Living Dangerously - Issue 32

When Jesse Jackson walked into a publishing company years ago to pitch his first book, an autobiography, he was faced with a question: Could someone like him, someone with an overcommitted schedule, actually take the time to think through his entire life? He admitted to the possibility of failure. "Martin," he said, referring to his mentor, Martin Luther King Jr., "could go to a cabin in the mountains and think great thoughts. I go to a cabin in the mountains and fall asleep."

Last October, I went to a cabin in the mountains -- Bishop's Lodge, in Santa Fe, New Mexico -- to think great thoughts. Among the 30 other people there for the Radcliffe-sponsored Intellectual Renewal Program were a famous television actor, a political activist who was well known during the Reagan years, a couple of entrepreneurs, a columnist for a major daily newspaper, and a litigator at a top DC law firm. We all had three things in common: One, we all felt that there was something missing in our work lives -- some spark, some connection. Two, we all worried that we had somehow compromised our personal goals -- a worry shared even by those of us who had realized our dream of building our own business. And three, we all wanted to believe that by shifting our thinking, we could get closer to learning the secret of truly great work.

It wasn't that we were burned out. Rather, we wanted to know how to focus our distracted energies in order to accomplish something that would last. The word "legacy" floated overhead like an avenging ghost. We had reached a point where endurance mattered more to us than the latest developments in our particular market. As one participant in the seminar put it, we felt that our challenge was "to move from success to significance."

Yes, there was a bit of naivete in all of us. We were Bambis in a dark wood filled with hunters. I know leaders who would dismiss us as "head wounds" -- people with gaping holes in their heads who think that ideas can plug those holes up. Although we all believed in the power of creative thinking, there was a limit to our understanding of how to think. Heading toward the mountaintop, we all viewed wisdom as a combination of experience and intelligence. By the time we headed back down the mountain, we had all added one thing to that formula, something that allows a leader to build on both experience and intelligence: reflection.

In Santa Fe, we were guided in our search for significance by three wise leaders: Tamar March, dean of educational programs at Radcliffe; Barbara Hill, senior fellow at the American Council on Education Project on Leadership and Institutional Transformation; and Mary Catherine Bateson, cultural anthropologist and author. Here are the 10 commandments of leadership that I carried down from the mountaintop.

1. Become a self-aware learner.

This was the very first challenge set before us: Don't just absorb information -- observe how you absorb that information. "During conversations, keep track of what makes you start thinking about something," said Hill. "Be aware of when you shift positions and of how you feel about people whose opinions differ from yours."

And you should be careful about the people whom you allow to lead you, Bateson offered: "You have to say, 'I will not confer authority on, or put my trust in, anyone other than the person who lives the virtues of listening, learning, making mistakes, and reflecting on experience.' "

2. Start a brain trust that includes all of the best thinkers in the world, past and present.

We came to Santa Fe armed with a heavy red binder containing excerpts from the works of great leadership thinkers -- from Plato and Rousseau to Peter Drucker and Nelson Mandela. We argued with Plato about whether a leader should be part of a specially trained elite. We debated with Thoreau about whether leaders should put themselves above the prevailing system and its rules. We challenged Socrates and Mandela. We summoned the best minds that we could bring into the room with us and worked at raising our own efforts to their level. Mentally sparring with these leadership thinkers was like going a round with the intellectual heavyweight champion of the world.

3. Practice "enacted learning."

In other words, talk. Most people think that they need to know a lot about a subject before they speak about it. The challenge of speaking calls up thoughts that you don't even know are percolating inside your brain. People are unread books. Speaking forces you to say out loud what you know deep inside.

To think deeply, don't ask questions. Talk about something that you don't entirely know -- and discover connections that your subconscious has already made. Talking is a forcing mechanism: You have to have an idea, whether you know it or not.

4. Ask yourself, "What is an ideal leader?" Then make a list.