It takes both.

Leadership takes both being and doing, identity and purpose, character and charisma. In fact, who we are is even more important than what we do, for the latter flows from the former. To lead well it takes both. Always. One without the other is dead on arrival.

 

A royal train,

Lord,

more scintillating

than jewelled enamel.

 

Look,

now I spread it in a wheel.

I must say I derive

some satisfaction from my good looks.

 

My feathers

are sown with eyes

admiring themselves.

 

True,

my discordant cry shames me a little–

and it is humiliating to make me remember

my meager heart.

 

Your world is badly made,

if I may say so:

the nightingale’s voice

in me

would be properly attired–

and soothe my soul.

 

Lord,

let a day come, a heavenly day,

when my inner and outer selves

will be reconciled

in perfect harmony.

Amen.

 

(‘The Peacock’ by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold, The Creature’s Choir, trans. Rumer Godden).