The Art of Leadership: The Relationship of Science and Uncertainty

Leadership needs most to show-up when uncertainty grips reality. When the choices you need to make are easy, or when there are no real choices that need to be made, there is no practical need for leadership. It begs the question, “does leadership exist absent the need for it?”

“It can be argued that the difference between science and faith is that science can be proven while faith must be accepted.”

Is it really that simple? Not if you consider that you have free choice over what you believe. You can choose to deny a fact, or even the existence of anything in front of you that you can see, feel, smell or taste.

Both the art of leadership and the pure sciences are needed to solve the problems we face. The current COVID-19 pandemic makes that perfectly clear.

Human experience amounts to making meaning of what our senses inform us of. Some religion teaches you to deny the concept of death and accept the notion of eternal life, while the science of medicine can certify the absence of life but cannot bring people back from death. Art is the means by which we manufacture anything we might imagine, even turning what is physically or scientifically impossible into something we can grasp.

“Art is how we transform our imagination into reality. And science is how we test reality to separate fact from fiction: what separates the products of nature from the products of our imagination.”

The art of leadership should logically be in conflict with science, but it is not.

Both pure science and the art of leadership deal with uncertainties, and leaders can learn something crucial about what it takes to be exceptional by looking to how science goes about solving problems. 

The power of leadership comes from curiosity and forming questions that effectively interrogate reality, just as scientists apply inquiry as a method for discovery. Is it possible that leaders can learn to be more effective at their sacred art by discovering what it is that scientists have learned about approaching the uncertainty that makes their work significant?

“Uncertain times cry loudly for leadership.”

Uncertainty creates a vacuum where influence comes rushing in. The problem, however, is that any form of influence can fill the space. Leadership is agnostic: it can be good or bad; it can be borne of caring and compassion or of manipulation and deceit. When the need for leadership is at its apex, the opportunity for seizing control seduces those yearning for power — and the appearance of power and control seduces those who are starving for certainty, or at least answers that seem reasonable or comforting to presume the presence of a leader who will save them. But how do we measure the strength or integrity of any leader, especially those who emerge in times of crisis?

This is where scientific method begins to apply. Leadership is a function of results, and results can always be measured. Furthermore, results can be compared, and just as scientific inquiry designs and employs experiments to measure variables and results, leadership has qualities that can also me assessed.

“While leadership may be agnostic, the results are not.”

You cannot conduct a proper scientific experiment without setting in place controls. The controls assure that the results can be repeated so that they can be validated. Art is similar in that it is controlled by the existence of constraints. For example, painting is limited by the medium, often the hues available to paints and the size of the canvas. Likewise, music is defined by the limits of the steps or notes of musical scales and the range of tones an instrument is capable of.

In either art or science the controls need to be meaningful. Both art and science are driven by a sense of purpose. Engineers are taught that you cannot solve a problem that is not first identified. Solutions are built around objectives: they are driven by purpose. And while the process of discovery often yields surprising results that were not anticipated, or in some cases, even imaginable, it is still necessary that the process is built around and driven by a purpose – with controls that ideally make it possible to repeat the outcome. How ridiculous or unfortunate would it be to stumble upon the cure for the current Coronavirus, and have no idea how you achieved your results?

"Leadership has measurable results. We can determine whether the outcome serves the greater good or not."

Within any social experiment, it is not always clear how to measure the impact. Horrific atrocities have been thrust at humanity by those who have been viewed as worthy leaders, with the final analysis coming, not from within the movement, but by the judgment of history. Great contributions, similarly have been rejected or even vilified by those who have ultimately benefited – given time for the final analysis to sink-in and register. 

Leadership is often measured in lives lost or saved. Or celebrated by the perceivable presence of peace and prosperity. Leaders may impose unpopular or painful solutions and be respected, or rejected. Popular leaders may be revered without any evidence of their having contributed anything of any real value, or worse, by taking credit for the contributions of others. This is why we need the same disciplines of thinking that guide scientific methods.

"Science is guided by radical curiosity. Certainty brings curiosity to a hard stop. It is essential to no only answer your questions, but question your answers."

Scientific truths are routinely and rigorously challenged. Truths can stand for millennia and eventually be toppled by new truths founded in persistent discovery. Nothing is sacrosanct and everything is subject to review.

One of the most rigorous of scientific processes is peer review. Human nature lures you into confirmation bias, as the deep satisfaction of solving vexing problems brings tremendous emotional energy.

“There is pure joy the satisfaction you realize in the significant and meaningful things you accomplish.”

This is the nexus of the art of science and the science of leadership. Science requires its own leadership in order to constantly challenge the status quo by creating a powerful sense of purpose around pursuits that would seem impossible were they not understood to be entirely necessary.

Leadership also needs the discipline and rigors that lead to real discovery. Leaders are often looked to in search of certainty. And leaders themselves may crave certainty and the rewards of quelling the concerns of those they lead.

"Certainty brings comfort to yourself and to others. But certainty is a trap that interferes with the process of solving our most pressing problems.

When you fail to remain curious, you fail as a leader. But like the best minds of science, your curiosity must be constrained by a strong sense of purpose. The most effective and truly exceptional leaders are grounded in an indelible sense of purpose that guides their curiosity in order to determine what is necessary and how to make that possible. And they use their power to influence the future by making others see what is possible – and to make that necessary.

This is how leaders accomplish what matters most.