Idea 73: Practical wisdom

Reason and calm judgement, the qualities especially belonging to a leader.

Tacitus

An effective strategic leader needs, above all else, practical wisdom. This phrase best translates the Greek word phronesis, which the Roman rendered as prudentia – hence our English word prudence. Practical wisdom is a blend of intelligence, experience and goodness.

Experience – of both the world and of the particular field or business – and moral goodness are self-explanatory. The kind of eager, alert, outreaching mental quality that marks out the leader predisposes them to use their powers in versatile ways:

• To see the point.
• To sense relationships and analogies quickly.
• To identify the essentials in a complex picture.
• To ‘put two and two together’.
• To find the salient factors in past experience that are helpful in shedding light on present difficulties.
• To be able to distinguish clearly between ends and means.
• To appraise situations readily.
• To see their significance in the total setting of present and past experience.
• To get the cue as to the likely line of wise action.

These overlap considerably, but taken together they offer an idea of the kind of practical intelligence or sense we are talking about.

Remember that your position does not give you the right to command. It only lays upon you the duty of so living your life that others may receive your orders without being humiliated.

Dag Hammarskjöld, writing as Secretary-General of the United Nations