Courageous Leaders are Confident
“Courage is the first virtue that makes all other virtues possible.” -Aristotle
There are some common themes I have discovered as I’ve researched and written these Cowardly Leadership blogs. One theme that reoccurs often is: Fear vs. Confidence. The more confident a leader is, the more likely and comfortable he/she is in asking questions, asking for help, realizing there is a lot of knowledge out there he needs to know. A common management truism taught in Business School 101 is to surround yourself with the best, smartest, most capable people possible. It’s common sense for any good, solid, capable leader operating from a standpoint of confidence. This is true because:
- They make you look good
- They make your job easier, and the more capable they are, the easier yet
- You reap the rewards when they do what they are good at doing
- You get to develop a team and loyalty and esprit de corps with a group of smart, intelligent people who will challenge each other and therefore make the organization that much better
- The sum is much greater than the parts- the synergy and feedback from an intelligent team who bounce ideas off each other results in a much greater overall success rate than those same people working individually without the team atmosphere
Local officials who are cowardly leaders don’t know, or don’t care. Which is, I suppose, why they have to teach it in Business School 101.
Fear
David Brooks, conservative columnist for The New York Times, said this in an article he wrote regarding elected leaders: “We have a word for people who are dominated by fear. We call them cowards.”
The cowardly leader operates from a position of fear. Fear of the unknown is bad enough. But even more unsettling- and, to be frank, sad- is fear that people might discover he/she doesn’t know everything.
The fear of being wrong.
Cowardly elected leaders rarely admit they are wrong. In fact, often they will double down on being wrong to “prove” they are right. What happens, unfortunately, is that we, the taxpaying, everyday, neighbor-next-door citizens, suffer.
What too often happens is the school board member who is newly elected insists on cutting (or adding) staff because he “knows” what needs to happen. The newly elected city council member who takes over hiring duties “knows” more than staff who have been doing it for years. These are the very definition of cowardly elected officials. They hire people who will agree with them rather than people who will challenge them. They promote “yes men” rather than “why men.” Unfortunately, they delay or even postpone projects due to their fear of being wrong, fear of asking for assistance, and their absolute confidence in their omniscient abilities. They cost all of us tax dollars and frustration.
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