The Art of War on Leadership

“Leadership is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage, and sternness.” – Sun Tzu

As I discussed in a previous posting, The Art of War – the two millenium old classic Chinese treatise on war – has great relevance to community resilience.  In this post, I’d like to discuss how SunTzu’s observations about leadership can be applied to communities.

According to Sun Tzu, a successful leader must have the five traits listed above.  In the context of a community and its resilience, these traits might be better described as follows.

Intelligence.  Intelligence in leadership means that the leader knows how to clearly identify an objective, communicate it, and then plan to achieve it.  This implies that an intelligent community leader recognizes when the community must adapt to changing circumstances.  The intelligent leader is able to articulate that need and initiate the planning effort needed to affect change. 

Trustworthiness.  A trustworthy leader is recognized by the community as a person of integrity.  Thus, the community believes that a trustworthy leader will carry out promised actions, and will provide support to the rest of the community to implement action plans.  Such a leader is thus able to communicate more effectively to the larger community, because even unpopular messages are more likely to be heard. 

Humaneness.   An effective leader cares about the community, and that caring is manifested in actions.  The community feels that a humane leader “feels their pain,” and therefore are more likely to follow where the leader is going.  This recognized innate humanity of the leader is especially important when trying to reconcile different factions within the community.

Courage.  A leader must have the courage to persevere even when obstacles are encountered.  In essence, the courage needed by an effective leader is born of a certain innate confidence in one’s own integrity – the leader believes the community is on the right course.

Sternness.  By “sternness,” Sun Tzu means a sort of rigorous fairness.  Rewards and punishments are strictly based on actions, and not the person acting.  Ultimately, this sternness is the result of a sort of self-discipline in which the leader may have favorites but does not favor them.

The transformation of Charlotte, NC, from a textiles to a financial center illustrates the importance of several of these leadership traits.  Up until the 1970’s, Charlotte had been one of the leading centers for the textile industry in the country.  The heads of two of the largest banks in North Carolina and the head of Duke Power recognized that the demise of that industry threatened Charlotte’s vitality.  All three were a part of the community, and passionately cared about Charlotte’s future.  Acting largely independently of city and county governments, these three formed an organization aimed at helping Charlotte to adapt to these changing conditions.  As plans were developed, these three spearheaded the transformational effort.  They helped rebuild some of the poorest sections of the city (encountering opposition because many of these were predominately black), making what had been almost slums into desirable neighborhoods.  In spite of criticism and carping, these three eventually transformed Charlotte into what has become the second largest financial center in the country.