What can Plato teach us about Leadership and Vision?

I recently read an article posted on LinkedIn and was immediately drawn to the title: What CEOs and Presidential Candidates can learn from Ancient Greek Philosophers. Then I saw that it was written by Dan Hesse, my former CEO at AT&T Wireless. Immediately, many thoughts came flooding to mind…my college days reading - and laboring to read, Plato and the pre-Socratics (curriculum for BA in Philosophy) and later the exciting business challenge of being the AT&T Wireless Services(AWS) VP/GM in Chicago.

In those days at AWS (1997), we were pre-commercial launch and AT&T Wireless was new in the wireless business. Could divested and broken-up Ma Bell claw its way back to wireless? Our mission was to create the Go-to-Market Plan to win in a competitive and crowded wireless marketplace and then launch Service. Yes, build the strategy and then do it!

Prior to launch, we worked our way through the basics: deconstructing the competition and their offers, identifying our target market, understanding customer personas, creating a powerful value prop and identifying what channels to build and recruit to reach those customers and drive big numbers. Meanwhile on the technical side, the RF engineers and construction teams were building-out the wireless infrastructure and negotiating inter-carrier roaming agreements needed to bring continuity to the sparse wireless coverages of a newly launched carrier. It was mind-boggling and intense.

Launching a wireless carrier is like a moon shot…thinking about it now I ask myself, "Did we really do all that?" There were innumerous moving parts to ultimately deliver quality wireless service to our future customers and eveyone was working on their piece of the puzzle. Imagine a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle spread out on the dining room table defying you to connect the pieces. No worries, you have until morning to get it right. The picture slowly begins to make sense. But along the way, sometimes the whole was lost to the pieces. Are we puzzeling together the Mona Lisa or is it a potrait of Snoop Dog? You need someone to constantly remind you what you're building.

We memorialized our launch with a staged lift-off..."All systems go..." and celebrated with all employees and the press invited. Would the network be ready? Can we trust in-market roaming to be seamless? Would our offers be competitive? Will our channel partners sell us over the competition? Would Enterprise really prefer the great brand AT&T in wireless? Will retail customers fill our stores? We were in the count-down and nothing could stop us. We flipped the coin and went LIVE and Launched, we had lift-off! It was the perfect metaphor.

(Yes, that's really Jim Lovell, Apollo 13 Commander (not just Tom Hanks from the movie The Right Stuff), in a picture from our launch kick-off for AT&T Wireless in Chicago. )

Like at college, there were many mentors at AT&T Wireless, most notably Bill Malloy who was our Regional President at the time (Gray suit, 3rd row, two up from me at center front). Although there was a formal Executive Leadership Training for VP’s at AT&T, the real learning came by being in the trenches with the team every day, meeting tight timelines, implementing the vision, along with coaching from Bill Malloy. He kept the vision of the commercial launch in my face daily and majored in 'out-of-the-box' blue ocean thinking. His disruptive innovation proved to be invaluable and wildly successful as we competed in the marketplace, post launch. He saw things we didn't.

So how does a Leader really lead? And what does all this have to do with Plato?

Now here's where it gets into philosphical fun...Dan Hesse’s post inspired me to utilize what I read back-in-the-day at college - Plato (and still re-read today). In Plato’s Republic – his quest to get at basis of the ideal City State, Socrates arrives at the conclusion that a Just Ruler is vital if we are to construct the Just and Ideal Society.

In defining a just leader - the Philosopher King, Socrates constructs his famous Analogy of The Cave. In his visual construct, people are shackled inside the cave and are only able to see projected shadows on the wall of what is really going on outside behind them. He's telling us that our perception is merely shadows of true reality. In business, we often limit our perception to merely our own job, our own puzzle piece…sometimes we’re just punching the clock, living in the shaddows, unaware of the BIG picture.

The Leader breaks free from those shackles, turns his back on the cave and goes towards the light and knows this: that what you have seen and have known thus far are only shadows of that which is real outside the cave. Are you chained living and working in a cave on the job? Do you know you too can be a leader if you break free and embody the vision?

This is where it all comes together in Plato's lesson...

Job #1 of the Leader is VISION. The Vision is the most important thing a Leader must own. He must capture the vision and cast off the shadows of faulty perception. Differentiate between what is fact, not merely opinion. Hold true to the vision. Stay mindful of what the company is building and how to get there.

True leaders don’t just stop there. They return to the cave to awaken and enlighten those who are still unaware of the truth. They focus us on the real goal, the big picture, the raisons d'être - the reason we are here, the mission and vision that we work so hard to attain everyday.

Job #2 of the Leader is concise, clear COMMUNICATION. Successful leaders not only have compelling vision for their organizations, but also know how to communicate that vision to the people around them. They get everyone in the organization seeing the same clear image of the company's future - where the business is going and how you're going to get there.

It sounds easy, but it’s not. It takes hard work. The leader must see more clearly than everyone else and communicate that vision in ways that the team understands and makes their own. The more clearly everyone can see his vision, the likelier the team is to achieve it. Because with vision comes POWER. Team motivation arises out of a shared goal. Focus everyone’s energy toward one thing and amazing results follow.

VISION: Power of Anticipating That Which Will Come To Be

LEADERSHIP: The power to cause others to take action

"What a strange scene you describe, and what strange prisoners, They are just like us." - Plato, The Republic, Book Vii