Superheroic Leadership Vol. I * No. 8
Let Go of Your Conscious Self
Superheroic Leadership is a light-hearted examination of what superheroic figures have to teach about leadership and what I have learned from their adventures.
No matter how leadership is considered, I believe there is a truth which is difficult to avoid: good leaders are different. They are born with… something. They have… IT.
While individuals can grow in their leadership and skills of management and leadership can be learned, the good ones – the best ones – simply shine as leaders. When they enter a room, people look to them and say “show me the wall and I’ll run through it.”
This is Superheroic Leadership, so let us try something. Of these pairs, who would you follow:
Captain America or Iron Man
Batman or Superman
Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock
Black Widow or Wonder Woman
Frodo Baggins or Samwise Gamgee
Ron Weasley or Hermione Granger
While you may have had to think through a couple of these, my guess is your list went something like this: Cap, Superman, Kirk, Wonder Woman, Frodo and Hermione.
Why is that? The other characters are great, too (and I bet there are a few differences in your choices and mine) but they just do not project leader the way the others do.
Great leaders are born with something. They are born with a leadership instinct that they learn to trust and that they are careful to develop. Great leaders are able to react to challenging situations quickly, to lead others to the right paths, to get out of danger because they do not overthink things. They trust their instincts.
Leadership skills can be taught but great instincts for leadership seem much more inherent to me.
Let us leave it to Obi Wan Kenobi (and we can with many leadership concepts … except that of telling the truth, but that is another subject for another blog!).