Comment by swombat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by swombat | Hacker News Reader

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Very interesting, but somewhat misleading, imho.

People who go their own way may well become leaders, simply because to go your own way you have to be decisive, and most people are indecisive, and in times of uncertainty they will look to people who are decisive to take the lead.

But that doesn't mean that the qualities listed are leadership qualities. I'd say that the ability to understand and empathise with people, to figure out what they want, the ability to motivate others to do their best, the ability to communicate convincingly, and the ability to make decisions under pressure - all those are way more important than the ones listed in the quote.

Of the list of leadership qualities:

> courage, endurance, patience, humor, flexibility, resourcefulness, determination, a keen sense of reality, and the ability to keep a cool and clear head even when things are going badly

I'd argue that only the last one is really a requirement for leadership. All the others make for a better leader, but they are not requirements.

Yay, you and she have different definitions of “leader”.† So what?

† You’re talking about people in charge of organizations, whereas she is talking about people who come up with new ideas, new inventions. These are very different sorts of leadership. Lorenzo de’ Medici vs. Machiavelli, or some university department chair vs. Darwin, or Steve Ballmer vs. Don Knuth, &c. Sometimes these qualities overlap, as in Caesar, say, or Steve Jobs.

Also, decisiveness is not the primary factor: there are plenty of decisive people who never possess anything like the “leadership” she’s talking about.

So, you're saying leadership is not about leading people?

Aye. There's a sense in which being an inventor or an intellectual that pushes a culture forward is "leadership", but we have other words for that, we call those people visionaries or influential thinkers or a force in society and lots of other things too. Trying to appropriate the word "leadership" when there are so many other positive ways to describe the qualities of an independent thinker or maker is a bit silly.

You could even call it "thought leadership" without impinging on the wider sense of "leadership".

Some folks have the idea that that leaders boss people around and tell them what to do. That's actually micro-managing or dictatorship depending on whether it's corporate or government level.

Leaders are people that inspire others who follow them in some way. It's not about being an authoritarian or having power.

Leadership definitely means leading people, and there are different ways to lead. I think of livestock. One can stand in front of the livestock and call them, pull on a rope attached to them, get behind them and push them, or get behind them and scare or whip them. Those are all different ways to 'lead' the livestock and can all technically be effective if done with the right skill sets. The author is talking about the "Stand in front and call" type of leadership.

I found that leadership quote orthogonal to the essence of the post. Making things at an individual level has nothing to do with leadership, so I don't know why she brought it up in an otherwise powerful post. Being a businessman requires leadership skills, being a hacker doesn't. Jobs vs Woz, etc.

It is very difficult to motivate others to do their best. In fact I would argue that the only effective way to motivate others is to lead by example, to practice fairness, and to control the things that could potentially de-motivate them.

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