Leadership, Error-Reduction and a More Thoughtful Public

Celina Gunnarsson

Introduction: Reframing Good Leadership

Roger Soder suggests that [l]eadership involves at its base the creation of a persuaded
audience. Persuasion is the cornerstone of leadership; after all, you can hardly call yourself a
leader if you lack followers. However, if we want to discuss leadership in a productive manner,
we must move beyond leaders that fulfill the bare minimum requirements for leadership and
examine good leaders.

The Issue of Partisanship

As with most of political questions, partisanship can easily transform our analysis of a
good leader into divisive mud-slinging. Our personal truths may differ from a leaders gathered
information, our political ideologies may affect our ideas of good policy and, in our haste to
disagree with a leader, we may not give proper credence to a well-crafted, persuasive argument.
In order to have a productive debate, we must approach this issue from a shared definition of
good leadership.

To avoid partisanship from playing a role, we need to settle on a collective definition for
good leadership. Here, we cant reasonably use ideology to define the functions of good leaders.
Instead, we center our definition around effectiveness. We might boil it down to a simple maxim:
A good leader is an effective leader.
So, if a leader sets out to increase economic growth by establishing a flat tax, we cant
fault them for increasing income inequality. Instead of criticizing them for not doing what they
didnt try to do, we should base our judgment on whether flat tax policy accomplished economic
growth. For the purpose of our argument, we agree that a leader who can successfully solve the
problems they aim to solve is a good leader. Since each step of the problem-solving process
builds on the previous step, a good leader is a good information-seeker, a good policy formulator
and a good persuader. To be sure, there are more steps involved in solving a complex problem,
but they tend to fall into these categories or be interrelated with information-seeking, policy and
persuasion.
To be clear, we also acknowledge that no leader is flawless. Their instincts surrounding
information-seeking, policy-making and persuasion will occasionally fail, and barring
catastrophic mistakes, this doesnt necessarily preclude them from being a good leader. At the
same time, we do not tolerate mistakes well and would prefer the health of the nation not to be
subject to human error.
A good leader must be able to reconcile these two ideas and, in order to increase their
effectiveness, must reduce their administrations susceptibility to human error.

Reducing the Leaders Error

Individual Courses of Action

To reduce error without seeking outside help, a leader can take stock of their personal
biases. This way, they avoid pitfalls in information seeking, problem definition and problem
solving that Sophocles Philoctetes warns of.

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 Philoctetes opens on a prophesy and a problem. An oracle has told the Greek king
Odysseus that without Philoctetes magic bow, Troy will not fall. However, Philoctetes is highly
resentful of the Greek army, having been marooned by them ten years earlier, and is unlikely to
give up his bow. In coming up with a solution, Odysseus immediately rules out persuasion and
force and instead settles for his specialty: trickery. Although Odysseus companion Neoptolemus
successfully obtains the bow through trickery, he soon realizes that Odysseus has misjudged the
problem: The Greeks need Philoctetes and his bow, not just the bow. However, once trickery is
used, it is impossible for Neoptolemus to persuade, force or trick Philoctetes to come with him. It
takes Heracles appearing out of thin air, quite literally an act of god, to convince Philoctetes to
rejoin the Greeks.
In The Language of Leadership, Soder argues that Odysseus should have used
persuasion, as it was the only strategy with a chance of success. He should have been aware of
his bias toward trickery and realized that he was hastily discounting other forms of problem
resolution. Furthermore, he should have been aware of his potential to interpret information
selectively; in this case, Odysseus was so focused on expediency that he molded his information
to allow for a quick fix when his true problem reintegrating Philoctetes into society could not
be solved so easily.

Certainly, a leader can work toward critical self-awareness to avoid biases affecting the
outcome of information-seeking, policy formulation and persuasion. However, this alone is not
enough. If a leaders preconceptions are clouding their judgment, then any self-appraisal will be
somewhat clouded as well.
Also, leaders may have somewhat reasonable biases, and these will be most resistant to
change. For example, Odysseus typically solves problems using trickery because it usually works
for him. It certainly worked for him in both The Odyssey and The Iliad. So, when his methods
prove unfruitful, he doesnt swear off trickery altogether or even decide to use it more
discriminately. Odysseus can easily avoid taking responsibility for his failure since trickery has
the highest success rate of the methods in his repertoire, a less tested method would have
certainly failed.
While we dont want a leader to stop playing to their strengths, we may want a one-trick
leader to understand where their methods wont work. This, however, proves difficult.

