In one of my recent posts, I argued that most management literature was crap, and I singled out, among other dreadful tropes of the genre, the books trying to explain to the reader how leadership works and what it takes to be a great leader. I wouldn’t want to fall into the same sins myself, but today I would like to write about leadership, specifically the need to have more wise leaders.

I want to avoid falling into the same mistakes as the management gurus I was criticising in my post, so I won’t list the great leader’s competencies, traits, or capabilities. Instead, I would like to write about wisdom in general and why I think it is an important value to live by and aspire to for everybody, but especially our leaders. 

Wisdom is as old as time. It’s something ancient philosophers and religious leaders talked about thousands of years ago, but that is still as relevant today. Wisdom is a crucial feature of living a virtuous life. It is also essential to good leadership. 

What is wisdom? That is the question…

When talking about a word, the easiest way to learn what it means is to find a definition in a respected dictionary. However, when talking about such an abstract concept as wisdom, it is not that easy, and a dictionary definition may fall short of all the broader ramifications of such a rich concept. 

The Cambridge Dictionary, for example, defines wisdom as follows:

“The ability to use your knowledge and experience to make good decisions and judgments”

Is it a good definition? Certainly. Does it cover all the intricacies of the concept of wisdom? Certainly not. Indeed, wisdom is about knowledge, experience, good judgement and common sense, but it goes beyond that.

Ancient philosophers, the most famous trifecta formed by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, or my beloved stoics Marcus Aurelius and Seneca, for example, pondered on the concept of wisdom and asked themselves what made a wise man (sadly, they mostly talked about men, and they didn’t think much about the idea of wise women back then). 

Socrates, the (philosophical) father of them all, had the following to say on the topic: “the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

Here Socrates is talking about the humility of the wise person, who knows enough about the world and their own knowledge to realise they still have a lot left to learn and understand. This is obviously in line with Socrates’s most famous line: “I only know that I know nothing”. Socrates was considered the wisest man of Antiquity, and if we take both his quotes above to their conclusion, he seemed to think he fulfilled the main rule of total wisdom, that is, to realise he knew nothing.

Two thousand years later, Shakespeare said it differently, but the meaning was the same: “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool”.

Another thing wise people seem to have in common is self-awareness and self-knowledge, an important concept we have treated already in another post. As Aristotle said, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

I cannot but agree with him. The first step towards wisdom is knowing oneself: our strengths, biases, limitations, worldviews, perspectives, and emotions, and how all these inform the way we think, feel, act, react and behave. 

Thus, the wise person has good judgment and common sense, often acquired through life experience, but is humble, knows their limitations, and has excellent self-awareness and introspection.

Wise men and women

I always liked wisdom as a concept and a value to be cherished. Since I was a kid, I loved the idea of one day becoming a wise old man, preferably with a long white beard. I aspired to become a wise man and be respected for it. In our fast-moving society concerned with productivity and following the latest fad, where youth and good looks are idolised, we no longer respect old wise men and women. That’s a shame. 

You don’t necessarily need to be old to be wise, although life experience helps develop that wisdom. I know kids too wise for their age, and I also know older people who are fools with not one ounce of wisdom. Age and experience help sometimes, but they aren’t a necessity. 

I want to advocate for the recovery of wisdom as an essential value in our society, to put it again on the pedestal where it used to be historically and has always deserved to be, but from where it was knocked down a while back. 

Wisdom is an important facet of any human being, and it is something we should all aspire to achieve. This is even more the case for anyone who wants to be called a leader. 

The Wise Leader

I must admit I am not the first one who thought about the concept of the wise leader. I first read the idea in this whitepaper from the leadership and coaching expert Paul Lawrence, and I loved it. Dr Lawrence goes much deeper than I into the concept of the wise leader, so it is worth a read if my post has picked your curiosity.

I thought the concept of wisdom matched perfectly with the idea of leadership. Then I realised that wisdom was actually a necessary characteristic of any true leader.

Leaders are not just people managing other people and telling them what to do. Leaders have a responsibility towards their teams, their organisations, and, dare I say it, their communities and society at large. Leaders have an essential role to play in any company and community; without good leaders, it is impossible to have good companies and communities. This means our leaders don’t need just to have good analytical and decision-making skills, be strategic and have great emotional intelligence. Good leadership goes beyond that. We need wise leaders more than ever.

Following up on what we said above, we need leaders who lead with humility and are aware of their shortcomings. They know that they don’t know it all, and they are open to learning, being challenged and making mistakes. 

Being a wise leader means having that super-power called self-awareness. It is a super-power because it is at the root of many other powers. Self-awareness helps you realise what you do well and not so well, what you need to improve and what you can lean on more, when to say something and when to listen more. Self-awareness is the necessary first step toward learning and growth.

Wisdom also means having sound judgement and making the right decision more often than not. For that, you need experience, knowledge, and, above all else, plenty of common sense. They don’t teach that in school, but you learn by doing, making mistakes, and having the right approach and mindset.

