Introduction
In our previous article, we delved into the myth of Troy, unravelling the themes of vigilance and wilful blindness and their implications for modern leadership. Employing the lens of neuroscience, we dissected how the distinct functions of the left and right cerebral hemispheres shape perception and decision-making. We concluded that organisations have a prevailing bias to overly rely on the left hemisphere's attributes: analytical thinking, simplification, and mechanistic problem-solving. While these traits are crucial for organisational success, excessive reliance on them ensnares leaders within a simplistic strategic framework. This reductionist approach not only obscures the complex dynamics and interconnected systems essential for navigating today's volatile business environment but also accelerates organisational entropy, undermining the agility and innovation necessary to respond to market shifts and sustain long-term growth.
As we continue our exploration of leadership insights from myth and legend, this article highlights the right hemisphere's crucial role in fostering a holistic, contextualised understanding and nuanced interpretation. Birds, recurring symbols in these narratives, epitomise the bridge between the celestial and the terrestrial realms. Their ability to soar high above the ground and survey the expansive landscape grants them a unique perspective, embodying foresight and vigilance. Intriguingly, these creatures often play pivotal, albeit subtle, roles within myths, acting as harbingers of change, divine messengers and guardians of secrets.
For instance, Celtic mythology portrays ravens as heralds of prophecy, transformation, and insight, frequently associated with the deity Morrigan, who predicts the outcomes of battles. Similarly, in Norse mythology, eagles perched atop Yggdrasil, the World Tree, are tasked with gathering critical information across different realms. Similarly, in Greek mythology, Zeus' eagle functions as his envoy, embodying divine authority and carrying his messages between heaven and earth.
The leadership lesson is straightforward: adopting right-brain thinking patterns is crucial to navigating complex markets effectively. This requires maintaining an elevated perspective that integrates an organisation's internal dynamics and the broader commercial landscape. However, through the tales of Argus Panoptes, the giant guardian, the mythology of the great flood, and Odin's ravens, amongst others, this article charts a more nuanced and compelling course for leaders who aspire to cultivate a sophisticated thinking pattern that avoids the pitfalls of over-reliance on one mode of thinking. By harmonising the strengths of both hemispheres, leaders can foster more effective analysis, cognition, and strategic planning — ensuring adaptation and competitive advantage in an ever-evolving marketplace.
Sentinels in Myth
Let's explore vigilance through the lens of mythology, drawing lessons from two famous sentinels: Heimdallr and Argus Panoptes. These Norse and Greek mythology figures embody the quintessential nature of vigilance, offering rich insights into its critical role in contemporary leadership.
Heimdallr, the gods' watchman, stands guard at Bifrost, the rainbow bridge which connects the realm of the gods with the human world. Endowed with extraordinary senses, Heimdallr could hear the wool growing on sheep and see for hundreds of kilometres, day or night. His abilities illustrate the integration of the cerebral hemispheres' functions: his detailed awareness, associated with the left hemisphere's focus, combines seamlessly with the right hemisphere's capacity for broad, vigilant scanning of the horizon. This integration allowed Heimdallr to build a rich contextual picture and make informed decisions based on all available information. His legendary capabilities highlight the importance of leaders being fully attuned to their environment and utilising every piece of data, no matter how seemingly insignificant, to foresee potential issues and opportunities.
Greek mythology offers us further insight through the notable story of Zeus, Io and Hera. Io was the daughter of the river god Inachus, king of Argos and a priestess in the temple of Hera. Renowned for her beauty, Io caught the attention of Zeus, the chief of the gods, who was well known for his philandering and fell deeply in love.
According to Ovid's account, Io resisted Zeus' numerous advances until he could not contain his lust. Zeus enveloped himself in a dark cloud and raped Io. Hera, Zeus' wife and the goddess of fidelity, ever astute, became suspicious of the dark cloud on an otherwise clear and sunny day and descended from Mount Olympus to investigate further.
Sensing Hera's approach, Zeus transforms Io into a beautiful white heifer to disguise her. Hera, not fooled by Zeus' deceit, praised the cow's beauty and asked Zeus to give it to her as a gift. Trapped by his ruse – having no plausible reason to refuse and not wanting to arouse further suspicion, Zeus reluctantly handed Io over.
To ensure that Zeus could not reunite with Io, Hera appointed Argus Panoptes, a giant endowed with a hundred eyes, to guard the heifer. His ability to keep some eyes open whilst others slept made him a formidable sentinel, keeping Io firmly in Hera's grasp.
