When do leaders matter? Lessons from Jared Diamond

Do leaders shape history, or would events have unfolded the same way without them? Biologist and author Jared Diamond tackles that question in his book on leadership, a study of political, business, sports and religious leaders. In a conversation on the Huberman Lab podcast, he explains why the answer is almost always "it depends", and why the common belief that great leaders must be charismatic is, in his words, nonsense.

There is no single leadership personality

People constantly look for personality generalizations about leaders. The most common one is that a leader has to be charismatic. Some are, but Stalin and Augusto Pinochet were not. Diamond counts about 37 ways to be an effective leader, and charisma is only one of them. There are generalizations about leaders, but they are not personality generalizations.

Hitler and the problem of proof

Diamond grew up in the shadow of World War II, and part of his family was lost in the Holocaust. He starts with two near misses. In 1930 a truck almost crushed Hitler's car. In 1944 a bomb under the conference table killed four people but left Hitler alive because he leaned forward at the last second. Would the war and the Holocaust have happened without him?

Historians disagree even with the same facts. Most conclude Hitler made a difference: the most charismatic orator of the century, an anti-Semite who alone thought of killing on an industrial scale, and a brilliant deceiver of politicians, generals and business leaders. But the historian A. J. P. Taylor used the same facts to call him a normal German politician. That weakness of the biographical method is why Diamond uses natural experiments instead.

The most unlikely leaders

Harry Truman was a mediocre senator chosen as vice president for trivial reasons, never briefed by Roosevelt and unaware of the atomic bomb. He then made courageous, unpopular decisions: the Berlin Airlift, the hydrogen bomb, the Korean War and the firing of General MacArthur. He left office widely disliked, and history has been kinder.

Why leaders rarely step down

Diamond compared 22 outstanding political leaders since World War II. Only two stepped down voluntarily: Nelson Mandela and Lee Kuan Yew. The rest were assassinated, took their own lives, were voted out or were removed by coups. Once someone becomes a powerful leader and believes in their own effectiveness, they rarely leave.

Religion: founder, organizer and general

He looks at Joseph Smith, Ann Lee and Jim Jones, then at Jesus. Jesus was one of seven messiahs named in the New Testament, but the right message, a universal one, plus the right place, the Western Roman Empire, and the right organizer, St. Paul, turned a movement into a world religion. Diamond sees a pattern: a charismatic founder, an organizer and, when attacked, a general. Joseph Smith had Brigham Young. Muhammad and the Mahdi of the Sudan combined all three roles.

Followers matter too. Jim Jones could not have led without people disposed to follow, often poor, older and less educated, yet he also desegregated Indianapolis. Even Hitler never won a majority in a free election.

Sports, business and the role of chance

Business school researchers study sports because results are public and frequent. Analysis of variance shows that roughly 15 to 30 percent of sports success is due to the coach, around 30 percent to the players and around 30 percent to the institution. For companies, the CEO also explains about 30 percent, while the company and its industry explain much of the rest.

This explains why firing a coach or CEO after a bad year often works: roughly 70 percent of the variance is random. Throw dice, get a one, fire the thrower, and the next thrower will likely do better. UCLA is now deep in debt largely from buying out coaching contracts after John Wooden.

Wooden remains the exception. He mastered detail, down to the socks his players wore, and trained groups of seven. Above all he treated basketball as a philosophy of life, and that cannot be faked. Diamond admires Patagonia's founder for the same reason, and credits Steve Jobs with cutting Apple from 100 products to four.

Power also matters. Prime ministers make more difference than governors, and governors more than mayors. Dictators matter more than democratic leaders, and democratic leaders matter more in wartime.

Lessons from Diamond's own life

Diamond credits a physiology chairman who forgave a flooded lab and a dean who funded his bird research. He keeps lists, speaks 13 languages and, at 89, plans how to use his remaining time. His advice: do what you enjoy, what you are good at and what is good for the world, and ignore people who tell you to iron your shirts.

Conclusion

Leaders matter most when circumstances, power and the right person line up. Look beyond charisma, and ask about followers, organizers, institutions and luck.