vision, philosophy and instinct

 lead change vision

 

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“Are you prattling about an instinct of self-preservation? An instinct of self-preservation is precisely what man does not possess.

 

An ‘instinct’ in as unerring and automatic form of knowledge. A desire is not an instinct. A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living. And even man’s desire to live is not automatic: your secret evil today is that that is the desire you do not hold. Your fear of death is not a love of life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it.

 

Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform.

Man has the power to act as his own destroyer–and that is the way he has acted through most of history.”

 

Ayn Rand

 

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Ok.

 

Discussing business leadership is … well … interesting.

 

never get what you want deserve life visionIts also <slightly> interesting I used an Ayn Rand quote to open a thought on business leadership.

 

Why?

 

Almost everything Rand espoused focused on the individual and self-interest … and leadership inherently focuses on the group and ‘making the tide rise higher for all … sometimes at the expense of a higher one.”

 

In addition … <simplistically> the central thesis of Rand’s philosophy is that unfettered self-interest is good and altruism is destructive.

I am no going invest a lot of time on Rand’s thinking <of which I have mixed feelings about> but because I speak to many business leaders the balance of ‘business democracy, organizational culture, and business autocracy, i.e., someone has to make a decision at some point and organizational consensus is most likely not the most effective way to generate good decisions, I will spend a moment on Rand.

 

In my eyes, far too often, Americans tie the Rand philosophy of ‘supreme self-reliance devoted to the pursuit of supreme self-interest’ to a simplistic version of core American ideals: individual freedoms & hard work. The whole premise is based on the promise a better world is available if people can simply pursue their own self-interest without regard to the impact of their actions on others. That thought is usually followed by “this works because everyone is simply pursuing their own self-interest as well.”

 

Unfortunately what this ignores is a successful organization’s ultimate mission: “e pluribus unim” <out of many one>.

 

Unfortunately what this ignores is successful cultures typically exhibit a ‘twitch muscle’ which automatically makes 95% of people to find greater satisfaction in contributing to ‘the team’ rather than solely finding individual success.focus-perspective-bad-sledgehammer-view-navigate-vision

 

All of this matters when discussing business leadership and leading organizations.

 

Now.

 

That said.

 

I come back to a key line in the opening quote:  an ‘instinct’ in as unerring and automatic form of knowledge. A desire is not an instinct.

 

 

In a world in which we tend to want to oversimplify things far too often “business instincts” get stripped of any context or the rich & royal hues most typically associated with ‘good business instincts.’ We also strip leadership down to its barest and far too often suggest the importance of ‘’good business instincts’ as some superior skill <and instincts are not a skill but an attribute> inherent in good leadership.

 

I would suggest we would be much better off stripping leadership down to not one thing but rather discussing a backbone which makes leadership stand tall.

 

Look.

 

A shitload of people can lead.

 

An even larger shitload of people think they can lead.

 

And even smaller shitload of people can actually lead well.

 

And while there are a shitload of well written and thoughtful piece on business leadership characteristics I would suggest that all business leadership often comes down to your ‘backbone’ of actual skills with regard to three things: developing an effective vision, having a consistent business philosophy <business acumen> & instincts.

 

Many leaders have some skill in one of these three, some actually are good at two out of the three but the best leaders are good at all three <with some extraordinary skill at either the visionary or instincts>.

 

 

yes no gut majorityI point out the vision and instincts aspects because it is that ‘dance’ which … well … can make a business dance. Some people talk about strategy & tactics but this is a little different. This is kind of a step up from that.

This is kind of like being able to envision the 5 lane highway which leads to a destination you kind of envision and then actually have the instincts which enable you to instinctually shift lanes, shift speeds and avoid everyone else on the highway in the moments that matter.

 

Suffice it to say … working with someone who understands, and can manage to, vision and someone who has good instincts is fairly rare — and all three even rarer.

 

By the way, as I have written before … most people who vocally espouse the fact <belief> they have good instincts tend to have shitty instincts. In fact … I could generalize relatively safely by suggesting anyone who verbalizes they have good instincts … most likely, in reality, do not have good instincts <good instinctual leaders & decision makers tend to have the humility to have an innate sense to keep their mouths shut about any instinctual behavior and focus on verbalizing functional abilities to do shit in certain situations>.

 

Anyway.

 

Someone can actually be a pretty good leader and not be very good at all these things.

 

For example … one of my best bosses wasn’t particularly good at the vision truth facts numbers understand questionaspect but had an incredibly strong sense of ‘right versus wrong’ with regard to business philosophy and excellent instincts which tended to permit a shitload of progress <if not particularly visionary progress>. I would note he was pretty good at hiring some people who were visionary and combined with what he was good at he had a nice ability <albeit sometimes a lite too pragmatic> to tighten some loose vision and … well … get shit done.

 

For example … one of my best bosses was an incredible visionary with an excellent ability to set everyone’s sights on the ‘horizon’ coupled with a strong business philosophy of “this is the kind of shit we will do and how we will conduct ourselves in doing it” he could get people focused and emotionally connected with what they had to do. However … his instincts were not so hot. I would note he had a nice ability to surround himself with people with good instincts <maybe not enough but some key people> which permitted him to pick out what to do from options resented by good instinctual managers rather than have to depend on his own instincts.

 

I imagine my point here is twofold <1> leaders who are good at all three of these things are not a dime a dozen and <2> the good leaders who are not good at all three of these things tend to recognize where they are a little weaker and are smart enough, and confident enough, to surround themselves with people who do have those skills.

 

I imagine the greater leadership philosophical point here is that good business leaders don’t really fight truth.

They see truth. Accept truth. And work within the parameters of truth.

 

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“Stop opposing the truths.

The truth is truth no matter how you take it. It is not going to be changed for your inconvenience.”

Bikash Bhandari

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I point out truth because, of all things, leadership is reliant on a leader being able to see truth … and not just what they want to see.

tell the truth respect

I point out truth because, of all things, vision and instincts are driven more by truth, knowledge and ‘learning’, than by any nebulous “I have good instincts.’

 

I point out truth because, of all things, people actually have a natural inclination to work for the mutual benefit of an organization … they like to cooperate and collaborate … and truth has an incredible ability to bond together the largest most disparate organization as well as offer the initial burst of energy which pushes organizations forward out of trouble and toward something better when a leader actually makes a decision.

 

Be wary of the verbose ‘I am good at this’ leader because … well … as with anything else in Life & business … leaders have to be ‘good’ at a number of things not just some simplistic self-interest driven accolade.

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Written by Bruce