# coreleader: the core task of a leader is to approve plans (2/6)

most organizations, governments have leadership. what is the role of this entity? i think in general that would be to ensure the organization remains healthy and long living. i understand it's a complex role but i believe "approving plans" could be a somewhat appropriate description of the core task of a leader.

note that i'll use "leader" and "leadership" interchangeably. for now i'll think of it as a single person to make the discussion simpler.

this leader will participate in many meetings where various people discuss various problems. people then propose various plans to address the problems. the task of the leader is to analyze all the proposals and simply approve a plan by signing some piece of important paper. and if it's a somewhat controversial decision, he needs to carefully explain the rationale behind the approval.

notice that this definition doesn't require wide expertise from the leader. the leader doesn't have to be an expert in all fields known to mankind. he just needs to make sure he does decisionmaking in a good way. for instance he might never approve big sudden sweeping changes such as "eliminate all x" or "give free y for everyone". he might reject such proposals in favor smaller scope, gradually rolled out approaches to achieving the same goals. such approach will be much cheaper, problems encountered will be cheaper to fix, and doesn't make everyone angry at the same time. basically a good leader must be good in change-making rather than being the navigator himself.

# power

what gives this leader this power? why will people follow his approval? it's because the leader wields indirect physical power.

a company's boss might have power to simply fire non-compliant employees. a government's president might have the power to request military or police action.

in aggregate people respect such power. behaving differently to the well trodden path is ridden with risk and uncertainty. at the end of the day most people just want a relaxing evening at home so they won't rock the boat too much. therefore it's natural that the currently accepted norms have a big traction.

i don't think power in this sense is necessarily evil. it's actually quite efficient. it allows me to predict what will happen for certain actions. i know if i go up to a person to ask time, i won't be violently assaulted or insulted. the government and company take care of such bad elements so that i can better focus on my life and work.

# abuse

but if a leader has such power, how do we prevent abuse of power? such a leader could make decisions that favors only himself and leaves everyone else in a bad place. i think there are two general solutions to this problem:

• accountability: bad decisions have consequences so a leader is disincentivized from doing bad things.
• dilution: you don't have a single leader but rather a group of people. at it's extreme: direct democracy where everyone is a part-time leader assuming the above definition.

i don't think accountability is enough on its own. a leader can be very often skillful in avoiding accountability. i'd rather focus on dilution.

however i don't think large dilution works when it comes to enforcement. suppose a company leader wants to fire a person or a government wants to take military action. there's innumerate sensitive details that need to be discussed. that cannot be done in the open without creating a lot of damage to trust and goodwill when people play the devil's advocate. i do believe that there are topics better discussed behind closed doors amoung few key people. in the end often a small number of people need to make large-impact decisions.

besides, large dilution is also ineffective. individuals cannot be involved in all the nitty-gritty details of all decisions. it would be hard for them to focus on their own life and work. a lot of people don't really care about the details, they just want to trust that decisions are made in a sound way. or at least that's the case for me. it's like babysitting: i don't really care how exactly the babysitter works as long as i know my baby is properly handled and remains happy. all i need to do is to pick the right babysitter. i don't want to stay at home and hold her hand telling her how to do babysitting.

i think a small scale dilution of leadership should be enough to avoid most of the bad effects of both a single bad leader and of large dilution.

but then who is the leader working for and how do we align the interests between them and the leaders? i'll tackle that in @/corerepr.

published on 2022-10-02

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