During the last 15 years [perhaps, triggered by Stephen R. Covey?] much advice from the leadership experts/gurus is in the zone of altruism, often described as touchy/feely.

The more I think about this trend of touchy/feely/altruistic advice the more I think it is missing the mark. Sure, advice recommending compassion/kindness/empathy/righteousness and greater-causes-than-self contains some value. I am not questioning that fact. I am questioning (1) the merit tied to that being the lion’s share of the advice and (2) whether or not that even half-fits “Western Culture” human beings who do business for a living. 

For example, Simon Sinek recently wrote: 

“Anyone could be a leader if there was no cost. True leaders willingly pay a price, to sacrifice self-interest, to have the honor to lead.”

Simon is writing about sacrificing self-interest…and teaching that sacrificing self-interest is a good thing for leaders to do. 

I think human beings are pre-disposed to attend to and to serve their self-interests. That’s not a bad thing. It’s a good thing. First, serving self-interest keeps us alive. We need food, shelter, etc. and sooner or later we must serve these basic self-interests or we die. 

One question I’m asking: When do self-interests become problems that require a sacrifice-fix? As we work our way through Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs’…do self-interests become problems after they go beyond Safety and Security…say, when they become ‘Self-actualisation’ interests? Are people like Simon Sinek [and other self-help gurus] trying to tell us self-actualisation is a bad thing? 

If so, I think the gurus are ahead of their time. They are sending messages to “Humans 1.0” that will not fit until many of us evolve into “Humans 2.0”…maybe not even until we evolve into “Humans 3.0”.

Putting it another way – we [Humans 1.0] are predisposed to serving our basic self-interests, including safety needs and security needs, and we are also predisposed to serve our higher-interests, including self-actualisation. When gurus tell us we should sacrifice these self-interests they are speaking in a language that will not make sense to us until we evolve into Humans 2.0 [or, perhaps, Humans 3.0].

PS: Bakespeare asked me to add, “It’s a flawed leap of logic that feels true leaders sacrifice self-interest and false leaders do not. Never, in the history of Mankind, has a leader succeeded by not serving self-interests.”

PPS: My suggestions about Gandhi swayed Bakespeare just a tiny bit…he agreed people like Gandhi and Mother Theresa exemplify altruism…if they were alive today maybe they would support the self-sacrifice arguments presented by the business-leadership gurus. On the other hand, if they were alive today they probably would not be running businesses. We ought not to compare business leaders with people like Gandhi and Mother Theresa.