Thoughtful Leaders
Feb 15
2009
2009
There's been much discussion lately about Charles Darwin, born February 12, 1809, as last week marked what would have been his 200th birthday. A new book out called Angels and Ages, notes that on that same day, a world apart, Abraham Lincoln was also born. Both men became leaders of their age although in very different fields, and both are still discussed, studied and admired for their thought leadership.
According to Buckminster Fuller (remember I promised to write more about him in the January post), one attribute of a leader is the ability to anticipate the future. Similar to Darwin and Lincoln, Fuller was considered ahead of his time. He saw a future so far out that the rest of us couldn't quite visualize it. One thing that Fuller, Lincoln and Darwin did in common was to take time (lots of it) to think. For example, Darwin formulated his theories during his famous voyage of the Beagle in 1836. He published notes from that journey in 1838, but his landmark work Origin of Species was not published until 1859, 21 years later!
In today's world, we all feel time starved. One of the handicaps for business leaders today is the lack of time to make purposeful and thoughtful decisions. The world is almost moving too fast. Or, is it? Is it possible that we just haven't taken the time to create a strategy, philosophy, or vision about where we want to take our companies? Or, that we've gotten old and tired?
A January 31 Harvard Business Review blog post by leadership author Stewart Friedman discusses the qualities of leadership and he compares great leaders to great musicians. "Leadership is a performing art," he writes. "You can can never be too good at it." He goes on to explain:
"Great performers devote themselves to increasing their capacity to perform. It's the same with leaders. The best ones commit to learning continually because they want to make a difference."
In our current youth culture, Stewart Friedman makes a great case for admiring how we can improve with age, especially in terms of leadership. It's also a good time to go back through the ages and look at our great leaders, many like LIncoln and Darwin, who did not hit their strides until their later years.
If you're feeling this crisis needs the young, stop and take a deep breath. What it really needs is leadership, thoughtful leadership and experienced leadership.
It's no coincidence that this year's theme for the upcoming NAPL Top Management Conference is Leadership. As always, it's timely and on target. I hope you can participate. Another thing I hope you actively participate in is this blog/newsletter. Please let me know if you feel the topics are on target, feel free to comment on a post, and if you'd like to contribute as an author, I'd welcome a broader voice of thoughts and perspective. Either just write something up you'd like me to post on your behalf, let me know if you'd like to be a more formal guest author, or e-mail me with topics you'd like to see covered.
~ Rhona Bronson
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