Leadership is a multi-faceted prism. We can view it from any number of perspectives, including the personality-perspective. Famous figures--contemporary or ancient--from a broad range of fields, provide lessons for today's leaders.
Jonas Salk, the microbiologist who discovered the polio vaccine, once made a statement that affords valuable leadership insights. You may be too young to remember him, but prior to his discovery in 1955, polio had terrorized the nation. It was the most serious public health concern of the time. (The disease found its most "famous" victim in the form of an American president, Franklin Roosevelt.)
What lessons are there to be learned from the life and work of Salk? One is his ability to go beyond the circumscribed nature of acceptable practices. He brought creativity to his work. That willingness to explore non-traditional paths was perhaps best captured in the response he gave to a reporter's question. Asked just how he had come upon his amazing discovery, the virologist explained, "I learned to think the way Mother Nature thinks."
A "NATURAL" EXAMPLE
Nearly 100 years ago, another scientist, Henri Fabre, was studying nature. In particular, he paid close attention to the habits of caterpillars, processionary caterpillars to be exact. He noted that these caterpillars have a unique way of finding their way. While making a long trek in search of food, they spread a silk-like glue along the path.
He saw individual caterpillars lowering their heads. One caterpillar would eject silken threads from its lower lip. The caterpillar behind would eject glue from its lower lip, thus attaching the silk threads to the path they would need to follow on the return trip. The one behind would also lay some silken threads of its own.
No matter how circuitous or difficult the road, the processionaries always find their way along it. Fabre, it seems, was a bit of a mischief-maker. In one experiment, he cut the silken thread to see if he could interrupt the procession. Not surprisingly, the first caterpillar to find the disrupted line would pause.
Others would join in and, it seemed, debate whether to go in search of the silken threads that had been laid or return home with the mission unaccomplished.
Finally, he noted that one fearless leader almost always emerged. This bold creature would cross the patch of road with no silk and would stretch its own thread in order to reconnect the broken pieces. The procession could then continue.
Today's leaders can derive several important lessons from Fabre's work. There's risk involved with decision-making, and problem-solving, and facing a future that doesn't have recognizable precedents. But leaders prove willing to forge new pathways. They also understand the nature of teamwork and process--as do our earthbound examples, providing silken glue to show others the way.
Leaders are connectors. They take parts broken by conflict or crisis and manage to forge a cohesive whole, once again.
