Managing Leadership^®

We spent the last several weeks of 2007 looking into how and why pride so often precedes a fall – and also into how and why humility not only so often prevents one, but enables a person to climb to greater heights. We’ll be beginning this year by taking a look at what all of that means for those of us trying to figure out how to be better managers, and how to locate and use sources to help us accomplish that.

In this light, let’s start by considering a striking snippet from a recent essay by a highly-regarded columnist. This piece has been attracting a lot of attention for its specific content and advice on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, an important element of the presidential campaign in the United States, which is taking place this year.

As it happens, I like a lot about this person’s thinking and expressive ability. I have always enjoyed reading her work, and have found much useful insight in it.

I was struck, though, by one piece she wrote quite some time ago in which she referred to herself and some of her friends as members of a class of American intellectuals responsible for shaping the opinions of others. That phrase, American intellectual, particularly when used in that way, has always struck me – to the uninformed delight of my non-American acquaintances – as a real contradiction in terms; we’ll be talking more about why, soon.

In the latest column, she states quite plainly that she is speaking for perhaps millions of Americans in asking Iowans to hand an initial boost to a particular sort of candidate. I looked carefully to find evidence of self-deprecating humor in this assertion, but I don’t think it’s there; I think she’s serious.

The truth is that her thinking and writing are both very powerful, and are thus potentially quite persuasive. But one has to wonder where she got the idea that she speaks for anyone at all much less so many people generally, or that she or a special intellectual class of her chums does the thinking for the rest of us.

I still enjoy reading her work, although I cringe as I approach each new sentence, concerned that it might be diminished by another sample of such unwarranted hubris. Her thinking, as that of so many others, informs my own – but, I can assure you, it does not supplant it. And I believe that I really don’t know anyone – undoubtedly all of you included – who would claim otherwise.

There is a feature of this sort of presumption of superiority – to the point of arrogation of the rights of others – that can be so natural as to be difficult to detect, sometimes until it’s too late. And it occurs in all realms, from the most controversial social and political issues of the day, to the most portentous business and management issues.

And that, really, is what we need to be sure we do detect – both in others who would impose their opinions on us without our own scrutiny, and in ourselves when hubris catches hold. We’ll be discussing the managerial implications of this in coming days.

In the meanwhile, I hope all of you enjoyed a terrific holiday season and New Year celebration, and that 2008 is starting off to be the beginning of a productive, rewarding, and exciting year for you. I hope as well that you’ll be stopping by regularly to share some of it with us here.

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Today’s tip: Speaking of finding ways to inform your own thinking, as an American living overseas, and in a non-English speaking country, I have developed the habit of using The Economist, the WSJ, and the NYT to help me identify good books to read. But after some very positive experience with his recommendations, I’ve added another source: Wally Bock; stop over to see his review of the best books he found in 2007.

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