Error-Reduction through Advising

A leader cannot improve much on their own. Their understanding of their strengths and
weaknesses will be skewed, and their tried-and-true biases will be resistant to change.
However, with the addition of an advisor or several, we start to get somewhere.
At its best, counsel can exalt a leader. Advisors can more honestly appraise a leader, and
they can be the voice of reason that tells the leader when their tried-and-true methods wont
work. Also, in Arthashastra, Kautilya argues that the process of counsel produces more
thoughtful decisions. Because advisors bring in new and often opposing opinions, it becomes
more difficult for unanimity to be reached. As a result, any decision reached has been more
rigorously tested.

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 However, counsel invites some pitfalls, as well. In Of Counsel, Francis Bacon names
lack of secrecy and unfaithful advisors as the inconveniences of counsel. In order to reap the
benefits of advice, a leader must address these two issues.

Bacon provides to solutions to the problem of secrecy: The leader can either omit some
facts or they can meet with a smaller number of advisors. However, each option comes with its
own set of problems.
By omitting information, a leader limits the decision-making ability of their advisors. Its
possible the advisors would suggest something else if they had all the information. In order to
still get valuable counsel, the leader should then be careful to only omit details that will have
minimal effect on the advisors decision. This, of course, may mean that a leader can only omit
irrelevant details. Also, we might wonder why a leader would consult with advisors they cant
trust.
In that case, Bacons second option is more attractive. When meeting with a few trusted
advisors, a leader speak confidential information more freely, and the advisors can make an
informed decision. In addition, if there is a leak in information, the leader will more easily be
able to find the responsible party. Still, this option requires the leader to correctly identify who
they can trust. It also may limit the thoughtfulness of the decision. When a leader can consult
freely with all their advisors, they can see a problem from a multitude of perspectives; when a
leader only consults a few advisors, they may have access to a smaller subset of information. If
consulting a smaller number of advisors tends to cause groupthink, a leader must weigh the
importance of secrecy against the importance of diverse perspectives.

To avoid unfaithful counsel, Bacon suggests that a leader should know their advisors
well. They should be able to identify trustworthy people and seek their advice. However, if a
leader must seek advice from untrustworthy people, a leader should be aware that the
information may be incomplete, biased or untrue. Of course, the underlying requirement here is
that the leader be a good judge of character.
Even after establishing an inner circle of trustworthy people, a leader must acknowledge
that their advisors will sometimes withhold the truth. Soder suggests two reasons for this: (1)
people dont want to tell you information that compromises themselves and (2) people dont
want to give information if they fear the consequences. In order to get the truth, a leader can put
their advisors worries at ease. They shouldnt become angry when bad news is delivered,
otherwise bad news will rarely be shared. They may also reward people for providing valuable
information.
Beyond that, Bacon suggests that a leader meet with advisors individually and in a
group. In private, a leader will receive more frank advice, and in a group, a leader will receive
more official advice. By seeing each advisor in two settings, a leader can understand their advice
in a more nuanced manner.

The Political Context of Error-Reduction

If were discussing good leadership in a dictatorship, we can essentially stop with the
leader. Since the leader and their inner circle are the only individuals participating in the political
process, a leader need only look within to reduce error and ensure policy success.
To be sure, they may still want to account for their audience. Worst case, rebellion can
prevent a dictator from implementing a solution to a policy problem. Effective leadership, then,

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is also dependent on the dictators ability to bring about obedience. (Of course, the assumption
here is that people can be made obedient.)

The dictator can create obedience in a number of ways. They can become populists.
However, the peoples policy wont always be the best policy, especially given that people in a
despotic culture arent used to participating in the political system. So, populism may solve the
problem of reducing rebellion, but it certainly doesnt increase the effectiveness of policy. A
dictator will need to balance demands for populist policy with the need for good policy. They can
take a populist tack on insignificant matters, and when popular opinion lines up with the
governments policy decision, they can reaffirm their populism. A dictator may also repackage
their own ideas as what the public wants. Finally, they may ignore popular opinion when they
are certain the results of their policy will be positive enough. They may also resort to less ethical
methods of creating obedience: incentivizing obedience with material rewards, punishing
disobedience with imprisonment, torture and death and using schools to indoctrinate children
before they can develop a rebellious nature.
In ensuring obedience, the dictator must also take into account human nature. If people
are naturally rebellious, they may need to spend more resources and use more strategies to create
and sustain obedience. If people are naturally obedient, they may spend fewer resources on
obedience. Since establishing obedience necessarily diverts resources from policy, a good leader
must understand how to balance the two.

