One of the key responsibility of a leader is to be able to perceive the difference between reality and what appears to be the reality, i.e., we need leaders who are wise. The question then is what is wisdom and is there a simple way to becoming wise.
An old Indian metaphor can come to our help.
It is that time of the day when it is neither dark nor light. You are walking through a park and you see something lying on the ground and you instinctively jump. That is our body reacting to keep us alive – better be safe than sorry. You mind sees a potential snake there.
Once you feel a bit safe, you tend to take a second look at it, just to make sure if it is indeed a snake or something else. When you do so there are two possibilities, either it is a snake or it is not. But the only way to be sure is to take a better look at it. If you have a torch light, maybe shine a light on the thing that we perceived to be a snake. If not, some people might take a stick and poke it. Some people might wait for a bit and observe if it moves before doing anything else.
It is more likely that you find out that it was not really a snake but a rope left behind or something else that gave the appearance of a snake. Our minds and sense perceptions have evolved over the millennia to see things that are not there so that we can survive better in the jungle.
– An Old Hindu Metaphor
Now, you might ask, how is this metaphor relevant for leaders or is about wisdom. Here is how.
There are three kinds of phenomenon that happened to us if we put ourselves in the story and it is the same phenomenon that we go through day in and day out with almost everything that life throws at us.
Ignorance:
This is if we don’t perceive anything in the first place. If we did not even see the rope (or the snake) and we just kept walking along the path, we were ignorant. If it was not a snake, we didnt have to worry about anything but if it were a snake, we could potentially been in harm’s way.Most people live their lives in being ignorant of many things going on around them.
These are typically people who either believe that they are lucky or unlucky as their past experiences might show. As leaders, this is definitely not the place to be in. And usually, if we have already seen some success, the chances are that we tend not to be ignorant. It is one of our responsibilities to help people (who tend to be ignorant) we lead by teaching them to move out of their ignorance. This way, we strengthen the whole team.
Perception:
This is the process in which we perceive something through our sense organs. This could be by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting or even imagining something to be present. The perception may or may not be the reality.
Most of us operate in this state. We are able to sense most of what is happening around us. Good leaders are good at perceiving what is happening and probably what that means for them as well. They usually react to what they think they perceived. As we know, their perception may or may not be the reality.
They tend not to doubt their own perception and so usually come across as confident (sometimes overconfident) of their own abilities. They are usually average leaders and sometimes, even make good leaders.
Awareness:
Once we have perceived something, we can either take that as reality or look closer to see if what we thought we sensed is actually what it is. This is only possible once we realise that not everything we sense is real and that our minds can play tricks to keep us from harm.
Great leaders are those who understand this truth that what we percieve may not always be the truth. They understand that the environment or the context matters a lot when they see something.
For example, if it were daylight when they came across the same situation as in the story, there would be no doubt if they saw a snake or a rope. Same way, if they were not in a park but on a well travelled road or in their home, they would also know, with relative certainty if it were a snake or a rope. But since they were in a park and it was twilight, there was a bit of doubt if what they saw was a snake or a rope.
This ability to be aware of the context in which they perceive things and knowing when to trust what they perceive and when not to trust it is a key characteristics of wise people. They know when to trust and when to doubt their own sense perception. This is a skill that we can develop with practice.
Conclusion:
If we really want to be great leaders, we need to continuously hone this skill and operate from this state of awareness more often than from the other states.
It might not be possible to always be in this state but we need to learn to identify the context in which we operate and through the lens of this context process our perception.
The more we do this, the more people whom we lead see and learn from us, thereby helping create better leaders all around us.
