A while ago I attended a Womansphere event honoring Linda Cureton, CIO of NASA, who has recently published a wonderful book, The Leadership Muse.
During her presentation, Linda mentioned that a good leader probably needed to be a little crazy and cited S. Nassir Ghaemi’s A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness. It’s on my Kindle and I haven’t been able to put it down. Ghaemi describes a group of leaders, including General Sherman, Abraham Lincoln, and Winston Churchill, who suffered from mental illness. Yet each was an excellent leader.
Ghaemi feels that a certain madness is essential in turbulent times, while sanity can be an asset in times of calm. He cites the creativity that comes with mania and the greater sense of realism that comes from depression. Early disappointments, he feels, (echoing Chip Conley’s thinking in Emotional Equations), can result in a realistic attitude towards life and therefore better judgments.
Perhaps sanity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. An interesting thought. And a great read.
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