Leadership

Many people strive to be leaders, but lack leadership. Often, they think that the most important thing is to be loud and speaking often, even making up stuff. But leadership is first and foremost about moral authority - when others trust someone to make the next decision fairly and in a way that benefits the most people.

People in a position of authority can command. But commanding is not leading. Command has the force of coercion behind it. Leadership can happen with no formal authority.

Leadership involves vision, communication, and structuring things so that others can do more. Leaders awaken the desire in others to work towards a common goal. With leadership, we help others to accomplish things that they cannot do on their own. Often, leadership is about being an authentic human being rather than a good manager. When people have looked for leaders, they reject those who are only good managers.

"Moral authority" does not mean that the leader has perfect morals. Many a leader made mistakes, slipped on some moral basis, and otherwise violated perfection. Leadership includes recognizing when we have violated a shared value and correcting that. Leadership notices when the shared values have changed and adjusting our own actions to conform to those new values. People want to follow leaders, but want leaders who are demonstrating values and principles that they respect.

As leaders, we are often trusted to make only the next decision. If that decision is seen to be correct, we are trusted to make another. Yet, most times, difficult decisions need to be made without enough information to know what the right choice is. This is where the principles come in. We make these tough decisions on principles - principles that benefit others over ourselves.

Without operating on principles that benefit the most people, leaders and their organizations will get swept away by our rapidly changing world. Because the "accepted principles" that we think benefit the most often do change when we are not looking, we need to look outside our current circle to make sure that we are still benefiting the most. Listening to others can help keep us from following old principles that no longer work for everyone.

In this fast-paced world, there are principles that are timeless. They include honesty, compassion, and learning. Leaders take the blame but share the credit. With compassion, we treat people as human beings providing emotional and psychological safety. When people feel safe and cared for, they are far more creative, far more collaborative, and more productive.

Leadership is about the team. It often involves being supportive of the team members, a focus on results, bringing in and welcoming different perspectives, and providing clear solutions to problems.

To be a leader, be authentic, caring, and have compassion.

Once Rich - Staying Poor?

The ruins of Chaco Canyon are impressive. They show that in the 1100's, a vibrant and wealthy civilization flourished in northwest New Mexico centered on that canyon. Today it is a ruin. The only people living there are park employees. Mississippi was once the richest state in the Union. Today it isn't.

Place after place has been wealthy and slid into a decline that can last hundreds of years. Part of the problem is that people who once were rich often believe that doing the same thing that once got them riches will bring those riches back. This is most clearly seen in the jungles of the South Pacific where tribal people have tried to bring back the airplanes distributing goods in the war by cutting "landing strips" in the jungle. Numerous companies that have stuck to a once winning strategy long past the time when it was winning.

The problem is that conditions change, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. But conditions always change and every successful strategy will eventually fail. When conditions change slowly, following proven strategies is a winning formula. But when conditions change rapidly, survival requires holding onto basic principles while rapidly experimenting.

Sometimes, a few find a long term strategy which works for them, but not for the many. Those few will trumpet their strategy and tactics even though those do not help the rest of us. It is important to have critical thinking to identify why these strategies work for them and why they might not work for us.

We do well to identify the best from the past and adapt it to the new and changing world that we will live in. Be willing to change with the times while holding fast to everlasting values.

Risky World

Ever wonder why the AI systems keep generating hallucinations? New York University researchers found that large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are compromised once misinformation accounts for as little as 0.001% of training data. Considering that they were trained with far more misinformation than that, there is no way that they can stop hallucinating.