Ideas & Leaders

Ideas and their importance in making leaders have always fascinated me. Dan Dennet, a philosopher, talked about this unique concept of ideas as organisms. He called them ‘memes’. His point was that ideas get originated in so meone’s brain and then gain strength with the number of people letting their minds get occupied with it. Ideas sometimes take over and change the primitive position of survival of the person as his main ideal. He then begins to believe that his purpose of life and existence is to live for this idea. Biological prominence is taken over with this idea gaining strength in his brain. Most of the times, leaders thus place the idea above themselves.

This sounded interesting to me and changed the way I look at someone with an idea and how his conviction in the idea can influence others into believing him and his purpose. Some leaders then, who build their leadership on ideas, are people who have such strong beliefs and by empirical evidence or strong rationality convince others that his/her vision and purpose will serve both their interests.

To visualize this we can imagine lots of ideas floating around in the air/documents originating and travelling from one person to other. When this idea meets a person (X) who is strongly inclined emotionally to receive it, it will get into his brain and gain strength by offering him solutions to his problems. This person then begins to grow his belief in the idea by testing it in some situations. Once he is fully convinced about it, he then begins to propagate it to someone (Y1) who is similarly troubled or who is looking for solutions. Looking at the success, X takes initiative in spreading this idea to as many people as possible with a belief that it offers solutions to their problems. Through various media, this idea and its use in situations will then spread across and gain popularity (Y2 to Y100 maybe). This is then leveraged to mobilize people towards actions that will make the idea operational. In a way I think this is the way movements get spread across borders and differences among people. Some aspects of the idea are important for making it more impactful such as simplicity, universality, applicability in more situations, adventurousness and credibility of the leader.

First important aspect of the above analysis is the possibility of such a mobilization mechanism influencing the idea itself over a period of time and changing it. When the idea from X moved to Y, there is an issue of communication inefficiency. Also, the mindset of person Y is quite different from X. It will change the way Y understands the idea and so will change the application of the idea in situations. Similarly, when a lot of people are exposed to it, there tends to be quite a lot of inefficiency in how it is understood by all of them. This is important because it has a potential to totally change the idea to something else. There is a scope for people to misunderstand the idea, change and use it for their convenience. This will dilute its movement to people and vice versa. Here, the leader X should take ownership and keep reiterating his idea more than once, explaining it in more detail with examples of suitable application to situations. This is the reason why they are documented and proper media are used to keep the followers close to the idea. More universal the solution provided by the idea, more will be its appeal to people. Its simplicity will enable easier transfer. Credibility of the leader will make his/her followers take the idea seriously to apply it. Leader’s exemplification through his application will increase its credibility.

Second aspect of the analysis is the role of systems or rules in spreading the idea faster. When there is a system in place for how people receive ideas and spread them, for example, a society hierarchy and family hierarchy in social situations or organizational hierarchy in business situations, the reception of the idea becomes much easier for people. It also makes people ready to accept these ideas when they come through the hierarchy because of the presence of incentives/disincentives to do so. This is more involuntary than the spread of it in an unstructured setting. Operationalizing an idea becomes much easier with the presence of a system that has rules framed to suit it. In this situation, the leader, if he is suitably placed, has more control on how his idea gets implemented and can change the rules to suit the implementation. Also depending on the position the leader occupies in the hierarchy, his credibility may get established affecting the impact he can make. Spread can thus be planned and followers can be influenced if they are emotionally open to such influences.

In summary, a leader is someone who either through his own rationality or influences from existing ones, gains conviction. Depending on the strength of such conviction, he then transfers the idea to others through various media. The spread and success will depend upon the readiness of the followers based on their situation, systems in place that will make the transfer faster and smoother, simplicity & universality of the idea, its applicability to various situations and credibility of the leader/source of the idea.