Lead with Wisdom: How Wisdom Transforms Good Leaders into Great Leaders

CONCLUSION

I began Lead with Wisdom by saying that leadership is a lot like laying bricks and that wisdom is the mortar. The mud. I began my working life as a labourer and spent a lot of that time mixing mud. When the bricklayers let me, I laid bricks. There’s a funny thing about a finished brick wall: it gives completely the wrong idea about how to lay bricks. A finished wall is trowelled clean. The mortar is flush with the bricks or pointed with that nice inward groove. Either way, it’s neat. But laying bricks isn’t neat. You can’t measure out mortar; you throw it on and clean up later. With some practice you can move fast and not waste much mud. All the same, you still have to use an excess of mortar every time so you can tamp the bricks down ...