Leadership and Perception

What exactly are you saying?

This is such an interesting dialogue because it showcases how a simple truism can go off the rails so quickly and also how it can be used as a tool of manipulation. The following is a quote from Charleston Southern U website:

The most crucial concept to comprehend is that success as a leader has nothing to do with your perceptions and everything to do with how others see you.

Who wouldn't agree with that? Even Stalin, Hitler and Mao got that right and made it work for them. Stalin used his authority to remind everyone that they could be killed on a whim; He always knew what people were thinking because he brutally reduced their options. Hitler and Mao both engaged a sense of "working for the good of the people", however fraudulent they were about it and forcefully controlled the narratives. Each of those dictators had the most pragmatic understanding of their own perception versus that of their people.

The CSU quote goes on to say, "This doesn’t mean that you should disregard or alter your perceptions, but rather that leaders should be more aware of the perceptions of others. If you are out of touch with the perspectives of others, your success as a leader will suffer."

Again, couldn't agree more, but this is the point at which the dialogue does a "Thelma and Louise" off the Cliff of Reason. Firstly, Here is the rest of the CSU quote:

You can better understand and affect someone’s thoughts and eventually have more control over their decision-making process if you know where they stand.

It's the "have more control over their decision making" part that is the concern, for a host of reasons. Why do you need to control people, exactly? How do you, as a leader, not understand that control is an illusion? The more you enforce, the more you require to maintain it.

It may not seem like an illusion in your organization, but that is because the internal competitiveness has been allowed to take over the business and has become what you call "company culture". Even pirates had better organization than that. Pirate Captains wouldn't say things like, "Arrr Billy, perception is everything, don'tcha know," because everyone knew the Captain was the biggest crook on the ship, and was only telling 'Billy' that he was lying to the crew about him.

Here is Kevin O'Leary pontificating about Donald Trump's picture:

Never mind the picture itself, the post openly showcases the issue I am addressing: Whose perceptions, exactly, are everything, in this warped dialogue? Because if the perceptions of the public were important, there would be no expository about the desired narrative.

We've become accustomed to this kind of enforced narration, thanks to modern media. The American public is actually well-informed about what good leadership looks and sounds like. They had decades of it from former President Jimmy Carter, among others.

Whose perceptions are "everything"? Are we going to go with the toddler, throwing a tantrum in the supermarket? No, probably not. Are we going to go with the waspish old spinster nearby judging the child's mother way too harshly? Nope, not really. Most of us have been in that mother's shoes once or twice.

In fact, the USA does not need Kevin O'Leary explaining that the hellish lighting doesn't really look bad at all. His perceived need to do that means it looks really bad. It's bad. Michael Jackson's "Bad" wasn't even that bad. ("Bad bad. Really really bad")

No. Mr. O'Leary's perceptions are no more important than the public's, and what he is really communicating is that Donald Trump's perceptions are "everything"- to Kevin O'Leary. The subtext is that this kind of tasteless pandering is perceived to be necessary.

You never heard Jimmy Carter say that perception is everything, because the only people who say that are those who perceive their own lack of control. They only say it when they want to control others. The only perception left to the public is what "control" means when DT takes office, and it only means what he perceives it to mean.