Here is one of the important things Pollack learned about
leadership: “The things people always talk about in any inter-
view about leadership aren’t the things that are the most diffi-
cult or the most interesting about leadership. They’re the
more tangible things. We know that you have to delegate re-
sponsibility, you have to encourage people to have initiative,
and you have to encourage people to take chances. The artistic
part of leadership is in a way, I think, not different from art, in
that in a sense it’s all innovation, and like all creative acts
comes out of a certain kind of controlled free association.”
Learning to lead is, on one level, learning to manage change.
As we’ve seen, a leader imposes (in the most positive sense of
the word) his or her philosophy on the organization, creating
or re-creating its culture. The organization then acts on that
philosophy, carries out the mission, and the culture takes on a
life of its own, becoming more cause than effect. But unless the
leader continues to evolve, to adapt and adjust to external
change, the organization will sooner or later stall.
In other words, one of a leader’s principal gifts is the ability
to use his or her experiences to grow in office. Teddy Roosevelt
was described as “a clown” before he became president. His
cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was dismissed by Walter Lipp-
man as “a pleasant country squire who wants to be president.”
The Roosevelts are now regarded as two of this country’s best
presidents. For leaders, the test and the proof are always in the
doing.
Jacob Bronowski wrote, in The Ascent of Man, “We have to
understand that the world can only be grasped by action, not
by contemplation.... The most powerful drive in the ascent of
man is his pleasure in his own skill. He loves to do what he
does well and, having done it well, he loves to do it better.”Moving Through Chaos0465014088_02.qxd:0738208175_02.qxd 1/9/09 1:33 PM Page 137