This month I’m in Asia, so I’m using the opportunity to write about personal leadership from another perspective.
Shanghai is lively and hot right now. Expo 2010 is in town (from May-October), so the welcome mat has been rolled out to the world.
I’ve been visiting with several leaders in China, people who are riding the wave of rapid growth that has been surging ahead for the last several years. Change here is measured in months, not years. I’ve been here before–not just to China, but to this environment. It reminds me of the US in the late 1990′s when there was go-go growth and people at all levels of society saw rapid progress and were optimistic about the future.
This creates quite a contrast with the grim uncertainty I see in the US at this time. The battered morale, the lack of leadership, the question marks I see hanging over people–these are signs of a disquiet among Americans, usually known for their upbeat optimism. I know there are macroeconomic forces at work behind all of this. Simple (or rather simplistic) explanations for why things are this way just won’t do.
There is at least one thing clear to me, though. The smart leadership that I have seen in successful people still makes all the difference regardless of external economic conditions. In hot growth environments, smart leaders keep their heads, exhibit some humility (or is it basic humanity?), and stay focused on the big idea: the energizing vision that drives their actions and shapes daily decisions. They don’t get carried away with hubris, or mistake the market’s buoyancy for their own brilliance, and they don’t treat people as cogs in the machine. In slow growth or difficult environments, smart leaders keep their heads, generate some energy, and stay focused on the big idea. They aren’t swayed by the pessimism, they display a notable humanity in how they treat others and they don’t let the clouds obscure the fact that every day there is a bright blue sky overhead even when you can’t see it. The similarity is striking, brought out more by the contrasting framing around them.
The progress of China over the last decade–on display in Shanghai this summer–is striking. There are some smart leaders behind this. What are you working on? What is your grand visionary project that embodies your contribution to the world? Don’t hide your light away somewhere or squander your talent on something unworthy. Share it with the world so we can all benefit from it.
