The Dearth of Statesmanship* and the Attributes We Seek

In his book Leadership, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger identified two key attributes of global leaders: courage and character.

He wrote that they were “vital” and that they served as: 

…the bridge between the past and the future [...] [the] courage to choose a direction among complex and difficult options, and which requires the willingness to transcend the routine; and strength of character to sustain a course of action whose benefits and whose dangers can be only incompletely glimpsed at the moment of choice. Courage summons virtue in the moment of decision; character reinforces fidelity to values of an extended period.

The Wall Street Journal review of the book praised Kissinger for calling out a vacuum in today’s leadership — especially that there is a “dearth of statesmen that has left the world misruled by populists and technocrats.”

It struck me, while I read Kissinger’s book while researching my own, that this same “dearth of statesmanship” applies to today’s business leaders as much as it does to political leaders. 

Both groups require character to figure out the right thing to do in tough times, and courage to act on those values.

After I finished the book, I shared my concern about this void in leadership with a colleague.

Why did so few of today’s business leaders embody the traits of courage and character, as captured by Kissinger? 

We spoke about leaders in the past who modeled these behaviors, and she suggested that my students and the companies with which I work would benefit from a checklist of the attributes of a statesman. 

I came up with six.

The Attributes of Statesmanship

Statesmanship may sound old-fashioned, but it’s an essential trait for a Systems Leader to hone.

Those of us with a few decades in the commercial world under our belts have usually encountered at least one senior leader who made everyone sit up straight and speak more eloquently, just by the way they would enter a room. 

Statesmen still care about their self-interest and ambitions, of course, but never at the expense of their organization’s higher purpose. 

The six attributes I came up with are:

1. Gravitas of personality and purpose.

2. Intelligence and wisdom about the seriousness of the times.

3. Dependability in volatile situations.

4. Moral guidance based on principles and actions, without hectoring and condescension.

5. Driving change beyond self-interest.

6. Always showing up when needed — on-time and ready to engage.

Statesmanship is also a good way to describe the opposite of the proposed Musk-Zuckerberg cage match. Those two famous and powerful CEOs didn’t display any gravitas of personality or purpose, or wisdom about the seriousness of their times. The collision of their ambitions and vulnerabilities caused them to lean into volatile situations rather than countering volatility with dependability. They showed little moral guidance, but plenty of hectoring and condescension. And forget about driving change beyond their self-interest — those taunts and counter-taunts were entirely about their self-interest and ego gratification.

In contrast, Systems Leaders who’ve mastered the cross-pressure of statesmanship and ambition focus on preserving and improving their organizations for the long-run, rather than being overwhelmed by short-term problems. They embrace change and progress while ensuring that the fundamental essence of their cultures endure. They don’t get thrown off course by chasing the next shiny object that crosses their line of vision.

At the same time, however, Systems Leaders temper their vision for change with wariness about realistic limits — about the ways in which an organization can change without losing its core purpose. This duality — between aggressiveness and temperance, change and stability, personal ambition and selfless contribution — can make the quality of statesmanship somewhat hard to pin down. So, it often is easier to grasp the advantages of by looking at counterexamples who behave in the opposite way.

*The words statesman and statesmanship are intended to describe people of any gender or sex, and are used solely for the purpose of simplicity and to avoid the awkwardness of writing “statesman or stateswoman” over and over.

About The Systems Leader:

A groundbreaking blueprint for mastering “cross-pressures” in a rapidly changing world, teaching leaders to execute and innovate, think locally and globally, and project ambition and statesmanship alike—from a Stanford Graduate School of Business lecturer and consultant to some of the biggest and most innovative CEOs.

Actionable and powerful, The Systems Leader is a playbook for riding turbulent waves instead of drowning in them—and for taking readers from chaos to clarity.

About Robert:

Robert Siegel is a Lecturer in Management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a venture investor, and an operator.

At the Stanford Graduate School of Business he has taught nine different courses, authored over 115 business cases, and led research on companies including Google, Charles Schwab, Daimler, AB InBev, Box, Stripe, Target, AngelList, 23andMe, Majid Al Futtaim, Tableau, PayPal, Medium, Autodesk, Minted, Axel Springer and Michelin, amongst others.

Robert is a Venture Partner at Piva and a General Partner at XSeed Capital. He sits on the Board of Directors of Avochato and FindMine, and led investments in Zooz (acquired by PayU of Naspers), Hive, Lex Machina (acquired by LexisNexis of RELX Group ), CirroSecure (acquired by Palo Alto Networks), Nova Credit, The League (acquired by Match Group), Teapot (acquired by Stripe), Pixlee (acquired by Emplifi), and SIPX (acquired by ProQuest).

He is the author of The Systems Leader: Mastering the Cross-Pressures That Make or Break Today's Companies, and The Brains and Brawn Company: How Leading Organizations Blend the Best of Digital and Physical.

He is the co-inventor of four patents and served as lead researcher for Andy Grove’s best-selling book, Only the Paranoid Survive.

Robert holds a BA from UC Berkeley and an MBA from Stanford University. He is married with three grown children.