Most important of all, the wise leader is a purposeful leader. A wise person knows what is right and uses that knowledge as a compass.

Same with the wise leader: they understand what is right for their teams and society and try always to do the right thing. They have a purpose that goes beyond just financial results. Paradoxically, this is the main reason for people following them. This is what makes them great leaders.  

As Simon Sinek told us many times, people follow, buy or engage with a WHY, not a HOW. Tell them why we are doing something, and you’ll engage them. 

People follow the wise leader because they have a purpose, they have a WHY, and they do the right thing.

Read also: How to find your career purpose in four simple steps 

We need more wise leaders because they will bring the results, have engaged teams, and be the best leaders you can get for the work at hand. We also need wise leaders because they will do the right thing and have a purpose aligned with what our world needs today. We live in challenging times, and that’s why we need wise leaders more than ever.

And you, what are you doing to become wiser every day?

Read about the 4 Leadership Qualities of the Future Leader

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Stoicism was a school of philosophy created in Ancient Greece more than 2000 years ago, but many of its precepts are still relevant today.

Modern men and women can find solace, tranquillity, and happiness if they follow some of its teachings.

I am not a Stoic, and I will not pretend to be one, but I like many of the elements forming this philosophy, so I have incorporated them into my personal philosophy. I don’t believe in labels and categories or in calling yourself a Stoic, an Epicurean, or a Communist if that means having to subscribe to all the elements forming one of these -isms. We should be able to pick and choose whatever fancies us and build our own personal philosophy of life, mixing different ideas.

For a long time now, Philosophy, with a capital letter, has confined itself to the dusty offices of universities and academia, with no practical use in real life. Many of today’s philosophers spend their days discussing linguistic tricks with no real practical life utility, but it wasn’t always this way, and it doesn’t have to be so. 

When Zeno created Stoicism

When Zeno of Citium created Stoicism in the early 3rd century BC in Athens, it was to be a philosophy of life. Its purpose was to help its adherents to conduct a happy and fulfilling life. It was competing with other philosophy schools like the Cynics, the Epicureans, the Sceptics, and the Peripatetics. 

Back then, philosophy dealt with the topic of what it meant to live a good life. This is one of the main questions of life, it’s the meaning of life itself, and I believe we haven’t been able to answer it correctly yet, more than two millennia later, because there is no single answer. 

Each of us must find meaning in our lives, and it’s not always easy.

Stoicism can be helpful in that you can find in it some of the elements that could be part of your own personal meaning. They are definitely part of mine. 

How to be happy, the Stoic way

Stoics were very successful in Ancient Greece, where philosophers like Zeno and Epictetus shone, but it was also notoriously popular in the Roman Empire.

Some of its principles fit well with the values present in the Roman high classes. Thinkers like Seneca, who was a very wealthy individual, similar to a modern-day investment banker and had influence over a few Emperors, and Marcus Aurelius, who was a Roman Emperor himself, were some of the most prominent Roman Stoics.

One of the reasons for their success was their interest in having a good life and achieving happiness and fulfilment.

Stoics promote the search for tranquillity, above anything else, as the main source of joy. For them, happiness is not achieved by satisfying all your needs and having an exciting life but by being calm and having a tranquil and serene way of being that allows you to think, reflect and enjoy what life has to offer.

The problem with needs

One of the main insights the Stoics had was to realise that human beings are insatiable.

We are overwhelmed by constant needs: hunger, lust for sex, need to be loved, want of money and fame, etc.

Every time we achieve something we wanted, we want more of it, or we want something new. It never ends, and it can become a constant source of dissatisfaction. Some philosophies of life focus on achieving all this, but this is a fool’s errand; it has no end.

Stoics focused instead on wanting less.

Rather than changing the outside world, their focus is on changing themselves. They focused on the inner world we all inhabit. They realised the easiest way for us to achieve happiness was to learn how to want things we already had.

This is, of course, easier said than done. 

One of the main techniques Stoics used was what the author William B. Irvine calls negative visualisation in his book A Guide To The Good Life (the Ancient art of Stoic Joy). This technique consists of imagining that we have lost things we love and cherish. We should contemplate the death of people we love and how sad we would feel, but also our own death and all the beautiful things in life we would miss. We should also contemplate the loss of possessions, wealth, and objects we like.

This technique sounds macabre and a tad masochist, but it can be very useful, as what it does is make you appreciate and value the people and objects in your life better. It increases gratitude and satisfaction for what you already have and stops you from always looking for what you don’t have yet.

The neighbour’s grass is not always greener than ours, after all.

The problem with worries

The second source of unhappiness for Stoics is that we worry too much.

We spend our lives worrying about things over which we have little or no control.

