Friday, September 19, 2014

David Brendel — How Philosophy Makes You a Better Leader

The goal of most executive coaching and leadership development is behavior change—help the individual identify and change the behaviors that are getting in the way of, and reinforce the behaviors associated with, effective leadership. But what about the beliefs and values that drive behavior? 
The benefits of introspection and reflection on one’s own character and beliefs receive less attention in a typical coaching session than the benefits of behavior change. Perhaps this is not surprising in our fast-paced and technology-driven business world, where there is little time to stop and think, and where people want (and are paying for) immediate outcomes. Despite growing recognition of the benefits of “mindfulness” activities (such as yoga and meditation) and an introverted style, self-reflection on philosophical issues—such as values, character virtues, and wisdom—is relatively neglected. Executive coaching and leadership development programs rarely include much, if anything, about the power of clarifying one’s philosophical world-view. But there is mounting evidence that they should. 
Neuroscience research on self-reflection supports this notion.…
How reflection makes you a better person.

"the life which is unexamined is not worth living." Socrates, in Plato's Apology, 38a

Harvard Business Review — HBR Blog Network
How Philosophy Makes You a Better Leader
David Brendel

3 comments:

Matt Franko said...

What about if your 'philosophy' is libertarianism?

No 'leaders' in libertarianism so I dont know how this philosophy would help with leadership.... seems like it would matter which/what 'philosophy' one was believing... rsp

Tom Hickey said...

Everyone has a world view. It can be held critically or uncritically. If it is held critically, then it becomes a "philosophy" in the sense of having been reflected upon critically. Not everyone comes to the same conclusions and without universal criteria there is no ultimate justification.

As it stands, there criteria that are generally accepted are consistency and non-contradiction, circular reasoning, infinite regress, and logical fallacy on the side of reasoning, and correspondence with fact on the empirical side. This leaves a whole range of issues such as appeal to introspection, intuition, authority, and "self-evidence." There are also issues involving the meaning of key terms. For example, science rules out metaphysical terms and requires operational definition.

The problem is that as rigor increases, so does disagreement over foundational issues. Philosophy in one sense is the examination of foundational issues. Lacking universal criteria, there is no general agreement.

For the ancients, "philosophy," literally love of wisdom, signified a way of life lived in accordance with wisdom and virtue rather than the intellectual discipline it has become. But differences over which way of life leads to "the good life" resulted in distinctions that eventually led to the discipline of philosophy and its branches,

Eventually some of those branches spun off into the sciences, but the aspects without empirical foundation remain as the subject matter of philosophy. Strict empiricists reject this as knowledge and relegate it to the passions, following Hume, for example. Others argue that just because something is not decidable empirically doesn't make it either empty (tautologous) or not rationally justifiable.

This is the challenge of creating a truly liberal society in which openness and tolerance are basic in arriving at the liberal ideal of "Unum e pluribus" or "Live unity and celebrate diversity." Thus the basic liberties of freedom of expression, association, religion and press from government, equality before the law and due process, equality of representation, and equal opportunity.

All these are historical outcomes of applied philosophy.

Tom Hickey said...

I think he gets it wrt to leadership based on what I've been told my a friend of mine who is a human relations consult to the tech industry and only deals directly with CEO's.

He says the playbook is always the same. He conducts his investigation of the company and reports to the CEO with his conclusion. He walks in and says that he has complete the study and has found the problem. The CEO asks what is is. My friend says, "Everyone hates you." The CEO is aghast, of course. He asks, "Why." My friend says, "Because they think you are an asshole." Then he goes on to explain how people aren't machines and how he needs to change his management style.

Of course, readers of "Dilbert" won't be surprised.

And we probably all remember how Bill Gates favorite phrase when he was running Microsoft was, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."