To: Shmuel Rosner

Re: Leadership

Shmuel Shalom,

Your questions definitely strike at the essence of the book. Since I do not consider myself a leadership guru, I will answer them based on my personal leadership perspective.

Your questions and dilemmas are a strong indication as to why leadership has to be performed the hard way and why it cannot be taught. You can learn it only by doing it, it is counterintuitive and tested only in a crisis. Confronting a crisis is very personal and you will in most cases forget what you were taught and rely on what you have learned from your past experience i.e. intuition. Let me start by pointing out that in my opinion Ehud Olmert is not a leader. He does not meet any of the attributes of a leader as reflected (but not listed) in the book. I will mention some of them without elaboration since they are obvious; integrity, driving change against the current, turning crisis into opportunity, people skills. He thinks peace talks are his lifeline, but he does not have the capability of driving a solution against the current (he did not have it before the Lebanon fiasco) or the coalition support to execute it. As a result let me answer your question by stating how a real leader would act and behave in a situation like this. I believe that a leader who fails and does not take responsibility looses public support and the authority to act in the next crisis and becomes a lame duck leader. It is an integrity issue, he needs to resign and run again if he believes the nation cannot do without him or wait for people to go to the streets and ask him to stay… or else resign and run again like Rabin did. I agree with you that "differentiating between the 'grandiose' and the 'talent,' between the 'personal' and the 'organizational' is a very tricky business," but I believe it can and should be done. The difference between grandiosity and talent is mainly in believing in the possibility of being wrong. Personal survival equates to not being accountable for failures, and pursuing a personal agenda. This is a major integrity and organization survival issue, because if you have "survived" once you will try to do it again. Every office holder has the human instinct of staying in office as long as possible. Real leaders differentiate between their wish to pursue a personal survival agenda and the organization’s long term interest and success (see addendum below). While successful leadership may only be seen "in hindsight," leaders must take risks without knowing in advance what the outcome will be (it's easy to judge in retrospect) and be accountable when they fail. As to your comment that "what you say may apply to a rare (and possibly extinct) type of leaders" — I agree that they are rare today and this is probably why the world is in such sad shape. So if they are indeed extinct it may be time to reincarnate them!

And now to your summary question: Yes, it is definitely more important to make the leader accountable than to make him stay! Taking individual responsibility is a major Israeli problem due to the strong affinity between teamwork and group responsibility. The fact that there is no visible good alternative is not an excuse for a tainted leader to stay in office, since he does not have the authority or the trust of the people and is not capable of driving major decisions. If there is no alternative the next government will most likely be a balanced coalition like we had in the past, which will cause less harm than an impotent head of state. The country will definitely not be in worse shape than with a lame duck leader who tries to satisfy everybody in order to stay in power.

A leader needs to make room if not for a short term better alternative, then at least for a long term one. People do not like elections, especially Parliament members who stand to lose their seat, but it is the only way in a democracy to decide the fate of leadership.

Have fun!

Dov P.S. If I juxtapose the two quotes below, it looks like you do see the paradox:

I don’t see the paradox. It is quite clear even to a non-leader like myself that personal agendas can unhinge on organizations’ – or, more importantly, countries’ – chances to survive…They tend to think that for the organization to survive they need to stay at the helm.

Well, they simply confuse their personal agenda with the survival of the organization regardless of their performance. Which implies these leaders cannot see what is obvious to you.

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Dear Shmuel,

Thanks for your message and interesting perspective about my book. It's fascinating to see what readers make of what I was trying to say.

The writer of this book naturally exposes himself enthusiastically to the readers’ interpretation. In a way tolerating with a smile the different interpretations provides both an opportunity to expand on the book’s messages and a humbling experience in dealing with critical interpretations and proposals for restatement of the essence of the book.

I believe that with a little bit of luck I will survive your critical insights…

That said, I have to disagree with your conclusion that my message about leadership is, in effect, 'paranoia plus luck.' I think it is too simplistic. Let me try to explain why.

On survival: I don't think insisting on survival can be reduced to mere paranoia. It's not necessarily paranoid to not take survival for granted or even to always be anticipating the worst in a situation. It's simply part of the responsibility of being a leader. I'm very skeptical about so-called leaders who have such a grandiose view of their own talents that they never imagine something going wrong; examples abound both in Israel and the US.

My childhood experience taught me that people with strong values who are willing to take risks can make a decisive difference in a survival situation. The same goes with what we did at Intel Israel during the First Gulf War. If the organization had just been "paranoid," we would never have been able to do what we did. In both cases there was a real life threatening danger which obviated the need for paranoia.

So stressing survival may be ‘against the current’ but it does not equate with paranoia.

On risk-taking: I believe that good leaders 'make their own luck’. Or as Seneca the Roman philosopher put it more succinctly “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

A leader has to take calculated risks, if it works it is a success and if it does not it is a failure. In my mind there are no quasi successes or quasi failures; this is part of the essence of leadership the hard way. A success can always be interpreted by observers as luck and failure as circumstantial but leaders should be accountable for their failures. During the First Gulf War, I understood full well that there was some possibility that one of our sites would be hit by a Scud. But I judged that risk worth taking and made it clear to my people that I would take responsibility for that decision whatever happens.

On the future success of Israeli high tech: Admitting that the success and future of Hi Tech in Israel is not necessarily based on heroics and the Jewish genius but rather on a survival instinct that drives creativity and teamwork is not sad. It is rather an against the current observation that is important for long term success. While in many respects the 'turbulence' of the Israeli/Middle East environment has been enabling for our high-tech industry and helped make it successful globally, it is also possible to have too much turbulence and too much instability. It should lead to a sobering conclusion that Israeli Hi-tech is vulnerable.

I do believe that Israeli Hi-tech can survive in chaos and turbulence based on our competitive record, but in order to survive through success and flourish in the future it is strongly dependent on a stable political and economic environment.

In summary, a survival thrust should not be confused with paranoia. In this age of pervasive communication, networking and instant gratification the young generation tends to take survival for granted and ignore the turbulence, not only in Israel but worldwide. A wake up call may be in order.

Taking advantage of random opportunities does not equate to luck. The launching of Intel Israel was based on a vision, and not on either luck or paranoia. In fact not only the EPROM invention but most major inventions have a strong accidental element in them! Admitting that the invention was nearly accidental is ‘against the current’ and may offend some inventors but it was not based on luck.

This book in my mind is about learning and bootstrapping leadership the hard way through life experience and invisible mentorship; paranoia and luck are only observed side effects.

I am thoroughly enjoying this exchange, I hope you do too!

Have fun!

Dov

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