The One-Bookie Leader (Part I): Defining the State
In my time analysing leadership styles, I've come across the usual papers and books on leadership. Inspirational, motivational, service-based, values-based, innovative, creative, flexible, authoritative, and so on (and on, and on).
It strikes me however that modern leadership has seldom been placed in an informational context within the matrix of history. What I mean by this is that leadership is assumed to be a quality borne and bred entirely within the individual; it is seldom a case of looking at that individual's intellectual context and antecedents, his sources and his journey towards understanding.
Rather, we look at the person and say, "Oh, he has this and this and this, let's compare and contrast with what others have, let's figure out what he does with it and how he does it." We don't consider how he got that way, not in the sense of general biographical influences, but in the sense of bibliographical and informational influences. Who taught him? Who mentored him? What exactly was transferred and transacted? How did he respond to these people? What books did he read? What did he get from those books?
In the parts of world we consider to be Westernised and Christianised, many of these leaders will say that the Bible has been a great influence on them. But on pressing them further, it's hard to discern any intellectual relationship or engagement. They will say it's a spiritual relationship, and not an intellectual one; then they will start talking about 'holism'. In this area, they intend 'holism' to mean, "If you focus on the intellectual, you are not holistic, because I am anything but intellectual and I'm proud of it. There are so many things besides the intellectual! Let's look at everything else!"
Out of their own mouths... if they were truly holistic, they would realise the intellectual relationship or engagement is as much part of the process as anything else. Why are they differentiating between emotional, spiritual, intellectual, physical etc if they are so keen on 'holistic'? They probably mean 'prismatic' or 'wide-spectrum': to them, 'holistic' really means 'shotgun' — a wide spread of perspectives and approaches, selected for range rather than for wholeness.
And so, in this age, we come to the 'One-Bookie Leader'.
Some people are like that. A book hits the NYT non-fiction bestseller list, and its author becomes a management guru (or is labelled as such). Your friendly local leader grabs the book. He pounds his desk, rostrum, or pulpit with it, preaches his own summary of it, and attempts to make everyone buy his idea of the month (or quarter, or year).
The odd thing is that it is ONE book at a time. The man has no ability to synthesize, and when he switches books, it's a case of, "The old has passed away, behold — the new has come!" and not in the way it was meant to be. It is a case of new wine in old bottles, the bottle having long ago hardened to a state in which it cannot hold more than one idea without cracking up.
This is the reason that such people are easily hooked on themes (because this fits the 'One Book' system) or the idea of 'holistic' (because you can then dump your one idea in and say it encompasses everything). Any attempt to make them see in more than one dimension (or more than one point in that dimension, in extreme cases) is doomed to fail.
Beware of the smarter ones though. They will pretend to consider other viewpoints or dimensions, and they may even sound reasonable about 15% of the time. Don't let this fool you. The One-Bookie Leaders of this world have only one thing on their mind. And if you challenge that one thing (for example, by pointing out that the previous book and the present book don't agree), they will say that you aren't focussed enough or not flexible enough.
The concept of the One-Bookie Leader is, as far as I can tell, a novel one. I am sure that when I publish it, some people will not be happy to think that I have been writing about them. The truth, of course, is that there are many such people, not just one. It's the sad fact of our Book-of-the-Month existence; you could read at least six books a month if you really wanted; some people just prefer one a year.
What's important to us is that we learn to recognize the symptoms of Monobibliarchism (a fancy Greek neologism which I have just coined for 'One-Bookie Leader Syndrome'). Such a leader spouts the same catchphrase for months, making use of whatever influence and time he has to say the same thing again and again. It is sometimes painfully obvious which book it is, or which guru wrote it. And often, the man will not even credit his source, since it has become holistically integrated into his psyche.
Beware the monobibliarch. What he really needs is a powerful librarian to help him out.
It strikes me however that modern leadership has seldom been placed in an informational context within the matrix of history. What I mean by this is that leadership is assumed to be a quality borne and bred entirely within the individual; it is seldom a case of looking at that individual's intellectual context and antecedents, his sources and his journey towards understanding.
Rather, we look at the person and say, "Oh, he has this and this and this, let's compare and contrast with what others have, let's figure out what he does with it and how he does it." We don't consider how he got that way, not in the sense of general biographical influences, but in the sense of bibliographical and informational influences. Who taught him? Who mentored him? What exactly was transferred and transacted? How did he respond to these people? What books did he read? What did he get from those books?
In the parts of world we consider to be Westernised and Christianised, many of these leaders will say that the Bible has been a great influence on them. But on pressing them further, it's hard to discern any intellectual relationship or engagement. They will say it's a spiritual relationship, and not an intellectual one; then they will start talking about 'holism'. In this area, they intend 'holism' to mean, "If you focus on the intellectual, you are not holistic, because I am anything but intellectual and I'm proud of it. There are so many things besides the intellectual! Let's look at everything else!"
Out of their own mouths... if they were truly holistic, they would realise the intellectual relationship or engagement is as much part of the process as anything else. Why are they differentiating between emotional, spiritual, intellectual, physical etc if they are so keen on 'holistic'? They probably mean 'prismatic' or 'wide-spectrum': to them, 'holistic' really means 'shotgun' — a wide spread of perspectives and approaches, selected for range rather than for wholeness.
And so, in this age, we come to the 'One-Bookie Leader'.
Some people are like that. A book hits the NYT non-fiction bestseller list, and its author becomes a management guru (or is labelled as such). Your friendly local leader grabs the book. He pounds his desk, rostrum, or pulpit with it, preaches his own summary of it, and attempts to make everyone buy his idea of the month (or quarter, or year).
The odd thing is that it is ONE book at a time. The man has no ability to synthesize, and when he switches books, it's a case of, "The old has passed away, behold — the new has come!" and not in the way it was meant to be. It is a case of new wine in old bottles, the bottle having long ago hardened to a state in which it cannot hold more than one idea without cracking up.
This is the reason that such people are easily hooked on themes (because this fits the 'One Book' system) or the idea of 'holistic' (because you can then dump your one idea in and say it encompasses everything). Any attempt to make them see in more than one dimension (or more than one point in that dimension, in extreme cases) is doomed to fail.
Beware of the smarter ones though. They will pretend to consider other viewpoints or dimensions, and they may even sound reasonable about 15% of the time. Don't let this fool you. The One-Bookie Leaders of this world have only one thing on their mind. And if you challenge that one thing (for example, by pointing out that the previous book and the present book don't agree), they will say that you aren't focussed enough or not flexible enough.
The concept of the One-Bookie Leader is, as far as I can tell, a novel one. I am sure that when I publish it, some people will not be happy to think that I have been writing about them. The truth, of course, is that there are many such people, not just one. It's the sad fact of our Book-of-the-Month existence; you could read at least six books a month if you really wanted; some people just prefer one a year.
What's important to us is that we learn to recognize the symptoms of Monobibliarchism (a fancy Greek neologism which I have just coined for 'One-Bookie Leader Syndrome'). Such a leader spouts the same catchphrase for months, making use of whatever influence and time he has to say the same thing again and again. It is sometimes painfully obvious which book it is, or which guru wrote it. And often, the man will not even credit his source, since it has become holistically integrated into his psyche.
Beware the monobibliarch. What he really needs is a powerful librarian to help him out.
Labels: Books, Ideas, Leadership, Management, Research
etched with acid at 12:32:00 pm
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