If you’re working to improve your leadership capability, what exactly should you be trying to develop? The experience of the 2020 pandemic offers a powerful lesson: A critical skill a leader must bring to the table is the ability to figure out what kind of thinking is required to address a given challenge. Bring the wrong kind of thinking to a problem and you’ll be left fruitlessly analyzing scientific data when what’s desperately needed is a values-informed judgment call. Or, just as bad, you’ll trust your instincts on a matter where a straightforward data analysis would expose how off-base your understanding is.
Leaders Need to Harness Aristotle’s 3 Types of Knowledge
A critical skill a leader must bring to the table is the ability to figure out what kind of thinking is required to address a given challenge. Distinctions between types of knowledge go as far back as Aristotle, who highlighted, for example, the differences between the realm of scientific fact on one hand and ethical judgment on the other. The authors argue that leaders must know which combination of these types is called for in a given situation. Those who bring the wrong kind of thinking to a problem are left searching fruitlessly for mathematical proof when what’s desperately needed is a values-informed judgment call, or, just as bad, will trust their instincts on a matter where a straightforward data analysis would expose how off-base their understanding is. The authors argue that this misunderstanding is fundamental to some of the failures of Covid pandemic response, but that it is equally applicable to leaders at all levels dealing with complex problems.