When I worked in the sugar industry I remember once discussing a problem with a young colleague. I was absolutely certain that I had the right answer but he argued and put another view. I found myself getting irritated and probably I showed it. It would have been easy for him to shrug his shoulders, abandon the argument, and with yes-sir, yes-sir on his lips opt for the easy life. But he did not, and he turned out to be right, and thus saved me from embarrassment and, more importantly, the business from error and some expense.
Any man in command surrounds himself with yes-men at his peril. Those that mollify and soothingly applaud may be nice to have around but the shrewd top men know very well that a thorn in the side, sharp and even painful, does their cause much more good than any number of soft-cored apples of their eye.
One danger-signal in any state or business is when fear of antagonizing superiors overcomes confidence in one’s own view and even conquers deeply ingrained professional pride. When this begins to happen you soon find the best people keeping silent and the worst people making noise. I do not need to tell you that a choir so orchestrated brings no joy to its conductor or his wider audience.
Every court of power – Ministry, company, enterprise or club – has its quota of charlatans offering specious panaceas, flatterers providing false or misleading encouragement, and men in whose vocabulary the phrase “I don’t agree” is the ultimate obscenity. The trouble is that such smooth people are the most comforting company to keep. The men who issue warnings seem, at best, irritating bores or, at worst, downright traitors.
Yet the creative leader or manager knows better than anyone that he must keep open the channels through which contending views flow to him. This is not an easy thing by any means. For one thing, those with real authority have to possess that shining certainty which in the dark times keep others going – and such shining certainty tends to dislike and even despise ordinary doubts and criticisms. Yet such doubts and criticisms must be allowed free flow. The praise of yes-men and the adulation of accommodating time-servers make up a heady brew but to drink it habitually deadens the vital nerve, that raw nerve which must always be kept alive and sensitive, however painful the exposure, since pain is the warning of greater danger.
Painless leadership, of course, is a contradiction in terms. The person in charge must make sure everyone knows that the toughest decisions are his responsibility, that however great their worries they can in the last resort pass them to him, whereas he cannot pass them to anyone. They pay him for this with a part of their freedom, part of their independence – a sort of authority tax – yet that still does not absolve them from speaking hard truths or giving advice he may not like. In this relationship between the leader and the led there has to be mutual agreement that criticism is not disloyalty, reasonable doubt is not heresy, conflicting ideas are not a provocative challenge.
The warrior-poet, Archilochus, who lived in Greece in the Seventh Century B.C. has always appealed to me. For one thing, he has a special place in literature since he was the first poet known to have written lyrics in the first person. Also, there was a time when he lived on the frontier in hard and dangerous times and had to knead his bread and press his wine, a spear at hand in case the Thracian foe attacked unexpectedly – so perhaps he should be named the patron saint of the GDF as they man our ramparts in the remote interior. But his relevance in this column is that he was a blunt and direct man, even with his top commanders. He did not suffer fools to deceive himself or his King with cosy words. He grew angry amidst flatterers. There is a legend that when he died a nest of hornets settled on his grave and forever afterwards whenever liars, flatterers, and obsequious yes-men pass near that grave a golden horde of bees swarm and buzz with anger and outrage.