On the other hand, if were discussing good leadership in a democracy, we must consider
the role of the public in government more thoroughly. Since the people elect officials, vote on
ballot initiatives and petition leaders, they have a considerable effect on public policy. As a
result, the amount of error in government is also dependent upon the public.
If the leaders role is to reduce the administrations susceptibility to error, then they must
reduce the errors made by the public. Here, disenfranchising parts of the public is not an
attractive option in the context of a democracy. Likewise, creating a herd of obedient people isnt
particularly democratic nor is it good at reducing error. The people would vote according to the
leaders will, but there would be few checks and balances in place to ensure that the leader is
correct in calling for a policy.
Instead, good leadership involves moving beyond a persuaded audience and creating a
more thoughtful public, capable of critically evaluating policy they choose and acting as a final,
collective advisor for the leader.

Reducing Collective Error: Creating, Sustaining and Recovering a More Thoughtful Public

In order to work toward a more thoughtful public, a leader needs to understand what they
are working toward. In part, they need to have a sense of what a more thoughtful public is and
isnt. Although each leader will have individual preferences for their public, some general
distinctions can be established by looking at the characteristics of a more thoughtful public as
well as the characteristics of an unthoughtful public.

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 The Persuaded Audience and the More Thoughtful Public
To help us flesh out our notion of a more thoughtful public, we can compare the
characteristics of an unthoughtful public, or what well call a persuaded audience, to the
characteristics of a more thoughtful public.
To be clear, both the persuaded audience and the thoughtful public can be persuaded;
otherwise, a leader would never want to work toward a more thoughtful public. The difference,
however, is that it takes more to persuade a thoughtful public.

A persuaded audience is just that: an audience. It is a passive receiver of the leaders

arguments. It accepts these arguments without giving much critical thought to them. On the other
hand, thoughtful public is an active participant in the process of persuasion. The public critically
evaluates a leaders argument and the assumptions behind it before deciding whether to accept or
reject it. To put it briefly, a more thoughtful public thinks more and thinks better. Given that, a
leader can encourage a more thoughtful public by encouraging critical thinking.

How a More Thoughtful Public Thinks

Once a leader decides they want to foster critical thinking, they must define what critical
thinking means. Of course, a leaders individual definition may vary. In the scope of this
argument, thats not particularly important. What is important, however, is that a leader identify
the smaller skills within critical thinking that they should work to encourage. To this end, we can
compile a general list of skills related to critical thinking.

1. Applying existing knowledge and experience

A more thoughtful public tests the validity of a leaders statements rather than
taking them at faith. By matching the leaders argument against their knowledge,
the public can test its coherence and, from there, have a basis to accept or reject
the claims. Of course, the assumption here is that the public has a general
knowledge base and that their information is correct.

2. Open-mindedness
A more thoughtful public keeps an open mind, recognizes when theyve been
proven wrong and, once proven wrong, does not hold on to incorrect opinions out
of stubbornness.

3. Recognizing the underlying assumptions of an argument

Since arguments are based on ideas about how the world is and should be, buying
into an argument means buying into the worldview it presents. A more thoughtful
public, then, is careful to first understand an arguments underlying assumptions
before agreeing with the argument itself.

4. Ecological understanding
A more thoughtful public understands how their actions affect the people around
them as well the overall political climate. By accepting and rejecting methods of
doing government, they help set the standards for political conduct. In making
decisions, they consider the global consequences of their choices and adjust their
behavior accordingly.

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 5. Long-term perspective
A more thoughtful public sees beyond a policys short-term benefits and carefully
considers its long-term consequences. They can analyze whether the long-term
costs will outweigh the short-term gains and, as a result, are not easily swayed by
promise of short-term rewards.

We can agree that these arent innate skills were dealing with. As such, a good leader
must understand how and where these skills are to be taught.

Teaching Thoughtfulness
In Education for Democracy: The Foundation of Democratic Character, Soder argues
that democratic skills are best taught in public schools. Certainly, other institutions such as
community organizations and organized religion are also capable of this task, but schools remain
the likeliest place for the most people to learn these skills. So, when creating a more thoughtful
public, a leader might consider Soders advice and structure public education to teach critical
thinking.

To understand how to structure an educational system conducive to critical thinking, a

leader can revisit their list of criteria for critical thinking: (1) applying existing knowledge, (2)
open-mindedness, (3) recognizing the underlying assumptions behind an argument, (4)
ecological understanding and (5) long-term perspective. However, before launching into rigorous
expectations of critical thinking, a leader must first ensure a public is well-informed. Otherwise,
the basis of all their decisions will be flawed.

