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Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

It is always interesting when someone who believes themselves to be a great leader, discovers that they are not. And since many of the traits that make great leaders, self awareness, humility, honesty, Etc. are missing in these folks, the world around them sort of explodes when that realization hits. In my experience it is a time when they are most likely to embrace 'leadership through politics.' It is always a strong signal that it is time to distance oneself from the faux leader's area of influence.

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Is humility necessary for one to be a great leader? Steve Jobs and General George Patton spring to mind.

I agree that a plurality of those traits are commonly found, I've always wondered about causality and importance. Not disagreeing, genuinely curious about your opinion.

Edit: clarity and expansion

> Is humility necessary for one to be a great leader? Steve Jobs and General George Patton spring to mind.

As does (starting tomorrow) the new leader of the free world.

I think parent post was referring to people who are generally considered to have been excellent leaders (and lack humility).

I was, although there was some selection bias in my choices; Hitler/Mussolini would certainly qualify for that category.

Sidebar: I do find myself biased in judging someones merit as a leader based off of my opinion of their goals. Someone can certainly be a very good leader and lead towards something very bad.

> As does (starting tomorrow) the new leader of the free world.

I'm not a fan of Trump's, but it takes an exotic form of humility to sell gaudy things, have an off-the-wall hairstyle, and be a WWE performer. He's so over the top that there has to be a level of ironic self-awareness in there somewhere.

Why does there have to be? He's been a public figure for like 40 years, wouldn't someone have seen some evidence of self-awareness by now?

I'm saying I don't see how someone gets "slapped around" by Steve Austin without being at least a little meta and a little humble in some weird way.

The election was the evidence, he's very self aware. You just don't like the image he is purposefully projecting.

What do you mean? Hasn't one of the stories of the election been people constantly saying "he doesn't mean it, it's an act, it's just for votes", and being proven wrong every time? Everyone around him, his kids, his biographers, his employees, all say this is who he really is. So he's obviously aware of the image he's projecting, but I don't think he's self-aware in the way that comment implied, which was that he's just playing a character, and he's certainly never shown any evidence of humility.

I don't think that's humility at all. It might take not caring about what other people think of you, but that's a totally separate dimension than humility.

Yeah, I'm open to a better vocabulary word for this, but the point is that it might overlap with "humility in leadership" somehow. Or not. Words are hard.

Just because someone is in a position of power doesn't mean they're a good leader. A good leader is someone who people want to actively follow and support.

Even though the majority voted against him, Trump did get a lot of votes, and he did draw people to his rallies. But that kind of support for a politician is more like celebrity fandom than wanting to follow a good leader. Much like the Kardashian family, Trump became famous for being famous. He's always been good at getting into the public spotlight. He's never had a reputation for brilliant business leadership.

Of course, he may well turn out to be a great leader. A lot of the same basic acting skills required to be a celebrity are helpful in leadership. And after all, other entertainers have turned out to be great leaders. It's just too soon to tell.

Even though the majority voted against him

I thought the majority DGAF, and those that did were - as always - within a handful of percent of 50-50?

George Patton was confident with out a doubt; but he was humble enough to not be outwitted by his enemies...pretty much that is all the humility you need in his role.

I think humility is essential for managing discord. General Patton is a good example where a lack of humility got him into trouble and probably limited his career. Steve Jobs is a bit different, humility is being able to hear a different opinion, and I think Steve could hear those opinions based on what I've read about him.

Leadership and career are not the same thing.

Jobs became a much better leader after getting kicked out of Apple and facing near failure with Next.

I use Cynefin framework to put people into 4 styles of leadership. Steve Jobs was definitely one of those dudes that operate in chaos - the kind of asshole you need to have to be in charge and the new apple appears to be trying to move toward more complicated/complex and a softer tone. So from my perspective, the new CEO is a better "leader" of human beings and Steve Jobs was a better asshole.

What does 'leadership through politics' mean?

I'll take a stab at this. To me, it means instead of leaning on trust to build respect/relationships, you use some more artificial or formal ladder. Maybe you act disingenuously, letting people fail when its avoidable, turning people against each other, thus allowing a space for yourself to succeed.

This, there are two ways to stand out in a group; one is to do excellent work, the other is to make everyone else appear worse than you. A "political" leader will use their skill at 'crafting the narrative' to establish a completely different reality for those who don't have the time to figure out what is really going on.

Perhaps another way to look at it would be how cult leaders get people locked into their way of thinking. It makes them very effective but by my definition it doesn't make them 'good leaders'.

One of the VP's at NetApp used to say "When your actions improve everyone's experience at the company it is leadership, when your actions improve your own experience at the company its politics."

You can use it for good though. I viewed one of my most important tasks as insulating my team from corporate politics. That often involved me using politics on other leaders in the organization to keep their (useless) agendas away from my team.

Or maybe understanding motivations, how people and groups will react not based on trust or relationships, but strictly on expected outcomes.

Wielding authority, AKA pulling rank.

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