Leadership Journal: Today's Most Devalued Virtue
Why is a once honored leadership trait now despised?
What's the most undervalued, under-discussed commodity on the leadership stock exchange today? What's the item that is currently on no one's list of desired qualities in a leader that once would have been consistently in the top four?
It's not courage or willingness to risk. Every motivational speaker trumpets those.
It's not humility or strength of will—Jim Collins has placed these squarely on the path from good to great.
It's not the ability to identify strengths—Marcus Buckingham and others have built a movement around strengths.
It's not creativity (think of Steve Jobs), or unleashing core competencies (think Gary Hamel), or the capacity to persist in the face of crushing failure (think Winston Churchill or the Chicago Cubs or pretty much anybody on Dancing with the Stars).
So what is today's most undervalued leadership trait? It's prudence. …
…We need to be reminded what prudence is, and isn't. Prudence is not the same thing as caution. Caution is a helpful strategy when you're crossing a minefield; it's a disaster when you're in a gold rush.
Prudence is not the same thing as avoiding mistakes. Churches are full of leaders who are afraid to make mistakes, and thereby insure that their churches will never move forward, and that their own souls will shrivel and grow cold from fear and avoidance. But that's not prudence.
Prudence is not hesitation, procrastination, or moderation. It is not driving in the middle of the road. It is not the way of ambivalence, indecision, or safety.
Prudence, says Guelzo, was prized by the ancients because it was linked to shrewdness, to excellence in judgment, to the capacity to discern, to the ability to take in a situation and see it in its wholeness. Prudence is foresight and far-sightedness. It's the ability to make immediate decisions on the basis of their longer-range effects.
Prudence is what makes someone a great commodities trader—the capacity to face reality squarely in the eye without allowing emotion or ego to get in the way. It's what is needed by every quarterback or battlefield general. Thomas Aquinas said it was intelligence about "things to be done."
Prudence comes very close to describing what Paul prays for the church at Philippi—"that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best …" …
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