Unfiltered leaders

Companies shouldn’t always hire outsiders without experience, because those people are also more likely to crash and burn.  Though the best leaders-Steve Jobs, Abraham Lincoln-were unfiltered, the things that made them so effective, such as their ability to think differently and not feel beholden to a certain way of doing things, often lead to terrible results.  Unfiltered leaders are high risk, high reward.  Filtered leaders-like Tim Cook and Neville Chamberlain-have deep knowledge and can be very effective in a stable situation.  But they often can’t adapt to extreme, sudden change or are unable to disrupt the status quo, which an outsider feels freer to do.

Experience and knowledge can be a drawback for a leader facing change, because they’re precisely what prevent you from approaching situations any differently than other experienced people would.  Filtered leaders will usually make basically the same decisions.  Even if they’re good decisions, their leadership doesn’t have impact.  Think of Thomas Jefferson.  According to my theory, he’s definitely filtered, so he should be in the middle of the pack in terms of his impact as a president.  And he is.

Lincoln is the ultimate example of the unfiltered leader.  Two-time loser in Senate races, and so outside the system that he wasn’t even listed in the top 10 Republican presidential candidates in some newspapers in 1860.  Most other Republican leaders thought the South was bluffing about secession and would have let them go peacefully, expecting them to return soon enough.  Only Lincoln had the capacity to say “We won’t give up Fort Sumter without a fight,” to come up with a strategy that forced the South to fire the first shot, and to unite the North behind him.  I think if anyone other than Lincoln had been president, the North would have lost the war-if there even was a war.

If leaders don’t matter much, why do companies pay them exorbitantly? 

If academics undervalue leadership, the private sector overvalues it.  The right unfiltered leader is definitely worth a lot, but it’s hard to know who that is, since an unfiltered leader is as likely to flame out as to succeed.  Also, the market is flawed.  And though the market pays leaders for outcomes, you’ll often arrive at the same outcome regardless of the leader you pick.  This all sounds like rhetorical gymnastics. It’s not, because we can actually say, based on my research, what are the specific conditions when leaders will matter.  You need to understand your appetite for risk and choose the right type of leader.  Often, the specific person won’t matter.

Dominance and survival.  If you want to grow to dominance, you need an unfiltered leader, someone who will think differently and take risks.  The problem is, the risk taking might not pay off.  But you can’t change that.  Start-ups, where the most likely outcome is bankruptcy, and companies on the precipice are good situations for unfiltered leaders.  But if you want to be in business in 50 years, pick a filtered leader, and remember, if you have five top candidates, it probably doesn’t matter which one you pick.

In business, we can rig the process to an extent, because you can structure an organization to have both kinds of leaders available and sue them as appropriate.  Being ready to bring in unfiltered types when your May 1940 does arrive could mean the difference between success and failure.  But it starts with reframing your thinking choosing the “best leader is the wrong approach to the problem.  You can’t do that.  You can choose leaders who are likely to lead you to big wins or big losses, or you can choose leaders who will definitely be good at their job but almost certainly won’t be great.