Was Hitler a good leader?
I’ve heard this question over and over again during my career. Or variations thereof, all trying to explain the difference between the effect that a person can have on a group versus the use of the word ‘good’.
Spoiler alert: Hitler was not a good leader.
I can hear now the counter-arguments that this statement has provoked. If he wasn’t a good leader, then how did he influence so many people towards his goals? How could he sway the collective thoughts of an entire nation if he was such a bad leader?
This is the whole point to the question of what makes a good leader. It’s not just about their ability to influence a group. The word good has two meanings: it can mean effective at achieving an outcome or it can mean the opposite of bad. When it comes to being a good leader though, we need it to mean both.
Hitler was effective at influence. He was the recognised holder of a position of power within an organised group. By these narrow strictures then, he was a ‘good leader.’ But – and it’s a huge ‘but’ here – he was an evil, evil person. He remains the archetypical personification of evil for almost everyone alive, reviled as few have ever been before. Influential, yes. But a good leader? No.
For a leader to be good, they must not just be effective at influence, they need also to be decent human beings. It’s important that we think this way, because words define our thoughts, and if we allow ourselves to call evil people good leaders, we mentally allow the shortcut of decreasing the disgust we should hold for those who use power and influence for unethical ends, or in unethical ways.
Our brains are lazy. Given the option between thinking hard or applying a quick heuristic – a mental shortcut - our neurons take the shortcut every time. When we associate evil people with being good leaders, we let our brains take the easy leap from good leader to good person. Rather than really thinking through what we’re actually saying – a thoroughly evil person had some redeeming features – we let it slide because it’s easier than actually kicking up the processing power. And, in doing so, we gradually let fade the horror we should feel at the thought that someone might ever be in a position again to influence so many people towards evil ends.
What makes a good leader then? A decent person who acts in a manner that seeks to influence a group towards decent ends in a decent way. I use the word decent deliberately, rather than the word good. Good is too abstract, too easy to drop into the semantics and undercut. Decent on the other hand, implies someone who makes mistakes, but gets it right more often than not. Who tries to steer the ship according to some principles that not everyone will agree with, but that a reasonably objective observer would agree are justifiable.
We should stop asking what makes a good leader. If the person motivating, influencing, directing a group is decent, if they aim to achieve ends that are generally agreed as being worthwhile, and they do so in a manner that can be agreed does not seek to exploit their followers, then they are a leader. If they are doing so in a manner that seeks to achieve immoral ends, or using ways that a reasonable person could not justify as being decent, then let’s not call them leaders at all. Let’s change the language we use for these people, and take the power away from the position they hold. We see this in other areas of life; king hits are now called coward punches, terrorists are called extremists, and so forth. We know that words have power; let’s apply that to our leaders.
So, Hitler wasn’t a good leader. He was a bastard with influence. Pol Pot? He was a bastard with influence. There are hundreds of examples of these bastards throughout history. Some of them weren’t men, but regardless of gender, they were true bastards. I’d argue that there are plenty of examples of bastards with influence right now across the world; using people as pawns in their power games, seeking only to advance their own agendas, and shaping others to believe in them despite caring nothing for the group or its members.
A leader is someone who is a part of the group, not only by virtue of position, but by having internalised the group’s norms and working to uphold those as they guide and influence the group towards ends, and through the use of ways, that will ultimately benefit the group without causing undue harm to others as a result. We don’t need to say they are ‘good’; we can train our brains to associate the word leader with a concept of doing good, and let it stay lazy.
Only decent humans can hope to be good leaders. Others may influence a group, but they aren’t leaders, just bastards with some form of influence. Leaders are necessarily acting in a manner that puts others on a footing equal with their own, something bastards with power never do. We teach our kids from an early age that sharing is good, selfishness is bad; so too with influence and power. Decent people will share their power and influence, while bastards will always hold it closely and never share.
Hitler was not a good leader. He wasn’t a leader at all. He might have had followers, but that alone is a poor measurement of leadership. In any language, by any measure, Hitler was a bastard. Let’s use the words we have to shape the world we desire, and don’t associate the bastards we sometimes see in power with the decent humans that we call leaders.
If you like this post, please consider contributing to the Collective Wisdom page. It’s free and will help us - and a future leader - immensely. Thank you, we appreciate what you do.