We regret our past mistakes and get anxious about future situations that haven’t happened and will most likely never happen. We, human beings, are natural worriers. This has helped us evolve and survive in the past, but in our ultra-safe current environment, this trait is more of a limiting factor than a booster.

Epictetus started his Handbook with the words: “some things are in our control and others not.” This assertion is simple but powerful.

The Dichotomy of Control

Epictetus and other Stoics introduced the concept of the Dichotomy of Control, which Irvine converted into a trichotomy, as there are three elements to consider:

1. There are things over which we have complete control, like the goals we set for ourselves, our values, opinions, and even our character (at least for people like Marcus Aurelius, who thought we had the power to shape and build our character by reflecting about it and working on it). 
2. There are things over which we have no control at all, like the weather, the stock market, or the policies of the government. A Stoic would not waste any energy on any of this, as in Marcus Aurelius’s words, “nothing is worth doing pointlessly.” Worrying about or trying to influence things we cannot control at all is pointless indeed.
3. There are things over which we have some, but not complete control, like, for example, winning a tennis match (it depends on who you play against, but your skills and practice also count) or your partner’s mood (it is their mood, but you can influence it through your actions). We should be concerned about these things, but considering that it will also depend on others and regardless of all the efforts and worries we put into it, we may still not achieve our objectives. Stoics would recommend setting up internal rather than external goals (I’ll play tennis to the best of my ability as opposed to I will win the match) so they have control over the outcome.

The Stoic approach to…

Apart from living a good and happy life, the Stoics delved into many other topics. Let’s analyse some of them here.

Death

I have mentioned above that Stoics would contemplate their own and their loved ones’ death.

Death is an essential part of life and is something we all will eventually encounter, rich and poor, powerful and powerless, famous and unknown. Death is inevitable, but we don’t like to think about it. Death can also teach us great things about living a good life.

Stoics did think about it in a way that helped them live better lives. They accepted death, they didn’t try to escape it at all costs. Many Stoics preferred to kill themselves than to live lives that weren’t worth living anymore.

Seneca probably expresses best the Stoics’ views about death when he said he had been dead already (an idea I wrote about in a recent post): 

“(I was dead) before I was born. Death is just not being. What that is like I know already. It will be the same after me as it was before me. (…) Death is all that was before us.”

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Fame and wealth

Stoics weren’t like Cynics, who renounced material goods and riches (the most famous Cynic, Diogenes, lived in a barrel, and his only possessions were a cloak, a walking stick, and a leather poach).

As explained above, Seneca was one of the wealthiest persons in the Roman Empire, and Marcus Aurelius was the Roman Emperor. They were both rich and famous.

Stoics won’t renounce wealth and fame, but they won’t pursue them either.

They looked for inner peace and tranquillity, and money and fame aren’t conducive to them. They usually disturb your tranquillity. If we are too attached to our possessions or too worried about our fame or what others think about us, we stop having control over our happiness and give this control to external factors, which is something Stoics wanted to avoid. 

If you have the means to have a comfortable life, you should not relinquish it, but you should always be ready to part from your possessions. Stoics were not ascetics after all, and they were known for enjoying the little pleasures of life. They didn’t want to fall slaves to them, though.

Seneca once again explained it best when talking about wealth:

“You ask what is the proper limit to a person’s wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough.”

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Essential and enough are relative concepts, of course, but regardless, I find those words to be wise. If only Seneca had followed his own advice in his personal life…

Purpose and meaning

The following is another quote from Seneca (the last one, I promise). 

“It is his spirit, and the perfection of his reason in that spirit. For man is a rational animal. Man’s ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he was born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy -that he lives in accordance with his own nature.”

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

This is one of my favourite quotes. The premise is, again, simple but powerful. We should all live in accordance with our nature, to who we really are.

We can only be happy if we listen to our inner voice, follow our dreams and live the life we are meant to live, not less, not more.

The problem is that we usually don’t know ourselves very well. That’s why the first step towards happiness and fulfilment must be self-discovery and self-awareness. Know thyself, and then live your life according to your nature, to who you really are, not to what society or others dictate.

An empowering philosophy of life

I like Stoicism because it is an empowering philosophy of life.

Its basic premise is that we, as human beings, have all the necessary tools to live a fulfilling life. It all depends on us. There is nowhere to hide, nobody to blame.

I find this liberating and empowering.

Stoicism doesn’t pretend to change the world, only the individuals populating it.

We don’t need to change the world to be happy, only our mindset and outlook towards it. You can suffer and have considerable drawbacks, we all have them, but still be happy if you look at things the right way.

Stoicism helps you do this.

For an ancient philosophy in vogue more than two thousand years ago, it is today more relevant than ever. It has the necessary elements to continue being relevant and helpful for centuries and millennia to come. It will continue being relevant and valuable as long as humans are around, as it touches upon some of our most basic human needs to achieve a fulfilling and happy life.

Become a modern Stoic, and you will be happier and more content for it.

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