First Truth, Second Compassion, Authenticity, Empathy, Vulnerability, Empowerment, Seeking Consensus, and Acknowledging and Cultivating Diversity

I’m replacing the old version of “First Truth” with a revised version. For me this is one of the most important briefs. The main revision is in response to a number of readers’ question “What is truth?” in our post-truth age. I recall that the Roman Empire also had its own post-truth age. Thus, I have elaborated in, I hope, a fun way on what I called hermeneutic truth in the earlier version. You can find the substantial change under the heading “What is truth?”

In the fourth in a series of special briefings, Dr. Charles Spinosa issues a powerful challenge to modern leadership theory by demonstrating that the role of leaders is not to be therapists but to show us what’s true.

May you grow up to be righteous

May you grow up to be true

May you always know the truth

And see the lights surrounding you.

Bob Dylan, 1973

With COVID-19, speculation is rife. But COVID-19 is not to blame. Today, consultants and academics advise leaders to be compassionate, authentic, empathetic, vulnerable, empowering consensus seekers who admire and cultivate diversity. Leaders are told to offer sweet speculations that will nurture and develop their teams. Some leaders use evidence-based reasoning in their speculations. But seeking and saying hard truths, as opposed to merely being convincing, is not much in fashion.

This erasure of truth has gone so far that, at another very successful consulting company, the consultants persuade clients that expressions such as ‘her work is a mess’ are not simply expressions of truth but expressions of attitude that say more about the speaker than the messy worker. I asked: “Why not acknowledge that a simple, old-fashioned proposition is in the first instance a truth claim?” The answer was: “That would make us into dogmatists. People who care about truth so much are dogmatic.”

Wow! Influenced by philosophers, such a statement is mind-blowing. Philosophers are all truth seekers who supply reasons and almost always find their truths contested. But, leaving philosophers aside, let’s turn to Einstein, with whom we grew up as a truth-bearing cultural luminary. Between 1907 and 1915, he struggled to learn the geometry necessary for his general theory of relativity. The brilliant mathematician David Hilbert attended one of Einstein’s early lectures, got the point, and started working through the mathematics of general relativity independently.

Einstein wanted to complete the theory first and gave one lecture after another in Berlin where he failed and failed. When he finally succeeded, Hilbert was about a week behind him. Hilbert acknowledged Einstein’s victory and the struggle he had gone through: “Any youngster on the streets of G?ttingen understands geometry in four dimensions better than Einstein,” 1 he said. It’s a story of struggling to seek truth. That’s what truth seeking and truthfulness are like. Self-righteous assertion lives only with those who have given up truth-seeking.

Tell truth to power

I advise clients to take pride in their truth seeking and saying. I run workshops on telling truth to power; power includes customers, board members and shareholders, colleagues, key subordinates, and key suppliers. The response to the workshop and exercises is shock and awe. If you’re a leader, execution is critical. But leadership requires more. It requires you actively to engage with your team in finding the hidden truths about your customers, shareholders, organization, and supply chain. It does not matter whether you find the truth like an angel through intuition alone or employ elegant, evidence-based, discursive reasoning. Find a truth any which way; test it; build the future on its back.

The question always arises: How do I get others to listen to me when I tell them an unexpected truth? The answer is never that you should supply data and make sure that your reasoning is evidence-based. The evidence for much of Einstein’s theory of relativity has recently arrived in the last few decades. The answer is also never to ask for a safe space where judgment will be reserved. David Hilbert was breathing down Einstein’s neck, and the Berlin lectures were heart-wrenching. There are no safe spaces in the truth seeking and saying business. So how do you get others to listen. Show that you are seeking truth. Talk about some of the things you tried and failed. Accept whole-heartedly that you are wrong when you are wrong, as Einstein did. Truth seekers know that they might be wrong. They know that they will never know it all. They do not lash out against those who disagree. They draw them into more advanced thinking. And they never give up. Those are the virtues by which I recognize genuine truth-seekers. I tell clients that if they show those virtues, they or their words will likely (and only likely) be trusted.

Who do you trust?

Such advice runs smack against today’s grain. A recent Harvard Business Review article says that people trust those who are authentic (true to their real selves), empathetic (listen to others attentively), and logical (which means exercising sound reasoning; not necessarily in possession of the truth).2

When you see articles like this, I advise asking of each main claim: Is it true? So in regarding claims like those in the article, ask yourself: Do you have a real self? 21st Century philosophers and psychoanalysts argued that we are deep-down-deep changeable and that the notion of a real self is the fabric of neurosis or paranoia. In other words, you have a flexible self that you are adjusting like an artist of life. Do you trust people who listen to you? Do you trust salespeople because they are listening to you? Do you trust the potential client will buy because she is listening to you? Do you trust well-constructed, data-driven reasoning? How often do all those appendices of data comprise nothing but special pleading?

“What is truth?” (John, 18.38)

Jesus described truth in a fairly pithy way in The Gospel According to John. “My task is to bear witness to the truth. For this was I born; for this I came into the world, and all who are not deaf to truth listen to my voice” (John, 18.37).3 Claims are true when they reveal to you the world in a way that is different from what you thought and better in that this view resolves confusions. You respond: ”That’s what I’ve been experiencing all along, but did not really get.” Technically, I call this hermeneutic truth. That’s what Einstein gave in the first instance. Electromagnetic theory and gravity theory seemed to be enemies. His equations—with all the bizarre consequences could heal the rift and give physicists a unified view of the material world. That’s what truth is and does in the first instance. Evidence comes later. I hope that Jesus’ and my words have touched your heart. If not, you will find yourself responding the way Pontius Pilot did to Jesus and the way so many relativists do today, “What is truth?”

