Leadership and Vision

In the newest issue of the Harvard Business Review, historian Robert A. Caro shares some insights on leadership and power that he’s observed studying the life of U.S. president Lyndon Johnson. It’s interesting to see some of the (very shrewd) tactics Johnson used to accomplish his objectives, and how his apparent change on issues was actually strategic, allowing him to push through a much larger agenda.

Here are of few of the comments on pragmatism and idealism that I feel are worth sharing:

But while pragmatism is essential to the pursuit of power and the achievement of goals, so is idealism. You may not be conscious of it, but if you are a great leader you are inevitably thinking in terms of larger ends. It both fuels your drive to amass power and forces you to decide what you will do with that power. In Johnson’s case, the larger end was helping 12 million poor blacks in the South.

Having a larger end like this has always been important for political leaders, of course, but it’s a relatively new idea for business, I think. Traditionally, business leaders have been seen as pragmatists concerned with the bottom line rather than as idealists in pursuit of the public good. But today, when CEOs have acquired more and more power to change our lives, they have become like presidents in their own right, and they, too, need to align themselves with something greater than themselves if they hope to become truly great leaders.