Each day, Argus would drive Io to pasture to graze and, at night, tie her by the neck to an olive tree, thwarting any attempt to escape. Zeus, tormented by his guilt and still enamoured with Io, ordered Hermes to free her. Assuming the guise of a goatherd, Hermes played mesmerising tunes on his pipes. Captivated, Argus invited Hermes to join him in the shade, where Hermes continued to play in an attempt to put all hundred of Argus' eyes to sleep. This task proved impossible as whilst some eyes slept, others remained open and vigilant. Eventually, Hermes changed tack and recounted a beguiling story, which, by the time his tale was told, had put all of Argus' eyes to rest. Hermes, seizing his chance, drew his sword, cut off the giant's head, and liberated Io.
Despite her freedom from Argus' oppression, Io’s trials continued. In her vindictiveness, Hera sent a gadfly to incessantly pursue and bite Io, driving the heifer far and wide. On Mount Caucasus, Io encountered Prometheus, who prophesied a happier future. After many arduous years, Io settled in Egypt, where Zeus restored her humanity. She bore Zeus two children before marrying the Pharaoh, intertwining Greek and Egyptian dynasties.
In a poignant tribute to Argus, Hera adorned the peacock's tail with his hundred eyes, immortalising his vigilance and underscoring its perpetual significance.
The Eternal Watch
The narratives of Heimdallr and Argus Panoptes in mythology provide essential insights into the essence of vigilance in leadership. Heimdallr's role as the gods' watchman emphasises the critical importance of comprehensive situational awareness – allowing leaders to pre-emptively identify shifts in market dynamics, emerging operational risks, and strategic vulnerabilities. Similarly, with his hundred vigilant eyes, the story of Argus serves as a metaphor for the depth and breadth of observation needed in modern leadership to ensure full attention is paid to every potential threat and no opportunity escapes notice.
Effective leadership requires a deep understanding of external market forces and internal organisational dynamics. This dual focus mirrors Argus's method of keeping some eyes open while others rested, sampling different elements of the environment, and ensuring continuous oversight. In this context, vigilance is supported by the right hemisphere's ability to synthesise information from diverse sources, enabling leaders to navigate effectively thorny strategic problems.
Importantly, mythology offers a stark warning about the limitations of vigilance through the tale of Argus and Hermes. Hermes's strategic ability to lull all of Argus's hundred eyes into sleep, one after the other, serves as a potent allegory for the dangers of failing to identify systemic risks and the potential for the cascading effects of risk contagion and catastrophe. The narrative parallels the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, where the failure to assess the contagion effects of subprime mortgage defaults led to the global financial crisis. Such historical and mythological examples emphasise the need for leaders to maintain comprehensive vigilance against systemic risks.
Furthermore, mythology highlights the perils of left hemisphere complacency. Recognising that even a vigilant approach like that of Argus has capacity issues and vulnerabilities points to the necessity for adaptive strategies that are robust enough to navigate an ever-changing landscape, as despite our best efforts, the seeds of chaos are always in the system, and some will materialise. So, whilst leaders' capacity is limited, they can foster a dynamic and responsive style that not only anticipates but effectively mitigates the vast majority of potential pitfalls, ensuring organisational resilience in the face of complex challenges.
Finally, Hermes's manoeuvring offers additional lessons for leadership. These include the value of adaptability, the efficacy of subtlety over confrontation, and the importance of exploiting strategic weaknesses. Although these insights are peripheral to our primary discussion, they highlight the power of effective strategy to overcome seemingly impossible commercial challenges.
Raven's Forecast
Flood myths pervade cultures worldwide as powerful allegories of survival, divine wrath, and human fortitude. Iconic tales such as Noah's Ark from the Bible and the Epic of Gilgamesh from Mesopotamia echo universal anxieties about catastrophe and renewal.
Here, we adopt the Haida and broader Native American archetypical flood stories. Raven is a pivotal figure in Haida mythology, celebrated for its sharp intelligence, cunning and transformative powers.
As the impending deluge drew near, Raven, finely attuned through its keen senses, observed subtle yet significant environmental shifts – clouds reshaping swiftly, air pressure dropping, and the distinct scent of rain intensified by rising static electricity. Recognising the signs of an imminent flood, Raven leapt into action, sounding the alarm throughout the forest. Employing its transformative abilities, it adopted forms familiar and reassuring to each creature: perhaps as a wolf, it rallied the forest canines with a commanding howl, or as a frog, it issued urgent croaks to the riverbank dwellers. Travelling far and wide, it gave warnings to all. Each transformation, marked by Raven's characteristic earnestness, highlighted the urgent danger, spurring every creature to quickly prepare and find safety from the looming storm.
