Ain’t no use jiving, ain’t no use joking
Everything is broken
Bob Dylan
Our flaws and imperfections crisscross and penetrate deep into our very being. It’s as true of me as it is of you. The presence of flaws doesn’t mean we are defective. It’s just the way of the world, part of being a being. Meanwhile our society obsesses over achieving a perfection that never will be. We wish away our faults through brute-force denial. But what if instead of relentlessly striving for perfection, we strived for constant improvement, not by dismissing or concealing our flaws, but by looking to them for the lessons and wisdom they reveal within?
In his soulful song “Anthem,” Leonard Cohen sings of the opportunity for wisdom that imperfection offers us:
There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in
Instead of hiding these imperfections or hiding from them, Cohen offers a different course. The lyrics describe a wounded world where everything—good, bad, or banal—is fleeting. War, love, and even governments are ever coming and going like the day itself.
The holy dove, she will be caught again Bought and sold, and bought again The dove is never free
We, like the dove, endure this fleeting, shifting existence, never free. Except in our minds. Cohen urges that we recognize our flawed reality and that the flaws themselves—the cracks—are the entries to enlightenment. After all, what is a crack but an opening, and what is an opening but a portal?
“Anthem” is a hopelessly optimistic song. By that I mean, Cohen is grasping for optimism, knowing that optimism is our last hope. The song itself, therefore, is flawed, and beautifully so. The cracks within it allow us to peer inside Cohen’s message to find what we need for ourselves.
Cracks and the Leader
So, perhaps you are wondering what an analysis of Leonard Cohen lyrics is doing in a discussion of leadership.
Cohen’s cracked optimism is the very stuff of leadership. Great leaders eschew the pursuit of perfection in favor of consistency and enlightenment. They’re savvy enough to understand that the very cracks we encounter can guide us to improvement. In “Anthem,” Cohen even warns us against perfectionism: “Forget your perfect offering.”
Let’s shift to another artist in another time and place. The German playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht’s poem “The Fine Fork” starts,
When the fork with the fine horn handle broke The thought went through my head that, deep inside It must always have had a flaw.
Brecht too understands that everything is flawed, and sometimes those flaws are buried deep beneath beauty or even seeming perfection. In fact, that beauty can conceal the fault lines within even the most pristine of objects. Take Michelangelo’s David, a paragon of realism carved from a single massive block of marble. As beautiful and exquisite a masterpiece that perhaps ever was, it hides its imperfection within—some fracture, some weak point that, given enough and the right kind of pressure, would yield, cleaving the statue to pieces. To claim otherwise is absurd. Every block of marble, like every horn-handled fork, no matter how beautifully refashioned or revered, has its cracks; internally or externally, they are there.
As for the wise leader, they gaze at the fork, at the David, and—admiring the beauty—acknowledge their imperfections. This acknowledgement does nothing, however, to diminish their loveliness. In fact, It enhances it. For the wise leader, the very cracks are an opportunity to discover, learn, and improve.
The Harder They Crack
If you are a manager or executive, perhaps you are greeting my fork analogies and Renaissance art references with a healthy eye-roll. Fine, just substitute these objects of beauty with your own organization, your systems, your strategies, your team dynamics, your outcomes, or your very ambitions. They, too, beautiful as they may seem, all harbor cracks. And what about success? Yep, it’s not perfect either.
Cohen was really onto something. Without those cracks, depths remain concealed in darkness, never to disclose their truths. Our perceptions will be ever superficial and speculative unless the flaws open themselves to light, revealing what lies close to the core.
Let me offer this anecdote. Years ago, I was sharing a success story of my then-university with a fellow dean from another institution. At my school, we were doing really well with students who were demographically most at risk of dropping out, but there was a catch—we had no idea why.
His response flummoxed me: “Why does it matter?”
Why?
Because success is never forever. How could we maintain or replicate it without us understanding its roots and, therefore, its flaws? This analysis goes for ourselves, too. Our faults open us to enlightenment. Our imperfections lead us to lessons we could never reach otherwise. That’s how we progress.
And while we’re speaking of faults, let’s address those who proudly flaunt their imperfections while eschewing change and self-improvement by loudly proclaiming, “This is just who I am.” In their narcissism they expect others to deal with and adapt to their foibles. That stance irks me, all the more so when those craven sentiments squeak out of a boss. Such a position is antithetical to the growth and enlightenment that leaders seek and embrace.
There is another lyric I want to introduce. This one is from the Bob Dylan song “Million Dollar Bash”:
The louder they come
The harder they crackDylan evokes the image of the boisterous boaster, ranting and raging. Reggae master Jimmy Cliff penned a classic song with a similar sentiment:
And then the harder they come The harder they fall, one and all
The idea here is that a fall is inevitable and all the more pronounced when it comes to those who bluster and bully, like the proverbial big boss man. Dylan and Cliff want you to know that that paragon of self-assured control you work with is rife with insecurities and overcompensation.
In contrast to bumptious bosses, who tend to mask and deny their imperfections, leaders expose and explore them. Leaders address faults, theirs and others’, with humility and empathy. They understand that those cracks, troubling as they are, do not mark us as broken. They are the normal byproduct of existence and serve as conduits for enlightenment.
Leadership isn’t about glossing over flaws or fretting about them; it’s about letting the light in through those cracks, uncovering the deeper truths that guide us toward growth.
And that is how the best leaders illuminate their path forward.
How do you respond to imperfection? How open are you to the opportunities for enlightenment faults offer?
Great leaders master the skill of embracing and learning from both mistakes and flaws, and I can help.
If you want to excel as a great leader in this world of bad bosses, visit GuidanceForGreatness.com.
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