# Leadership and Ancient Analyses By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2022-10-28 The more you actively observe, the more you learn. Listening, watching, and quiet contemplation are undervalued in organizations. Good leadership is believed to be quick to respond, has all the answers, and has strong opinions on everything. When leaders don't act this way, people within these organizations often view them as weak. It's about the action and not about the progress. Many poor decisions and conclusions are made quickly. Humans have many cognitive biases, and doing things quickly triggers most of them. I suspect one such bias is expecting the leader to have all the answers and behave as an extrovert. The childhood playground and the boardroom aren't that different in this regard. However, there are many stories passed down through human history that expound upon a different truth. Slow and steady wins the race, don't fly too close to the sun, and service over self are just a few examples. These stories developed over the entire course of humanity for a reason. Someone didn't just tweet it out to billions of people and it went viral by accident because it was a slow news day. Core truths exist in our myths and stories. They represent the most thorough and complete analytics studies ever conducted. If you believe in thinking and analysis, their conclusions should be studied and put into practice. It's easy to think of them as ancient history, but our brains and our behaviors haven't changed much since the origin of these stories. Understanding this shines new light on issues of organizational leadership, decisions, and politics, as well as the human condition. #### Related Items [[Analytics]] [[Leadership]] [[Organizational Analytics]] [[The Human Condition]] [[Politics]] [[Decision-making]]