According to John C. Maxwell, a leadership guru, leadership is nothing more or less than your ability to influence people. However, others profoundly disagree. This is only the first half of the story. And without the second half, it falls somewhere between being a platitude and outright foolishness. The second half to leadership is, of course, Judgement. A leader must be able to influence people, and lead them in a wise direction. This becomes most clear when one considers bureaucracies - power, but no judgement. Judgement grows from experience. True leaders evolve. And in an evolutionary environment, false leaders fall by the wayside. Which is why leaders need to come from the coal face, not a sheltered workshop.
Maxwell identified the three levels of leadership; legalised, charismatic, and legendary. When thinking of most government departments, keep this good perspective. We do what they say because we get in trouble if we don't. And that is the basest level of leader. Maxwell used to say that if you think you are a leader, but no one is following you, then really, you're just a guy taking a walk. According to him, without influence, one cannot be considered a leader.
But good Judgement is just as fundamental to leadership as Influence. The ability to get people to follow you to hell is not good leadership. It is getting them to follow you to hell and back that is impressive. Good leadership presupposes that you have a plan to win, and a reasonable chance of doing so. Churchill would still have been a great leader if Britain had narrowly lost WWII to the Nazis. But General Custer was never a good leader. So where do we find leaders with Judgement?
Firstly, experience refines judgment. There are a lot of theories about how the world runs. A leader gets a chance to test these theories against the real world with experience. When you have understood the nature of the world, you can achieve on-going success. This is the first contrast to bureaucrats, who typically run on some type of socialist ideology and don't seem to notice when it doesn't work. A leader needs to gain experience in the real world where reality bites, in order to develop. You will know if you were right or just lucky the first time until you have failed. A feedback system is needed. Learning from mistakes and growing from experience are the two most important things for an individual leader.
Secondly, leaders have to be allowed to fail, and only those who succeed get to progress to the next level. Life, and in particular leadership, is not a game where everyone gets to win. In small business, for example, would-be entrepreneurs launch companies all the time. Most don't succeed. But the ones who do can call themselves leaders - they lead people to success. Influence and Judgement. Military leaders are often similar. To win battles on a regular basis requires influence, and judgement. But the important thing here for society is that only the best leaders get to go on to the next level.
In bureaucracy, favour is on the side of people who are good at influence, but less at judgment. The feedback mechanism is not so popular. Many bureaucrats operate in what seems to those of us who compete in the real world as a sheltered workshop. They seem to be at the school where everybody gets points for trying, and there are no winners or losers. Sadly, these people also make most of the decisions that affect your everyday life. Promotion within bureaucracies is based on politics - the ability to play the game. The decision-makers never feel the pain of their incompetence.
When talking about Evolutionary Leadership, it involves two things. The first is the contact between the leader and the real world, whereby the individual leader can learn from mistakes and evolve as a leader. Secondly, it is about an evolutionary environment, where only the successful survive.
The current sheltered workshop bureaucracy only encourages game players, not leaders. Evolutionary leadership needs to be practiced by government decision makers. In order for the Anglo-American Empire to recover from its current spiral into mediocrity, there needs to be a restructure of government decision making processes.
Maxwell identified the three levels of leadership; legalised, charismatic, and legendary. When thinking of most government departments, keep this good perspective. We do what they say because we get in trouble if we don't. And that is the basest level of leader. Maxwell used to say that if you think you are a leader, but no one is following you, then really, you're just a guy taking a walk. According to him, without influence, one cannot be considered a leader.
But good Judgement is just as fundamental to leadership as Influence. The ability to get people to follow you to hell is not good leadership. It is getting them to follow you to hell and back that is impressive. Good leadership presupposes that you have a plan to win, and a reasonable chance of doing so. Churchill would still have been a great leader if Britain had narrowly lost WWII to the Nazis. But General Custer was never a good leader. So where do we find leaders with Judgement?
Firstly, experience refines judgment. There are a lot of theories about how the world runs. A leader gets a chance to test these theories against the real world with experience. When you have understood the nature of the world, you can achieve on-going success. This is the first contrast to bureaucrats, who typically run on some type of socialist ideology and don't seem to notice when it doesn't work. A leader needs to gain experience in the real world where reality bites, in order to develop. You will know if you were right or just lucky the first time until you have failed. A feedback system is needed. Learning from mistakes and growing from experience are the two most important things for an individual leader.
Secondly, leaders have to be allowed to fail, and only those who succeed get to progress to the next level. Life, and in particular leadership, is not a game where everyone gets to win. In small business, for example, would-be entrepreneurs launch companies all the time. Most don't succeed. But the ones who do can call themselves leaders - they lead people to success. Influence and Judgement. Military leaders are often similar. To win battles on a regular basis requires influence, and judgement. But the important thing here for society is that only the best leaders get to go on to the next level.
In bureaucracy, favour is on the side of people who are good at influence, but less at judgment. The feedback mechanism is not so popular. Many bureaucrats operate in what seems to those of us who compete in the real world as a sheltered workshop. They seem to be at the school where everybody gets points for trying, and there are no winners or losers. Sadly, these people also make most of the decisions that affect your everyday life. Promotion within bureaucracies is based on politics - the ability to play the game. The decision-makers never feel the pain of their incompetence.
When talking about Evolutionary Leadership, it involves two things. The first is the contact between the leader and the real world, whereby the individual leader can learn from mistakes and evolve as a leader. Secondly, it is about an evolutionary environment, where only the successful survive.
The current sheltered workshop bureaucracy only encourages game players, not leaders. Evolutionary leadership needs to be practiced by government decision makers. In order for the Anglo-American Empire to recover from its current spiral into mediocrity, there needs to be a restructure of government decision making processes.
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Interested in hunting and social issues? Why not try David Greentree's new book, 'Tom Grafton Vs The Environmentalists'.
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