Among the tribes of the Salish Sea, tales describe how people sought refuge in canoes, mooring them to mountain summits as the floodwaters relentlessly rose, engulfing farmlands, forests, and peaks, transforming the landscape into an endless watery expanse. This great flood purified the earth, spanning from one horizon to the other. After many seasons, the waters slowly started to recede. Raven, who brought twigs and leaves, revealed the first signs of new land. Disembarking from their canoes, the survivors faced the formidable challenge of reconstructing their world, reestablishing their communities, and preserving their traditions and ways of life.
Anticipating the Storm
The tale of Raven in Haida mythology vividly illustrates the importance of right hemisphere thinking – specifically, its adeptness in contextual understanding and intuition. Raven's keen senses allowed it to perceive subtle environmental shifts, from evolving cloud patterns to the distinct smell of rain, showcasing an intricate awareness that mirrors the right hemisphere's ability to synthesise diverse sensory inputs into a coherent understanding of imminent changes.
Drawing on the insights from earlier myths of Argus and Heimdallr, we recognise that successful leadership hinges on profound market knowledge and acute organisational awareness. Yet, the Haida's Raven story further deepens these insights by demonstrating that effective leadership transcends mere awareness of change. It requires a nuanced interpretation of these signals, leveraging the right brain's strength to grasp the broader contextual patterns and their implications. Such foresight is essential for strategic agility and resilience, enabling leaders to anticipate emerging risks and issues accurately.
Raven highlights the importance of acting on vigilance. Its preparation for the flood, driven by its interpretations of environmental signs, teaches the importance of preparing for the worst while hoping for the best. The myth highlights the requirement to listen to and trust one's inner voice and proactively ready oneself for potential crises. It underscores effective leaders' need to be tuned to their intuition and develop contingency plans that brace their teams for unforeseen challenges, ensuring the capacity to thrive amidst uncertainties.
The second lesson in action from vigilance comes from Raven's adaptive communication and persuasive abilities. By transforming its appearance to relay warnings across different species, Raven demonstrates the critical importance of tailoring communication strategies to meet the audience's needs. For leaders, adaptive communication ensures that vital messages are heard and acted upon with the urgency required. It reflects an advanced influencing skill set involving understanding and empathy towards various stakeholders, facilitating collective action.
Facing Forwards and Backwards
Vigilance is often misconstrued as a forward-looking endeavour, focusing only on anticipating and responding to emerging risks and opportunities. Yet, symbolism, such as that found in Roman mythology, emphasises the importance of a more comprehensive perspective that includes reflection and foresight.
Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, gates, transitions, and time, embodies this holistic view. Portrayed with two faces looking in opposite directions, Janus symbolises the simultaneous contemplation of past and future, reinforcing that understanding historical context and emerging trends is essential for effective leadership. This dual perspective underscores the importance of recognising patterns across time, suggesting that a deep, contextual understanding of events must integrate lessons from the past with the present's realities.
In Norse mythology, Odin's pursuit of wisdom highlights a similar blend of foresight and historical awareness. Renowned for his quest for knowledge, Odin sacrificed an eye for the privilege of drinking from Mimir's well of wisdom, emphasising his commitment to understanding the cosmos and preparing for Ragnarok. His daily consultations with his ravens, Huginn and Muninn – representing thought and memory – further illustrate the need to balance current intelligence with historical insight. Each day, these ravens circled the globe, gathering news from across the realms, ensuring Odin remained informed by both immediate happenings and the lessons of history.
Odin's greater reliance on Muninn underscores his preference for memory over thought. For modern leaders, this reinforces the need to build insights from near-term and long-term history to inform the complete contextual picture of the problem space. This highlights the right hemisphere's capacity for depth and reflection, outweighing the left hemisphere's tendency toward immediate, reactive thought. By valuing historical insights, leaders can better anticipate challenges and opportunities, enhancing their decision-making with a more rounded, informed perspective.
History is replete with replayed mistakes. Memory is vital for avoiding past failures by recognising echoes of the past and reoccurring signs of impending issues, as evidenced by repeated economic failures like the Dutch Tulip Mania and the Dot-com Bubble. These events mimic the fall of great civilisations, such as the Roman Empire, which succumbed to internal weaknesses exacerbated by neglecting past lessons, emphasising how historical insight can prevent similar downfalls in contemporary settings.
The legends of Odin and Janus enrich our understanding of vigilance, teaching us that while forward-thinking is essential, the wisdom gleaned from the past is, at least, equally crucial. Integrating past and present insights equips leaders to navigate the complexities of the modern world effectively, crafting innovative strategies that respect tradition and are deeply rooted in the invaluable lessons of recent and distant history.
