Leadership Lesson 4: Accept Imperfect / Fallen Heroes

Have you noticed how most conversations around great leaders invariably leads to someone saying, “he’s good, but did you know that he also did <insert personal issue> …” ? While I don’t deny the truthfulness behind the statement, I do object to using it to either discount or disqualify the work / wisdom shared by the individual over a lifetime. Why are we expecting our leaders to be perfect in every sphere of life? Why is it that we are unable to separate the wheat from the chaff? Why do we take the lazy approach of dismissing everything — who loses in the bargain?

I’ve come to realize that part of our maturing into leaders requires us to weigh both the good and the bad without falling into hero worship or demonizing the individual. We follow / learn from them — what to do and what not to, in doing so, we increase our chances of becoming better individuals irrespective of how imperfect our leaders may be.

Maybe our acceptance of their follies without condemnation is the best homage we can pay them.