Versatile mode

Leaders need to be capable on both frontstage and backstage. Such resourcefulness would come in handy, especially during disruptive times.

- CHARLES GALUNIC

James Stockdale, an American Navy fighter pilot who faced years in jail as a prisoner of war, reflected on his experience years later and famously introduced a paradoxical formula for resilience in times of upheaval. He said he survived because he had both bottomless faith that he would survive, and yet was brutally honest about the facts (build positive expectations, but keep them on a leash). This combination—of faith and facts, of hope and reality—stuck because, while it is seemingly contradictory to have both things at once, it is wise and necessary to build capacity for both, as leaders and as people.

In fact, if there is anything that truly defines effective leadership today, it is versatility. Leaders need to deal with not only hope and reality, but also the short term and long, openness to bottom-up ideas but also moments of decisive command, feel comfortable dealing with tasks but also relationships, and on the list goes.

While Shakespeare pointed out that the world is a stage and we are all merely players, I have found that our leaders are particularly important players, who must cope well with that stage life. The great sociologist Erving Goffman took this metaphor further when he pointed out that this life stage has two essential realities.

The Frontstage is where we display—and are on display—the self that we want the public to see. Leaders in particular must face the camera, literally and metaphorically, all the time and be accountable to many stakeholders—in the speeches they give, the feedback they offer, the visions they set, and the hope they give, and so on.