On Leadership

My father and I long ago concluded that all art is manipulative—the difference between good art and bad art, then, is that good art manipulates you into going through a process, while bad art manipulates you into coming to a conclusion.

In a recent conversation, I concluded that the same holds true for leadership. It's not good leadership if you're not looking for some kind of outcome, hence the manipulation, but nor is it leadership, as opposed to, say, brute force, unless you are able to include the processes of those you are leading and do not force them into a foregone conclusion.

Which suggests that good leadership is an art, but also offers the far more enticing possibility that good art is leadership. More on that soon, but it's a thought I want to plant for the moment.