Thursday, July 24, 2014

Magneto and Optimism as a condition of a leader

Recently, I wrote about leadership, categorizing your boss into four types with the two axis of ideal and reliance.

My past entry: Four types of your boss

In this entry, I identified the person who is an idealist and rely on his or her subordinates as a preferable leader. It is true. However, there is one more factor which distinguishes a leader from followers.

Actually, I mentioned it in my entry. It is optimism. Every leader who has made a success in business is an optimist.

In general, idealists are all optimists, otherwise they are likely to despair. However, it is not true that all idealistic leaders are also optimistic.

For example, Magneto in the X-men series is a typical idealist. He has a desire to extinguish all human without mutant powers. He is blessed with several talents such as strong mutant power, strategic thought, and charisma. Unfortunately, he is a pessimist, however. He never believes in human, so he cannot imagine a day that human catch up mutants. This is the difference from Professor X.

For this reason Magneto cannot make a great success in his ambition. His followers, like Mystique, leave him because they cannot trust that his great ideal will be realized without optimism.

Absolute optimism, even without no evidence, is a necessity of a great leader.

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