those skills are perishable. It is not easy to be a leader, especially during the early stages of a leader’s developmental stage.
No wonder that many people are perfectly satisfied not to be employed in a leadership position. They will work hard, be good and loyal employees, but, as they often will say, “why be the boss [a leader] with responsibility when I can earn the same with longevity and less hassle?”
Of course, the proposed question whether leadership is accidental is rhetorical. Leadership training and study is a rational-based phenomenon; at least we suspect as such. However, there are less rational parts to leadership.
For instance, why do so many people avoid it and others attracted by it? Why do rational decisions, often unrelated to leader traits, actually create leaders? I propose that leadership is much less empirical and logical than we like to think, and that leadership is frequently the result of accidental and non-rational behavior than not.
This helps us understand leadership better and gives us an appreciation of its resulting dynamics and challenges.
Leadership is best when dealing with the unknown, the most volatile of situations and we look for strong leadership in times of peril and uncertainty.
I don’t mean to say that leadership is all trial and error or has occurred by accident but certainly much of it has. Leadership is surely not a purely rational endeavor, but it is a mix of unprecedented and unexpected events and the confluence of personality and experience.
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[1] Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes about how trial and error is an indispensible and unexpected contributor to human advancement in his recent book: Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder.