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2024-11-16

🤔 What’s the most valuable quality a person can have?

• Intelligence is nice
  • but it doesn’t get things done on its own
  • and difference can breed violence. Too much intelligence can lead to bullying, for example.
• kindness is nice
  • literally
  • and it tends to be infectious, which is even better
  • but its value is still context dependent
    • all the kindness in the world may not help during a mugging
• flexibility
  • is useful in many contexts
  • but it’s passive
• adaptability
  • seems like flexibility with an active component
  • it is the trait that chases survival in evolution
  • but is survival all we can hope for?
• creativity
  • allows us to do more than adapt to our environment
  • we can envision a better world and work to create it
  • but many creative individuals working on their own may have different visions, which may produce conflict
• collaborativity
  • resolves the potential conflict when multiple people create
  • but building together doesn’t necessarily mean building good things together
• leadership
  • is like guiding a collaborative effort
  • but how do you ensure you’re leading in a good direction?

It feels like these qualities may combine to form a lattice…

flowchart  
Intelligence --> Creativity  
Industry --> Creativity  
Communication --> Cooperation  
Creativity --> Collaboration  
Empathy --> Cooperation  
Flexibility --> Cooperation  
Cooperation --> Collaboration  
Reliability --> Cooperation  
Influence --> Leadership  
Collaboration --> Leadership  
Judgement -->   
Wisdom --> ?  
Leadership --> ?  
Benevolence --> ?  

Note: this graph is definitely not complete. Just a partial, initial, quick sketch of an idea

🤔 Is there a word for wise, benevolent leadership?