To this end, a leader can create curriculum requirements to ensure a student learns the
facts necessary for critical thinking. They may want to mandate a civics class to ensure that the
public understands the political process in which they participate. Since political decisions are
made about a broad range of topics from science and technology to economics and foreign
policy, a leader may also choose to establish general education requirements to ensure students
have a broad knowledge base to match. Finally, they may choose to provide extra resources for
gifted students and students with disabilities to ensure that each student can reach their full
potential.

From there, it is mostly up to the school. Typically, the requirements of schooling will
involve learning the skills related to critical thinking. In research projects, students will apply
existing knowledge to assess the credibility of sources. In the classroom, they will be encouraged
to keep an open mind, since school allows students to interact with people with different
opinions. In essays, they will learn how arguments are structured and respond to arguments by
addressing their assumptions. By having to sit still for six hours, they will learn some of the
patience needed to have a long-term perspective.
Ideally, schools will also encourage students to actively participate in their own
education. This may mean empowering students to challenge authority when reasonable, as they
would when participating in the political process. This may also mean favoring discussion-based
classes over lectures or having student-led classes.

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 Schools may succeed in creating a more thoughtful public to varying degrees, but without
becoming a totalitarian, a leader cant do much to ensure all skills necessary for critical thinking
are taught and taught well. To be clear, they can still set out criteria for accreditation and
designate Blue Ribbon schools according to whether they create a more thoughtful public.
They might even establish a government-sponsored teacher preparation program that emphasizes
a teachers role in sustaining a more thoughtful public. Beyond that, a leader must find other
ways to encourage a more thoughtful public.

Moving Beyond the Classroom

Public schooling can be an effective, valuable means of creating a more thoughtful
public. Nonetheless, it is a time-consuming process. If a leader relies solely on public education,
they could have to wait twelve years before their public becomes more thoughtful. They will
only be creating more thoughtful youth while ignoring the adult population.
This does not necessarily diminish the need for long-term provisions for a more
thoughtful public; as Stewart Brand argues in The Clock of the Long Now, a long-term focus
gives a civilization the stability needed to survive. At the same time, a leader may want to bring
about change faster, and to do this, they need to promote thoughtfulness within the adult
population while avoiding political moves that will encourage a mere persuaded audience.
Again, human nature factors into a leaders plan for creating a more thoughtful public. If
people are naturally thoughtful, a leader may decide to do less; if people are naturally passive
and uncritical, a leader may have to do more.

Thoughtfulness in Information-Seeking
Of all the processes of good leadership, information-seeking is most disconnected from
the public. While leaders do seek information about the state of their public, the facts they
receive are often in the form of reports and studies. This may be the most time-effective way to
gather information. Nevertheless, to avoid creating a passive, persuaded audience, a leader must
encourage some degree of political participation, and one way to accomplish this is to
democratize the process of information-seeking.

To allow the public to give input, a leader can encourage town hall meetings, ensure their
publics freedom of expression and establish means to contact politicians. However, before
democratizing information-seeking, the leader must be aware of the associated costs.
When the public is encouraged to provide information, a leader naturally has more
information to sift through. Certainly, they dont have to personally filter the data, but regardless
of who does, more resources will be spent. Also, as Soder argues, the process of information-
seeking also reveals information. By encouraging public input, the leader implies that this input
will be taken seriously. If a leader disregards public opinion after explicitly seeking it, they may
only undermine their other efforts at empowering their public.

Due to its increased costs, a leader must carefully weigh the benefits of increasing public
involvement in information-gathering. Clearly, there are some instances when public input
doesnt make any sense. Wed probably prefer to leave complex economic theory up to the
economists, and wed probably prefer to leave military strategy up to the strategists. Also, a
leader doesnt always need to hear from everyone. If a leader wants to improve the shelter
system, they wont get valuable information from people who have never even seen a homeless
shelter.
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 A good leader, then, can balance the additional costs of information-seeking against the
benefits of encouraging a more thoughtful public. As a result, they understand when to ask for
the publics input and when to get information from experts.

Thoughtfulness in Policy Formulation

Policy invites a unique opportunity for a leader to encourage critical thinking. As with
schooling, a leader will want to start by ensuring that the public is well-informed. To this end, a
leader can maximize the publics access to information. They can encourage a free press, fund
libraries, subsidize educational programming, increase access to public documents and make the
process of government as transparent as possible. They might also make college education and
vocational training programs more accessible and affordable. From there, they can institute
policy that encourages critical thinking.

