From Smart to Wise: Acting and Leading with Wisdom

Role Clarity and Becoming a Wise Leader

Everybody seeks a role model who represents the idealized embodiment of a particular role one wishes to play. Self-help business books are filled with recipes for success to make you the best leader in your field. Others teach you how to be the best chef or the best parent. Yet it’s a futile exercise to attempt to be someone you are not. As long as you keep trying to become your role model, someone will always be ahead of you. Instead of imitating people you look up to, strive to develop your own practices rather than following others’ so-called best practices, so that you might end up as a role model to others one day. In other words, if you work on becoming a smarter leader, you can imitate others and ...