One Apple A Day #1085
A few days ago, I was reading about "wise compassionate leadership", a leadership that "balances concern for their people with the need to move their organizations forward in an efficient, productive manner."
I always pictured a "wise" person as someone old, who had many experiences and learned a lot about themself and about just everything.
The authors of the article define wisdom in terms of "leadership competence, a deep understanding of what motivates people and how to manage them to deliver on agreed priorities."
So, it looks like wisdom is somehow related to what we know and the competencies that we acquired or developed. But, is it?
The word "wise" has its root in the Proto-Indo-European word "weid", meaning to see. I like to think about wisdom as a quality of our sight. It is the ability to see better, with more clarity, depth and breadth.
Indeed, to develop this ability, we must expand our knowledge, make experiences and reflect on them. But most of all, to see better, we need to clear our vision field. We need to subtract anything that clouds and restricts our ability to see. Those obstacles usually take the form of beliefs, biases and conditioning. Most of which we are utterly unaware of.
Becoming wise is a lifelong practice of subtraction.
P.S. when I was looking for an image to open this apple, I searched for the word "wisdom", and most results were photos of books. I choose this owl because I love the power in those eyes.