A leader can encourage open-mindedness by discouraging its opposite. They can enact
and enforce anti-discrimination laws. These policies wont necessarily cause prejudiced people
to become tolerant; however, by setting a legal precedent for tolerance, a leader can start making
open-mindedness the norm.
To foster ecological understanding, a leader can encourage interdependence. They can
fund community-based organizations, encourage charitable behavior with tax breaks and
rewarding civilian service efforts.
To promote a long-term perspective, a leader can heed Stewart Brands advice. A leader
can provide funding necessary for free historical museums. When the public is encouraged to
look far back in time, they are more inclined to look forward, as well. A leader might also fund
science necessary to increase the human lifespan. When the public believes theyll live long
enough to see the consequences of their actions, they will be more likely to change their
behavior.
Finally, a leader can promote critical thinking by example. A leader can open-mindedly
create long-term policy and take into account the policys effect on the political climate.

Thoughtfulness in Persuasion
Once thoughtful policy has been formulated, a leader must convince their public that their
policy is good. In the stages of persuasion, a leader must be careful how they argue policy. By
arguing good policy for the wrong reasons, they risk creating a persuaded audience.

If they resort to sound bites and catchphrases, they oversimplify complex political issues.
They may persuade their audience, but they will also be suggesting that politics isnt complex
and doesnt need to be examined carefully. If a leader emphasizes short-term benefits of a policy
while ignoring its long-term effects, they normalize a culture of instant gratification and
deemphasize the need for long-term perspective. If a leader strictly uses emotional arguments,
they imply that facts arent needed in politics. To be clear, emotional arguments arent always
detrimental to the creation of a more thoughtful public. However, exclusively appealing to
emotion naturally diverts the focus away from the thought part of a more thoughtful public.

To create and sustain a more thoughtful public, a leader must call for policy for
thoughtful reasons. They should primarily construct rational arguments and refrain from
fallacious logic. To ease the public into a long-term perspective, they can mention the long-term
benefits of a policy alongside the short-term benefits. To normalize ecological understanding,
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they can explain how their policy provides for the common good in addition to the good of the
individual.
Creating a more thoughtful public through information-seeking, policy and persuasion
takes care. A leader must be careful to encourage a more thoughtful public; at the same time,
they must be careful not to encourage a persuaded audience. With such rigorous requirements for
the maintenance of a more thoughtful public, its easy for things to fall apart.

Recovering a More Thoughtful Public

Beyond knowing how to create and sustain a more thoughtful public, a leader must know
how to respond when things go wrong. When their public falls apart, a leader must recover and
reconstitute a more thoughtful public.

We can imagine two causes for a thoughtful public falling apart: (1) there has been a
division between people, and they are now incapable of working together, and (2) the political
ecology has become more conducive to a persuaded audience. Either way, a leaders first step is
to honestly acknowledge the problem and why it has occurred. Although it is tempting to place
blame elsewhere, a leader must understand how their actions have caused or allowed their public
to fall apart. Otherwise, their mistakes will repeat themselves, and the leader will once again
have to reconstitute a more thoughtful public.

If there is no division between people, then a leaders task of recovering a more

thoughtful public becomes easier. For the most part, reversing a negative political climate will be
similar to creating a more thoughtful public. As long as a leader understands how to create a
more thoughtful public and understands how to avoid a similar incident in the future, they can
start rebuilding.
However, when a more thoughtful public reverts to a persuaded audience, it tends to
shake the peoples faith in the government. In this case, it may even push the people to stop
participating in politics altogether. In order to restore a more thoughtful public, a leader must
also restore the peoples faith in the government. Part of this means reconciling the people with
the government that has failed them.

Then, each process of recovery involves some kind of reconciliation: either between
people or between people and the government. As a result, a leader needs to understand how to
approach reconciliation in order to succeed in recovering a more thoughtful public.
To this end, a leader can turn to David Crockers objectives for reconciliation. Although
his ideas are adapted toward dealing with human rights violations, a leader can find a certain
degree of universality. Crocker stresses honest disclosure of facts, the need for victims to be
heard, holding responsible parties accountable, removing causes of past wrongdoing and
planning for long-term change. Clearly, it is not enough for a leader to apologize and move on; it
is up to the victims to decide when to forgive and what is needed for them to move on. In
approaching reconciliation, then, a good leader adapts their approach toward the publics
demands.

Conclusion

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 As we conclude, we come to understand the care and consideration with which a good
leader acts. From critical self-evaluation to judicious use of counsel to painstaking promotions of
a more thoughtful public, a good leader infuses their duties with a high level of thought. We may
list hundreds of other qualities we want in a leader. Certainly, people have. However, in the end,
we return to the notion that a good leader is a good thinker.

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