Category: Leadership

In the hallway of London’s Natural History Museum is a statue of Charles Darwin, perhaps the most influential scientist of all time.  His On the Origin of Species changed our understanding of the natural world, reshaped religious beliefs, and (for all except a few creationist cranks) has become part of the core curriculum of human knowledge. Indeed, so great is his fame, that when I last visited the museum, there were several people taking selfies with his image.   

Perhaps that’s because, unlike many other complex discoveries, Darwin’s theory of evolution is easily communicable and widely understood in layman’s terms. And yet, despite this (or perhaps because of it), he harbored grave concern for any misrepresentation and reputedly delayed its publication for almost thirty years. More recent historical research suggests the hiatus was equally the result of his determination to ensure its accuracy, combined with a robustness of evidence.

How things have changed in the decades since! 

Celebrities and Pseudo-Science

Hollywood can be a Poor Example

A short walk from the museum is Harvey Nichols department store, which, until the recent pandemic, housed a concession from a famous Hollywood backed company, the alternative lifestyle and wellness store founded by that is only a famous actress.  There, in its cool minimalist surroundings, you could buy all manner of craziness, from bee sting therapy to bodily insertions that promote longevity and a better life.  The store may have gone, but the peddling of pseudo-science continues to thrive online, as does a more general monetization and politicization of unfounded assertions masquerading as truth.

This Hollywood actress’s ability to persuade otherwise sensible folk to part with their hard-earned cash is surely a result of her being a famous and attractive actress. The implication that in purchasing from the store, you might become a little more like her image is central to the appeal. Given that the business has been valued at over $250m, it would seem this is more important to many than any analysis of the snake oil she’s selling or her qualifications for doing so. And sadly, she’s not alone. 

Great Tennis Player, but is he qualified in other things?

Many sports stars have millions social media followers. One in particular is arguably one of the greatest tennis player of all time, but it seems that’s not enough for his ego. Hence, we’re treated to his views on using the energy of our body to cure ailments and how polluted water might be purified through the power of gratitude! As for his qualifications? This is a man who organized a tennis tournament during the Covid pandemic and, if only by implication, suggested that people do not need a life-saving vaccination against the consequences of a pathogen that the World Health Organization estimates has killed seven million people.

More Examples of Bad Influencers

The examples above are relatively mild in the scheme of the critical depths to which we’ve sunk. Consider for a moment the impact of the alt-right’s Alex Jones, a man who denied the reality of the Sandy Hook murders. And while you do so, maybe spare a thought for those parents who, after having lost their children in that attack, were relentlessly harassed by his mindless followers as the US courts have thankfully recognized, his mendacious and unfounded tirades are not without consequence and should not be tolerated. There are any number of equally (and arguably more) dangerous influencers I might have highlighted, from Trump to Musk to the truly vile Andrew Tate… 

Fake News and False Truths are Threats to Everyone

But the key point will already be understood: the proliferation of fake news and false truths is one of the most serious threats to our society.  The erosion of our ability to separate fact from fiction is not just impacting those with more cash than sense; it’s undermining our politics, our health care, and in the case of the alt-right and the extreme left, a large portion of our decency and common sense! 

But if disinformation is now dominating our public debate, the question is, what do we do about it?  How, in a world where, for example, 62% of Americans get their news from social media, do we balance the value of free speech with a need for the vetting of untruths?  And how do we counter the seductive appeals to base emotions and bigotry that are so easy to stir up and yet so difficult to refute in a culture that’s increasingly shaped by the intolerance of identity politics?

Regulation is Needed

There is surely a role for regulation here. While recognizing it’s a minefield, I believe we must embrace more robust guidelines for public discourse and be prepared to enforce them, especially in fields that directly impact public health or political processes. This isn’t about Big Brother censorship; it’s about recognizing that the freedoms we have fought so hard to secure require us to insist on core values of truth, mutual respect, and fairness. The alternative is that we continue to tolerate a toxic cocktail of pseudo-science, hate speech, and violent rhetoric, and that’s been the hallmark of despotic regimes throughout history. 

But regulation is not enough, nor should it go too far. 

As a liberal with an academic background, I’d be one of the last to want to curtail a robust exchange of views. Indeed, it’s a virtue of science that it takes pride in testing, vigorously challenging, and, where necessary, changing its opinion. This is why, more than ever, we need to promote critical literacy in our schools, with an emphasis on the process as much as the outputs. In France, philosophy is part of the core curriculum, not to impose a particular dogma but rather to encourage debate and help young people distinguish between credible claims and unfounded assertions. We could learn a lot from that mindset. 

