The Better Leader Newsletter (Words of Wisdom Explained)

Tim Keller once defined wisdom “as competence with regards to the realities of life.”

I wrote the article “Words of Wisdom for My Sons” out of a desire to give my boys useful perspectives for seeing and experiencing the world. Surprising to me, this has been both the most read and most shared article on my website this year.

I’ve received quite a few comments and form submissions about the article, many of which ask for deeper explanations of particular sayings.

I believe many of them apply not only to life in general but also to leadership in particular, so today, I’m pulling out 5 for you to offer more color and commentary.

1. Learn to write well. It is the accelerant to thinking and communicating clearly.

It is shocking to me how many leaders spend so little time writing. If the first time you write it is the first time you’ve brought the thought into reality, you are likely trying to convince yourself of what you are saying rather than trying to convince your readers of what they are hearing. You are almost guaranteed to lose them in translation.

Spend time writing. Journal often. “Thoughts disentangle themselves when they pass from the lips to the fingertips.”

2. It’s simple until you make it complicated. Don’t make things complicated.

Great leaders are great simplifiers. They spend enormous amounts of energy on getting the fewest amount of details right and eliminating the rest.

What have you eliminated recently?

3. You can’t solve a problem you don’t understand. Seek to understand, then to solve.

Listening is a superpower. How many times do you find yourself musing on your response while the other party is talking? How many times do you find yourself ahead of the game with the answer before deeply understanding the problem?

Once you understand the problem, you can take it a step further. Feel the pain of the problem. If you understand it AND feel the pain of it, you’ll come up with a great solution for it.

4. Never confuse the nobility of a cause with the goodness or wisdom of its decisions.

Just because something seems right doesn’t mean the decision to make it so is smart. Right thing AND right way cannot be separated.

5. Gratitude affects attitude.

As the leader goes, so go the people. Gratitude is contagious, and it is a positive condition you want your people to catch. Practice it in private and public. You will be shocked at the results.

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Where do you need to grow in wisdom to become a better leader? Or what have you learned about applying wisdom to leadership?

To better leaders,
Thomas