I’m going to start off with the core of this newsletter. Leaders have goals and leadership is the set of skills and methods that encourage, persuade, and/or entice others to work towards that goal (or goals) together.
So, what are goals? Goals are anything beyond the status quo — something that has not been achieved before. Goals can be applied to individuals, families, companies, cities, states, and countries. There can be good managers, even great managers, who succeed in maintaining a healthy status quo (a situation where the best possible situation exists for things as they are NOW). They can be admired and appreciated — but they are not leaders.
Here in the US, the last President that I know of who put a goal into motion was John F. Kennedy — and he was assassinated. He said “we will put a man (no thought of women participating at the time, alas) on the moon by the end of this decade (the 1960s). This goal, which had to be pushed forward by his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, required a joint effort of Congress and the people of the US. And they did it! There were coordinated efforts which boosted the educational system towards the sciences. The process of making the physical elements happen had all sorts of side-effects which affected the country then and beyond. These include (but the list is enormous) solar panels, heart monitors, water purification technologies, lightweight building materials and methods, improved computer capabilities, and search and rescue methods, among many others. They provided a boost to technology which can be followed to everyday technologies such as GPS and smartphones and Internet capabilities.
The 60s were a good time for trying to put goals into motion. Martin Luther King, Jr had a “dream” — a goal where all people would work together and respect one another no matter their external appearance or beliefs — and he was assassinated. At the time of his death, he was expanding the breadth of his concerns to that of the global community. Mahatma Gandhi had similar dreams two decades before (and, once again, he was assassinated for them).
Martin Luther King Jr’s dream has not yet been achieved but his efforts, and those of many others working with him and alongside him, have achieved some significant progress. When I was around four years old, according to my mother (I don’t really remember), I brought home a young girl, whose skin color was not the same as ours, to play with. I was told “we don’t play with these people, the neighbors will see and we’ll never hear the end of it”. Later, in the 70s and 80s she took care of children of all external appearances but my mother, though she did have many positive qualities, did not have the courage of MLK Jr and the folks alongside of him.
In short, among the many improvements has been the reality of people being able to associate with others who are not directly similar to themselves. Being allowed to associate is the first step to accepting others as people — it allows empathy, understanding, acceptance, and growth. But, as said before, it is only part of beginning steps towards the “dream” of MLK Jr — as “allowing” does not mean the same thing as everyone “doing”.
There have been goals created by business leaders. All of the “new” businesses have been pushed forward by someone with a goal. Some such have already been mentioned — such as GPS and smartphones — but just about every “new” business has been achieved by striving towards a goal.
Note that word “striving”. We haven’t reached MLK Jr’s “dream” yet. The goal is hopefully a worthy one (there are instances in history where the goal was NOT a worthy one) but the process of getting people to work together and attempting to make that goal happen is still worth the effort and brings many benefits. Even if we had NOT succeeded in putting a man on the moon, what benefits would we still have achieved?
Was it a coincidence that the two people I mentioned from the 60s (and there are many others globally) were assassinated? Personally, I don’t think so. The reason that there are not more goals set, and worked towards, is because a goal inherently means CHANGE. There aren’t many people that take change calmly. Some may be positively excited but there will be many who will be terrified. For businesses, it is primarily a matter or risk and a likely hit on short-term results. For political and economic systems, any change will affect the profits and livelihoods of corporations and many wealthy individuals. Isaac Newton talked about inertia in terms of physical systems — but the inertia of groups of people can be even more difficult to change. The more people that are affected by a change, the more likely there will be someone who will, under strong negative emotions, do something violent.
As politicians show us every day, a terrified (or angry) person can be persuaded to do things that they would never even consider if in a calm situation. Scared or angry people can easily be persuaded to do things that are not at all for their long term benefit — “to shoot themselves in the foot”. As Frank Herbert said in the book Dune, “fear is the mind killer”. In addition, there are many people, and corporations, who greatly benefit financially by keeping to the status quo.
As I said, in my opinion, JFK was the last US President who succeeded in initiating a goal (but would have failed if LBJ had not taken over the initiative). In the US, in my opinion, we have had one other President who tried to be a leader and who initiated some change — but was soon thwarted by others who virulently did NOT want change. Thank goodness, he was not assassinated but might he have been if he had succeeded in initiating the changes he envisioned and that the country so badly needed? We’d have to move over to a parallel universe to find the answer to that.
In my opinion, we have also had one President who showed that he (once again, that pronoun — but accurate) was a very good manager. He succeeded in having a balanced budget in the US. But that balancing of the budget was not appreciated by those benefitting from a continual increase in spending (or the decrease of taxes in a disproportionate manner). Certainly no one following has succeeded in doing such. It is not likely that it will happen in the near future unless a disaster (such as happened with the Great Depression) forces change. A balanced budget requires reduced spending and/or increased income (for governments, primarily from taxes). Such requires consensus and consensus requires a very good, or better, manager.
To summarize, leadership is the set of skills and methods needed for a leader to get people to strive for a goal. A goal is something that goes beyond the status quo. Although the status quo can be maintained by a good, or better, manager — such is not leadership or being a leader. Setting a goal, and working towards it, can be frightening, as it means change and those benefitting from the status quo will resist with existing economic constraints providing them support.
But, in a world that is undergoing constant and accelerating changes, goals are mandatory. And leaders must exist to take us towards those goals. As a caveat, remember that it is also possible to work towards negative, or regressive, goals. Let us, globally, support leaders to take us towards a positive, better, future.
https://charlesksummers.substack.com/p/leadership