Meanwhile, we could take a lesson from Charles Darwin. His search for the truth was a model of evidential diligence; his self-refection and care for the consequences of his words were the antithesis of today’s unqualified and narcissistic celebrities. It’s no coincidence, and, to my mind, a matter of great hope, that he’s arguably the greatest social influencer of all time.  We should all salute him (or take selfies by his statue), for in that respect alone, his example is as relevant and as radical today as when his likeness was first set in stone.

Originally Published in Fair Value

ON 8 DECEMBER 2020 in the city of Coventry in the UK, Margaret Kennan received the first publicly administered dose of the Pfizer/ BioNTech vaccine. At ninety-one years old, she described the experience as “the best early birthday present,” reflecting worldwide joy that, just possibly, this marked the beginning of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. As I write, three weeks later, millions across the globe have been inoculated, markets have rebounded and we approach the New Year with rays of light that were well below the horizon only a few months ago.

And yet, dark clouds remain. Because, for all that the vaccine— and equivalent treatments from other biotech companies were a triumph of science before the first shot was administered there were protestations from some quarters. Fueled by social media, conspiracy theorists played on the fears of an already nervous population, peddling claims at times so ludicrous that they beggar belief. In what is almost the ultimate case of repeating your message regardless, they’ve succeeded in spooking a small but not insubstantial section of the public into questioning whether they might skip the treatment just when it’s needed most.

Wild Speculative Theories Continue

There are multiple issues at play here, and not the time or space to deal with them all. I’m going to consign claims that the vaccine will track us via 5G communication or harbors secretly implanted microchips to the dustbin of implausibility in which they belong. Whether we should allow airtime to such theories strikes me as a fine balance between freedom of expression versus the potential for public harm. Time will no doubt expose the nonsense, but sadly it seems there will always be some who choose to disregard the common-sense reasoning by which they lead their daily lives.

More concerning than the unhinged conspirators, are the mumblings that the vaccines are medically unsafe, that they’ve been developed too quickly, and the safest route is to pass on the treatment. What we have here is the consequence of a not unreasonable first question (can a vaccine be developed in under a year?) combined with a mistrust of our political leaders and a misunderstanding of science, to produce a spiral of doubt that risks undermining the whole enterprise. Or putting the whole thing more bluntly, we have a highly vocal section of society that wants the pandemic to end but prefers to hang back in the line, leaving the putative risk to others. 

Academic Term Free-riding

This is classic free-riding, a term usually reserved for scholars, but which most of us know as not pulling your weight. In academic terms, freeriding occurs when a party makes no contribution to an enterprise but reaps the same benefits as those whose labor and sacrifice made it possible. Economists regard this as a market failure; philosophers consider it a moral one. To understand why, it’s helpful to describe it in more concrete terms.

Free-ridding Economic Context

Imagine you lived in a small pre-industrial agrarian community that needed to irrigate its lands to improve production. All the farmers agree to work together to create a series of ditches and channels, giving two days of labor each week in a collective endeavor to deliver a benefit for all. Except, when work begins, one farmer, whose land is in the middle of the project, decides not to take part, focusing instead on building a swanky new house. When the irrigation system is in place, his land benefits, and his production increases just the same as the others, and yet, had everyone followed his behavior, the project would not have been possible.

Intuitively we know this is wrong. This is why John Rawles in his seminal Theory of Justice identifies a prohibition on crude freeriding as one of the key principles of a fair society-basing this assertion is not just on abstract reasoning, but on focus group after focus group coming to exactly the same conclusion. In the everyday world, it’s an economic and social problem that we’ve developed multiple routes (from taxation to copyright laws) to tackle. But when it comes to medical interventions, we hesitate at compulsion to comply.

Free-riding and Medical Free Choice

And that’s understandable because medical procedures raise some especially difficult issues. Questions of free choice and even religious belief come into play and we are rightly cautious of compelling individuals in what might be seen as personal space. However, it’s equally clear that to meaningfully address the biggest social disruption since the Second World War, we need the vast majority of us to play our part in the vaccine program. The problem is particularly acute because those who refuse inoculation increase the risk for others by raising the likelihood that the virus will linger and mutate.

Right Not to Comply

On the whole, western democracies have relied on personal benefits rather than community obligations to drive a voluntary uptake. As herd immunity builds and our collective risk recedes, we tend to forebear those few who chose to take a different path. Those societies, with a greater emphasis on social cohesion, would take a less tolerant view of their “right” to not comply.

