The Supreme Question of Leadership
A brilliant scientist poses the answer for aspiring leaders
“Visionary statements and actions come from a completely different place in the human psyche from predictions, forecasts, scenarios, or cynical, downer assertions of political impossibility. They come from commitment, responsibility, confidence, values, longing, love, treasured dreams, our innate sense of what is right and good. A vision articulates a future that someone deeply wants, and does it so clearly and compellingly that it summons up the energy, agreement, sympathy, political will, creativity, resources, or whatever to make that future happen.” — Donella Meadows
In the opening scene of the movie Gladiator, an ageing and weary Emperor Marcus Aurelius is one battle from victory in his campaign against the Germanic hordes. Anticipating the end of his reign, Marcus has decided that his son Commodus is unfit to rule and that he will restore the Roman Republic. General Maximus Decimus Meridius will become regent and facilitate the transition. Outraged and eager to lead, Commodus[1]murders his father and proclaims himself Emperor.
Upon his return to Rome and lacking any vision for its people, Commodus decides to host 150 days of gladiatorial games in the Colosseum. The wiser Senators see it for what it is, a distraction.
There is no shortage of information available about how to lead but there is a more fundamental question every aspiring leader must ask — should I lead? Richard Hamming, a brilliant scientist and mathematician who worked on the Manhattan Project, provided an answer. Hamming had a thirty year career at Bell Labs and was only the third person to receive the Turing Award[2]. Fielding questions after a presentation[3]at Bell Labs, Hamming was asked about management roles and offered the following advice —
“When your vision of what you want to do is what you can do single-handedly, then you should pursue it. The day your vision, what you think needs to be done, is bigger than what you can do single-handedly, then you have to move toward management. And the bigger the vision is, the farther in management you have to go.”
If our vision is larger than what we can accomplish alone we have a case to lead others in service of that vision. If we do not have a vision that transcends what we can do by ourselves then we have no need to lead others. “There are two questions a man must ask himself:” Sam Keen[4] explains, “The first is ‘Where am I going?’ and the second is ‘Who will go with me?’ If you ever get these questions in the wrong order you are in trouble.”
[1] Whilst Commodus did perform as a gladiator in the Colosseum, several aspects of the movie deviate from history. Commodus accompanied his father Marcus during the Marcomannic Wars and was elevated to co-augustus, ruling alongside Marcus for three years until his father’s death in 180 AD. The movie aligns with history on one important fact — Commodus had no vision for Rome. He reigned for another 12 years until his assassination in 192 AD.[2] The Turing Award recognises the highest contributions to computer science and is often referred to as the “Nobel Prize of computing”
[3] You and Your Research, Richard Hamming (1915 - 1998), Transcription of Bell Communications Research Colloquium Seminar 7th March 1986. An interesting footnote is that having decided to pursue a career outside of leadership roles, Hamming reflected “I chose to avoid management because I preferred to do what I could do single-handedly”. Although promoted into leadership positions he came to regret evading those roles, later saying “I knew in a sense that by avoiding management, I was not doing my duty by the organization. That is one of my biggest failures.”
[4] Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man, Sam Keen, 1991
