Leadership is the art of making shared sense of complexity.
Part of a longer article at ThinkJar, "Creative Leadership and Sense Making: Interview with Chuck Palus," I couldn't wait to share this quote on leadership with IF blog readers. I think it's fantastic because it doesn't turn leaders into superhumans, just better humans, able to put disorienting or difficult events in a perspective that makes sense for everyone.
I think it's fantastic because the people I've admired the most in my life have not only been able to explain big ideas, like why our thinking, sentient, reflective first-person accounts of the world are still such a gaping mystery to science, or why, given a few simple rules, the vasculature in human vessel and respiring leaf can take such form and variety, but, accompanying the friend who has buckled while absorbing bad news - really bad news - can, alongside him, take a knee in shared and quiet solicitude.
It's the kind of leader I want to be.
Wayne