The judgment is a delicate one to make, and not without real and tangible consequences. Only recently, there were outbreaks of measles in the UK that can be directly linked to the now spurious claims about the safety of the MMR vaccine and a consequent reluctance by certain community groups to have their children vaccinated. Many parents who refused cited a belief that they need not worry because of wider herd immunity and that they were concerned about (mis)reported side effects. Their children, who subsequently contracted the disease, are the ones who paid the price of that folly.

Right Not to Comply and Business Leadership

Business leaders will face similar issues, for if a company is not a collective endeavor with responsibility to both individuals and wider stakeholders, then what is? What, for example, should be the limits on our expectations of employees? Can we legitimately insist on the vaccination of all colleagues, save perhaps for those with genuine medical or faith-based reasons for exclusion? And what of our customers in certain sectors (cruise liners, concerts, and sporting events spring to mind) might we insist that proof of vaccination is a pre-requisite of our supplying a service? I suspect, at least in the short term, that some will.

More widely than the recent pandemic, business has an important role to play in nudging behaviors for the communal good. The organizations in which we work are, for many of us, the main place of close interaction with others outside our families. While we may not use the term freeriding, we intuitively know that we have obligations to our colleagues: “Not pulling your weight” is widely called out in terms of performance; living by our values is common currency in the modern workplace… We expect our colleagues to have our backs in the widest sense of that term, behaving in ways that respect our individuality but also recognize our responsibility to the shared endeavor.

Public Leadership and Private Flouting

This is why leaders in business and public life have a particular responsibility to live by the values they espouse. In the UK, a number of senior politicians and key advisors have been exposed to flouting the social distancing and lockdown directives-survey after survey has shown that their behavior lost the trust of the British public at a critical time in controlling the pandemic. The reason is simple, those who make the rules must measure up to them more stringently than most for not to do so is free-riding in its worst possible form.

Leaders Should Be a Model to Others

Leaders must also recognize that their behavior is a model for others and with this comes responsibility that can sometimes transcend our interests and beliefs. In the US, President Trump’s long-time refusal to wear masks and faux-macho posturing in the face of the virus will undoubtedly have cost many lives. Imagine the doubt that would have been sown if the same bravado were applied to the efficacy of a vaccine? As I write this article, Israel is leading the world in the inoculation of its citizens-interestingly, Prime Minister Netanyahu was very publicly one of the first in line.

Science Evidence Will Win Out

Looking to the immediate future, I expect the scientific evidence will win out: that our desire to end the misery of lockdown-not to mention the avoidable loss of life creates sufficient incentive without compulsion. Many of those who are disinclined to take the vaccine will reassess their views as the benefits become clear; the peddlers of conspiracies will no doubt find other outlets to feed their toxic paranoia. Ultimately, good sense will prevail.

And on this note, I’m hopeful in a wider sense. For Margaret Keenan was right, the vaccine is indeed the best early birthday present-not just for her, but for the world. And, as those rays of light I spoke of earlier begin to brighten, there is surely an opportunity to show what collective will and community endeavor can achieve. We are bigger and better than the free-riders in our midst. We can (and should) legislate and compel where absolutely necessary, but our most powerful weapon is to actively play our part, living by the values and behaviors we would hope others do too, and quietly dishonoring those who do not.

For the last few weeks, we’ve been bombarded with advice on how to make the best use of this period of lockdown. The internet is awash with potted wisdom on how to be more organized, distracted, or upgraded, while my inbox has personalized suggestions ranging from cleaning up the sock drawer to learning a new language or getting that old guitar down from the attic. Meanwhile, events unfold beyond our control in a way that adds to a sense of disempowerment and ennui.

Business Preparation Strategies 

Much the same is true for businesses. Countless articles offer pointers on planning for a post-Covid future or the best online training tools… In the equivalent of the suggestions to tidy our wardrobes, enterprises are urged to catch up on admin or, at the other extreme, prepare strategies to win market share at the expense of their less diligent competitors. For all that the counsel may be well-meaning, it generally misses the mark.

Businesses Always Have Long To-Do Lists

The reason for this will be obvious to anyone who juggles the daily demands of business or, for that matter, family life. While nobody suggests it’s not a virtue to clear our emails or catch up on personal development, the reality is that most organizations get by perfectly well with a long to-do list. And as for developing radical new strategies, it’s a brave, arguably foolhardy enterprise that places any serious bets on a future that’s beyond its knowing.As human beings, we experience the world and perform at our best when navigating the middle ground. You may like me captivated by those popular science documentaries on astronomy or quantum physics, but for all of us, the extremes of time and space are still impossible to fully comprehend. What’s more, even if we could, the knowledge would make little difference to our everyday lives that we are hurtling through space at a million miles an hour won’t save you from a speeding fine, and if you jump that red light, good luck in arguing that color is only a matter of perception!

