Managing Leadership^®

A tradition in Egypt has it that you should treat madmen you encounter with tolerance and generosity. After all, it may be that they were struck mad by a glimpse of God, an experience the unimaginable majesty of which they could not withstand. Indeed, perhaps their very presence among us is a caution to avoid venturing to discover truths beyond our natural capacity. This approach to understanding and dealing with madmen – and even the truth – while far from universal, is less unique than it might seem.

As we noted yesterday, in the not too distant past the world was largely divided between those who were purported to have a more or less divine right to their rank in the nobility, and the rest of us, the servants. The niceties of the gradations within these two main groupings – even the innovation of the caste-spanning “gentle” class in later years – does not affect the argument, here.

The vast majority of society was mired in profound ignorance and penury, and wholly dependent on the good will and direction of the nobility. As the Enlightenment progressed, various elements of the latter group developed a dim awareness of the presence and plight of the former, and began increasingly to ponder its relationship to it, and its unique ability and obligation to act as its steward, guiding and raising up its condition as much as possible; a form of noblesse oblige. The peasants, for their part, had their own obligations: to pay due heed to the instruction benevolently offered them, and to remember where it came from.

Even today, that description pretty much depicts the way our putative contemporary intellectuals see the relationship. Of course, there are variations around the world. In fact, in some places the old feudal relationship can be said to hardly have changed at all.

In others, intellectuals are not the least bit shy about identifying themselves as such, or grandly describing their role as providing enlightenment to the “masses.” Indeed, in some languages the very word for “intellectual” is literally “the light.” Alternatively, there are places where the general public doesn’t trouble itself much about this assertion of superiority, often even acceding to it. More commonly, the roles of intellectuals and the public are, while still distinct, relaxed and uncontroversially practical.

In the United States, on the other hand, the idea of the “intellectual” as a specially capable class is widely viewed as irrelevant. The search for, attainment, and distribution of knowledge are viewed as just some of the many things people specialize in, not as something that only special people can do. Indeed, the temerity to identify one’s self as an “intellectual,” in this relentlessly leveling society, is to risk exposing one’s self to everything from vigorous ridicule to brusque marginalization.

The diversity of this legacy notwithstanding, it is crucial today to recall that the very real walls between nobles and villagers, leaders and the led, intellectuals and the ignorant, are fading in the face of new realities, broader capacities, and, surely, a more mature and mutual apprehension of our shared frailties. As we mingle, each of us in the other’s previous domain, it is less clear who, by right or otherwise, is the intellectual, the villager, or the idiot – or, indeed, who has confronted which truths, and at what personal cost.

What is clear, though, is that the great mass of us are no longer being controlled by a few organizations created by our betters for their own purposes. Rather, we ourselves are forming and managing vast numbers of organizations of incalculable diversity and aim.

But we have yet to complete the conceptual adjustment to the vast change this has wrought; a costly failure the consequences of which we suffer every day. We need to reevaluate our understanding of our relationships with our organizations. In particular, we must learn in this context to separate and properly source the concepts of insight and authority.

They both used to belong unquestioningly to the elite classes. Now, the former can be discovered anywhere, and the latter is largely ours. In the next two days we will explore the implications of this for management.

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This post is a part of a series. You can learn about and link to the other articles here: Intellectuals

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Today’s tip: Speaking of conceptually catching up with emerging reality, please see this post on Nina Simosko‘s blog, which focuses on women in technology, about new routes, being pioneered at young ages, to authority and power for women at work.

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