Leaders aren’t therapists

A recent McKinsey article advises that a leader should show compassion during difficult times like ours.4 Compassion involves tuning into one’s own feelings, expressing gratitude, listening to others, showing vulnerability, and finally fostering inclusion. The first question to ask when reading such advice on leadership is whether it is really about leadership or about something else. In both the articles mentioned, the virtues on display are those of a therapist. Do Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Reed Hastings, Anita Roddick, Steve Jobs, or Ray Dalio build trust that way? Do or did they lead with compassion? They were all committed to a truth they believed in. Some like Jobs and Roddick had it by intuition. Others like Hastings and Dalio reached it through careful deliberation. They do not lead as therapists.

The advice to focus on feelings directs people in a totally different direction from the focus on truth. Here is what the McKinsey article advises in times of stress: “A simple practice during these times is to engage in deep and intentional breathing. Deep breathing slows the heart rate and restores the body to a calmer and composed state.” I advise instead asking, “What can I say I believe is true about what is going on here now? What do I know is true as opposed to speculate is true?“ Separate speculation from knowledge. Nothing collects the wits like this discipline. It also points you at what you need to learn.

Why do feelings seem so important?

What is going on with us at this moment in history that we should focus on feelings so much? Why do we think that an assortment of compassion, authenticity, empathy, vulnerability and empowering are at the heart of leadership? The philosopher and historian Michel Foucault gave the most illuminating answer. He says that while our codes of ethics (rules and guidelines for how we treat ourselves and others, including how we lead) have not changed significantly over the last 2,500 years, what we apply our codes to has changed radically.

The ancient Greeks applied ethical standards to pleasure. The king stayed faithful to his wife to show his mastery over himself. The Christians applied ethics to their desires. Hence, Christians developed institutions for confessing inner desires and dealing with them. With the Enlightenment in the late 1700s through to roughly the mid-1900s, we applied ethics to intentions and judgments. One did one’s duty. To stick with Foucault’s example, the man who thinks he is sleeping with another woman commits adultery even if, in the light of day, she turns out to be his wife.

Today, we apply our ethics to our feelings. Speaking in the way we spoke in the 1980s, Foucault (who was gay) says: “You can have a girl in the street or anywhere, if you have very good feelings toward your wife.”5 Thus, when we try to understand or describe leadership, we look to the leader’s feelings and how she or he expresses and manages them. Does she or he show authenticity and vulnerability? Is she or he empathetic and compassionate? Does she or he respect and empower the feelings of others? And so forth.

The ancients knew better

In response to today’s regard for feelings, I say we should engage in the 1,000-year tradition of telling truth to power. The ancients had the best understanding of leadership. The leaders I listed above all show three key aspects of ancient leadership. They see a truth about their world that others do not see; they take a public stand on the basis of that truth; and they take moral risks for the sake of the truth.

A moral risk is one where, if the action succeeds, you are adjudged to be good, and if it fails, you are adjudged to be evil or a fool. Consider Jeff Bezos. In 1993, with web usage growing like wildfire, he saw that it could take over our lives and drive us to distraction. He took the stand that an ”everything store”—Amazon—could tame the web. To ensure Amazon’s success, he believed he had to surround himself with only the best and the brightest. So, over the years, he has had to take the moral risk of forcefully retiring many of those who were closest to him.6

What kind of leader is Bezos? Judge him by his feelings and the feelings he generates, and he is a nasty, poor leader. Judge him by our standards of realizing a vision, and he is great.

Now it is time to judge me. Is what I have said true? Have I been too hard on compassion, authenticity, empathy, vulnerability, empowerment, seeking consensus, and acknowledging and cultivating diversity? Many will think so. I believe that we have obsessive about those ways of feeling. In their name, we skirt around seeking and saying difficult truths. Saying such things activates bad feelings? But let me say this. Yes, truth is better. But compassion, authenticity, empathy, vulnerability, empowerment, seeking consensus, and acknowledging and cultivating diversity in the service of truth are best. Let me know if I am wrong. If I am, I promise I will act as Einstein did in those failed Berlin lectures. I believe, however, that I am right, and in my compassion, empathy, and desire to empower, I desire: “May you always know the truth / And see the lights surrounding you.”

1 Rovelli, C. (2017). Reality is not what it seems. New York, NY: Riverhead, pp. 91-92

2 Frei, F. and Morriss, A. (2020). Begin with trust. Harvard Business Review, May-June, 112-121.

3 Sandmel, S., Suggs, M, and Tkacik, A. (Eds.). (1976).The New English Bible with Apocrypha. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

4 D’Auria, G., Nielsen, N., and Zolley, S. (2020). Tuning in, turning outward: Cultivating compassionate leadership in a crisis. McKinsey & Company, May, 1-7.

5 Foucault, M. (1984). The Foucault Reader. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, p. 352

6 Stone, B. (2013). The everything store. London, UK: Corgi.