Leading through the Mist: The Multiple Intelligences of Leadership

I have long suffered from vertigo. I’ve recently gone through intense physical therapy to finally get rid of it. To assess my problem, I was put in an egg-like structure with my feet on pressure plates and with moving walls. Yes, it was terrible… As walls moved, a computer assessed the three components that are involved in balance—feet, eyes, and ears. The printout showed that my inner ear was asleep at the switch so the therapy focused on strengthening my inner ear so that it would start helping rather than sitting on the side line and leaving the work to my feet and eyes.   

Leading an organization is a bit like being inside this egg-like structure. Leaders need all the components of their being to work to keep their organizations in balance. The problem is that more often than not, leaders leave one of the needed multiple intelligences sitting on the side lines and not doing its job—they are handicapped. This weakness might be the result of a personality make-up, patterns from family of origin, or previous experiences and hurts that leave them dependent on all other skills to maintain balance in the organization. I can tell you from experience, bouts of (institutional) vertigo will result if you don’t take on this weakness. I can also tell you that the route to balance among your leadership skills will involve more experiences of vertigo before it settles into a sustainable balance.

Amongst those who move into leadership, a left-hemisphere area of strength may come most naturally. For example, Michael Guillen, in Believing is Seeing, says that he encounters very bright people who believe that logic and the rational is a virtue and faith a weakness. Afterall, these may be the strengths that got them to where they are. However, Guillen claims that their half-blind unchecked worldview “poisons conversations and cultures all over the industrialized world (pg. 84). He quotes Bob Samples who said that “Albert Einstein called the intuitive or metaphoric mind a sacred gift…the rational mind was a faithful servant.” (pg. 86). I would argue that they work in tandem and that none of these intelligences can be left by the wayside if you are going to lead.

The importance of having the multiplicity of intelligences in good working order is absolutely essential when serving in a leadership role. The complexity of these roles often makes one feel like you are leading through a fog. Nan Shepherd, in The Living Mountain, describe the experience of hiking with a group in the mist and compares it to walking in a blind world. While the ghostlike nature of your surroundings is thrilling, you also face the real danger of getting lost. And it takes all your skills to keep on track—calmness, a map and compass and knowledge of how to use them, and steady emotions when someone in the group panics and wants to go the wrong direction. Shepherd states that “Walking in mist tests not only individual self-discipline, but the best sort of interplay between persons.” (pg. 44) Logic is not enough to lead the team through the mist. And having hiked the path in the light is not sufficient to being able to lead in the dark. Shepherd states:

“Walking in the dark can reveal new knowledge about a familiar place…it amazed me to find how unfamiliar I was with the path. I had followed it times without number, yet now, when my eyes were in my feet, I did not know its bumps and holes, nor where the trickles of water crossed it, nor where it rose and fell. It astonished me that my memory was so much in the eye and so little in the feet…” (pg. 46)

I have worked at waking up my inner ear. It took persistence, help from specialists, bouts of vertigo, and discipline. And now I incorporate regular exercises into everyday life that keep my inner ear tuned in to doing its job. I have a clear head for the first time in thirty years. Ensuring that you are leading with all the components of your multiple intelligences is hard work and takes continual tune-ups.  Leaders who can do this hard work build teams and institutions that can weather storms, fog and dark times without losing their way.