Idealism Without Wise Counsel: When vision floats free of reality and no one dares to tether it. Leading with ungrounded ideals, without the humility to seek wise counsel or remain teachable, narrows vision, stifles creativity and skills, and kills team spirit, limiting both the leadership team and the mission they hope to serve.
In my previous blog, I described The Wisdom Gap as a subtle leadership culture killer that lurks in the space between a leader’s ideals and the wise counsel of their teams. As I continued to reflect on The Wisdom Gap, I felt that more needed to be said.
Max De Pree, in his 1987 book Leadership is an Art, wrote, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.” In other words, it is the leader’s duty to identify what is true, what is unclear, and what the team needs to progress. De Pree was an influential businessman, author, and thought leader in organizational leadership. Therefore, his statement grew from his extensive experience in the field. Because of the significant contributions De Pree made to leadership theory, it honors him to engage with his definition of leadership, which has been so influential for many leaders who came after him. We must recognize this leadership maxim that has been so hard-won for De Pree in the crucible of leadership.
With all due respect to De Pree, the first responsibility of leaders is not to define reality. Instead, it is the leadership team’s responsibility to “make sense” of the reality they are thrust into as they pursue their shared mission. What we often call “reality” is perspectival and constantly changing due to the environmental forces at play in our world. A leadership team cannot define such a reality. They can only make sense of current realities by walking in the way of wisdom. And wisdom, in this case, is necessarily communal.
The Wisdom Gap refers to the space between a leader’s personal ideals and the wise counsel of their team. This gap can create a positive tension that, if managed carefully and relationally, can help expand the team’s mission. Leaders have a choice: they can fill this space with either hubris or humility. Unfortunately, many leaders suffer from a distorted narrow-mindedness caused by overly idealistic views. Even well-meaning leaders become incapable of learning when they prioritize trust in their own perspectives or instincts over the collective wisdom of their teams. As author and podcast host John Dickson states, “They are hermetically sealed.” Their high ideals can become harmful to their teams’ ability to face disruptive challenges with integrity and to guide the organization toward its true mission.
All of us have faced disappointing moments in our careers when our leaders summarily dismissed our perspectives, experiences, or expertise. I sat with friend once who told me of a moment when he and a few of his colleagues sat around a table once to discuss a problematic issue they faced and how they should move forward. They spent hours exploring the issues from various angles and finally agreed on the next steps. However, after the meeting, the team leader took a walk on a nearby trail to “process” the conversation. When he returned, the team discovered that he had made up his mind based on his own intuition, which was completely opposite to what the team had agreed upon. My friend felt entirely sidelined, shut down, disempowered, and undervalued at that moment. The entire effort his team made was rendered futile by that one moment of leadership indiscretion.
To be clear, having leadership or missional ideals is a commendable and desirable quality of a strong leader. However, idealism is a toxic cancer to leadership in community. Idealism is a rigid belief that one’s own values, principles, or vision are the highest or most virtuous standards, often accompanied by an implicit or explicit dismissal of others’ perspectives as inferior, misguided, or morally lacking. Here are some warning signs of a leader’s idealism:
- Moral Absolutism: Frames their values as universally right, with little room for nuance or disagreement. Uses superlative language like “the right way,” “true leadership,” or “real commitment” without defining terms.
- Dismissive of Dissent: Reacts defensively or dismissively to feedback, especially when it challenges their ideals. Labels differing perspectives as “unprofessional,” “immature,” “disrespectful,” or “misaligned” without engaging in dialogue.
- Performative Virtue: Publicly advocates for values (e.g., equity, integrity, professionalism) but privately avoids accountability or self-reflection. Uses virtue signaling to hide organizational issues or personal insecurity.
- Inconsistent Accountability: Holds others to high standards without demonstrating them personally or clarifying expectations. Applies rules selectively, rewarding loyalty over integrity or compliance over courage.
- Overreliance on Vision: Frequently talks about “the mission” or “the calling” but avoids the difficult work of implementation, adaptation, or repair. Uses inspirational language to distract from practical issues or relational problems.
- Isolation in Decision-Making: Makes decisions unilaterally, believing their ideals justify bypassing collaboration. Avoids shared judgment or collective wisdom, especially when urgency or ego is involved. They may even tell their people how they should think or feel about a situation with statements like, “You were not disempowered,” or “I’m okay, so you should be okay.”
- Emotional Rigidity: Finds it hard to handle grief, ambiguity, or failure, preferring clarity and control. May spiritualize conflict or discomfort instead of engaging with it relationally. They might even use unhelpful and even shaming phrases such as, “Let’s take the emotion out of it.”
- Idealized Self-Image: Views themselves as the moral compass or visionary savior of the organization. Resists vulnerability, fearing it will weaken their perceived authority or purity.
These experiences are, sadly, all too common on our leadership teams. I believe the starting point for change is lament. This culture killer, if allowed to persist, causes deep wounds in our teams—individuals made in God’s image who are called to participate in his redemptive mission through our organization’s unique expression of it. Lament facilitates two things that are crucial to a healthy team culture:
- A self-reflective leader examines their own attitudes and behaviors, confesses, and repents in a safe environment, where their job isn’t at risk and others won’t discredit or disgrace them.
- Team members mourn the pain and loss they have experienced, while allowing that grief to shape them into more emotionally intelligent and empathetic colleagues.
Lament affirms everyone’s personhood: the leader striving to grow, and the team members who have faced struggles. The process of lament uncovers desires and interests, helping individuals learn how to respect one another, make necessary reparations, and love each other well. It simply takes time to lament, and it’s often tempting for leaders to shortcut that process to simply “get back to work.” However, neglecting the hard work of lament and reconciliation ultimately costs us much more—through personnel turnover, damage to our organizational reputation, and misalignment with our mission. It deprives us of the opportunity to learn!
The weight of evidence and experience has shown that real learning is connected to humility, the spirit of authentic leadership that says, “I don’t know. But I do know that God has given us a treasure trove of resources on our team we can draw from to find the way of wisdom.” As I mentioned in the last blog, wisdom is the currency of humility. In other words, humility is a posture that allows wisdom to be shared and circulated freely on the team, making it a team resource that is never depleted. In accounting terms, humility invests in an appreciable asset that we call “wisdom” that can only increase in value and effectiveness when shared and owned by all. The key to leadership effectiveness, as Alvin Toffler states, is the ability to “learn, unlearn, and relearn.” This can only be achieved through leadership humility.
Humility is the necessary starting point for our next and final culture killer, “Foggy Norms, Frayed Trust,” which will be the subject of my next blog. The question I leave you with in anticipation of that blog is, “How then do we embody such wisdom on our team?” The answer lies in collaboratively discerned, shared norms that have been hard-fought in the forge of leadership. Stay tuned…