Thinking Slowly with Socrates
As we deepen our exploration of effective leadership strategies, enriched by insights from neuroscience and mythology, the critical role of fully engaging the right hemisphere becomes increasingly evident. While several methodologies, such as Theory U, the Focused Conversation Method, and Integrative Thinking, enhance this activation, our focus here is mainly on dialogue. Rooted in the Socratic tradition, dialogue emphasises reflective thinking, deep listening, and integrating diverse perspectives – key elements central to these other approaches. By promoting slower, more contemplative thinking, dialogue fosters the richer, more holistic understanding essential for right-brain engagement.
Building on the foundational role of dialogue in effective leadership, the Socratic method is an example of how structured discussion supports comprehensive cognitive processing and right-brain engagement. This method, developed by the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, is based on structured questioning that encourages participants to think critically and expansively, exploring complex ideas through thoughtful inquiry rather than fast-paced debate.
The Socratic method supports slow, right-hemisphere thinking by emphasising the importance of reflection and introspection. It challenges assumptions and further explores underlying beliefs crucial for generating new insights and solutions. By focusing on open-ended questions, this method allows leaders to uncover nuances and subtleties in issues that might otherwise be overlooked by the left hemisphere's desire for speed and simplification.
John Vervaeke, a cognitive psychologist, contrasts two types of dialogues: competitive dialogue (Nike), which prioritises winning arguments, and cooperative dialogue (Sophia), which aims to build understanding and insight. Western leaders are too reliant on competitive dialogue and suffer the pitfalls, i.e. they engage the left hemisphere's linear, analytical processing, which closes down debate and is restrictive. In contrast, cooperative dialogue releases the wisdom in the room, tapping into the right hemisphere's capacity for integration and synthesis of diverse perspectives. It allows space to capitalise on potential, leading to innovation and robust decision-making.
There are a myriad of leadership mindset and business culture issues at play here. To release right hemisphere capacity, dialogue has to be fundamentally cooperative in an atmosphere where trust and psychological safety are high. The approach creates the most value in business contexts where the integration of complex, often contradictory information is necessary to address multifaceted challenges. Socratic dialogue encourages participants to slow down and consider different angles, fostering a deeper, more empathetic understanding of various viewpoints. This slow thinking process is vital for the right hemisphere, which excels in tasks involving context, relationships, and patterns.
In modern business, harnessing collective and diverse wisdom is a precursor to success. Leaders can cultivate an environment where strategic thinking and thoughtful deliberation are the norms by encouraging team members to question and reflect rather than react quickly. This enhances decision-making quality and builds a team culture that values the quality of understanding and not simply speed.
Conclusion
The legends of Heimdallr, Argus, Raven, and Odin and the timeless principles of Socratic dialogue underscore a paradigm shift necessary for success in contemporary leadership. These myths provide crucial strategies for nurturing vigilance and deepening dialogue, effectively engaging the right hemisphere to enhance leaders' capacities to manage today's complex business challenges.
These narratives do more than recount tales from a distant past; they provide a blueprint for vigilance and foresight. Vigilance is not solely about anticipating future challenges; it also involves a profound engagement with historical wisdom to clarify the errors that have traditionally derailed organisations. These stories teach leaders to maintain a vigilant stance, employing a holistic perspective that melds analytical acumen with intuitive insights. This approach underscores the necessity of blending foresight with historical reflection and developing a rich contextual awareness that uses all available information.
Moreover, dialogue, particularly the Socratic method, supports a reflective and inclusive decision-making process that values depth over speed. This approach fully engages the right hemisphere, enhances strategic thinking, and ensures that decisions are informed by collective wisdom.
Our final call to action is imperative for transformational leadership. By embedding practices that support more comprehensive vigilance and dialogue into everyday leadership actions, decision-making quality is not just improved – it is transformed. Leaders are urged to foster an environment where these practices nurture creativity and innovation, ensuring decisions are responsive, high quality and deal with root causality.
Embrace this shift: remain perpetually on guard, engage deeply, reflect purposefully and lead with wisdom that seamlessly bridges past insights and future potentials, propelling your teams towards enduring success in an ever-evolving global arena.
References
Stavru and Moore. Socrates and the Socratic Dialogue Hardcover, 2017
Vervaeke and Christopher. “Dialectic into Dialogos and the Pragmatics of No-thingness in a Time of Crisis.” Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture 5
Vervaeke and Adalin. E26, 28, 36. The Voice Craft Project, Wisdom, Telos, Metaphysics & The Meaning Crisis