Daily Navigating Business Decisions

Something similar is equally true of commerce. The day-to-day reality is that success comes less from having perfectly granular policies or all-embracing strategies than it does from the thousands of judgments that are the warp and weft of our trading relationships. It’s this daily grind and the grit in the oyster that comes with it that we understand best; it’s actually what motivates us, what enables us to feel empowered, and what most allows us to shine.

Practical Reasoning

Our need, then, in exiting this crisis, will overwhelmingly be for pragmatism rather than principle, and certainly not dogma. This doesn’t mean we should abandon all structures or strategic vision, but it does suggest we should focus our minds on the underlying purpose of the choices we will need to make. In this sense, the return to a new normal will require a commercial equivalent of the “practical reasoning” that’s advocated by thinkers such as Peter Singer or the late Mary Midgely. Malcolm Gladwell’s recent podcasts on the pliability of Jesuit thinking and its resolution of issues in the context of the world as we actually live it are instructive guides, too.

Keep Partnerships Strong

In re-establishing our trading partnerships, the call to exercise discretion will be greater than ever; cash flow, refunds, sales targets, or staff bonuses, pragmatic solutions, and reciprocal understanding will be the currency of success. Black Swan events term coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb for major, unforeseen situations we are unprepared for inevitably leave us with a world that’s changed beyond previous experience. But this pandemic is not an extinction event, and it is only by working through the aftershock-instance by instance, customer by customer-that we will find and shape the opportunities that determine our future.

The reason the current lockdown is so difficult for many of us and for our organizations to bear is that despite all the well-meaning advice, no matter how tidy our socks or how ambitious our vision is, only when this quarantine is lifted can we be truly productive again. The people and the enterprises that succeed will not be those with empty inboxes or even the best-laid plans–they will be those who make the smartest calls in the mucky middle ground of decision-making that is the stuff of business as we know it.

Overview: During a conversation with Jos Opdeweegh, a distinguished CEO based in Miami, the concept of Servant Leadership came to the forefront as a paradigm-shifting approach to organizational management. Opdeweegh provided illuminating insights into the limitations inherent in the conventional top-down leadership model, where decision-making authority is confined to a select cadre of executives, often resulting in the marginalization of talented individuals and their perspectives.

Shortcomings of the Conventional Leadership Paradigm

The deficiencies of the traditional leadership framework were glaringly evident, as it accentuated autocratic leadership tendencies and stifled the culture of creativity and open exchange of ideas within the organizational structure. Opdeweegh emphasized that instead of fostering a conducive environment for nurturing high-potential individuals, the traditional approach frequently perpetuated a culture of mediocrity, bolstered by inflexible performance assessment frameworks that inadvertently alienated exceptional talents.

Deconstructing Inefficient Decision-Making within Traditional Management

The contrast between the customary model and the ethos of Servant Leadership gained heightened clarity when examining decision-making processes. While the former relied on a limited echelon of leaders to shape pivotal determinations, Servant Leadership champions a more dynamic, customer-centric decision-making philosophy. Opdeweegh underscored the significance of entrusting decision-making authority to those in proximity to challenges and opportunities, given their comprehensive understanding of the intricacies and their expertise in the subject matter.

Unveiling the Core Tenets of Servant Leadership

In the course of our dialogue, Opdeweegh unveiled the foundational principles that underpin Servant Leadership: an unwavering commitment to fostering the growth and success of individuals within the organization, with a paramount focus on customers, followed closely by colleagues. This approach nurtures a sense of collective responsibility, wherein each member of the organization is viewed as an ambassador, collectively contributing to the shared objective of achieving success.

Embracing Fallibility and Cultivating Empowerment

One of the salient points of discussion revolved around the importance of acknowledging mistakes and their intrinsic connection to empowerment. Opdeweegh stressed that while making errors is inevitable, they hold value when acknowledged and leveraged as learning opportunities. The Servant Leadership framework advocates for a culture of continuous improvement and accountability, empowering individuals to take ownership of their actions and choices.

Concluding Reflections: Embracing the Philosophy of Servant Leadership

The discourse with Jos Opdeweegh yielded profound insights into the merits of adopting Servant Leadership as an all-encompassing, customer-centric, and adaptable approach to steering organizational trajectories. By challenging the established norms of leadership, enterprises have the potential to cultivate an environment that not only retains exceptional talents but also empowers individuals to flourish and make substantial contributions. Servant Leadership, characterized by its emphasis on collaboration, inclusivity, and the transformative power of learning from mistakes, stands poised to shape a more promising future for businesses and their workforce alike.