What Makes Great Leaders & How to Live an Extraordinary Life | Dr. Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond (0:00)

People regularly look for personal generalizations, personality generalizations, about leaders.

Perhaps the commonest generalization is that leaders have to be charismatic. Nonsense. Some leaders are charismatic. Stalin, Augusto Pinochet, the dictator of Chile, totally uncharismatic. There are about 37 ways to be an effective leader, of which charisma is one. And any question that you or anybody else would ask about, how can we generalize about leaders' persona, there are some generalizations about leaders, but not personality generalizations, because there are different ways to be an effective leader.

Andrew Huberman (0:42)

Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.

I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

My guest today is Dr. Jared Diamond. Dr. Jared Diamond is a Professor Emeritus at University of California, Los Angeles. He's done research in biology, anthropology, and frankly, in so many areas that there really isn't an appropriate title for him. He's also a renowned author of books such as Guns, Germs and Steel, for which he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. He has also been awarded the National Medal of Science and a MacArthur Genius Award. Today, we discuss topics related to Jared's most recent book, which is about leaders and leadership. It is entitled, Prophets, Prophets, Coaches and Kings. We discuss political leaders, religious leaders, leaders in business and in sports. Today, you're going to hear a lot of myths dispelled, including the common myth that charisma is requisite for successful leadership. And we discuss a lot of incredible biology. For instance, why observing birds? Yes, birds, because of their reliance on sight and sound makes them one of the best windows into understanding human behavior and human nature. We also discuss Jared himself, because as you'll soon see, he is an incredible and very unusual human being. We discuss his obsessive curiosity that's been there since childhood and how it's migrated from topic to topic, book to book, paper to paper. And what his process is for taking hard questions into the laboratory and going out into the wild, literally to observe things in their natural state and then bring back all of that knowledge in a form that is unlike any other scientist or writer. So what follows is discussion with an absolute luminary of science and public education. And it's one that I'm certain will inform, enchant and inspire you. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors.

And now for my discussion with Dr. Jared Diamond. Dr. Jared Diamond, welcome.

Jared Diamond (2:53)

It's a pleasure to be with you.

Andrew Huberman (2:55)

Delighted to have you here. I'm such a fan of your books. Guns, Germs and Steel was the first one I read. And I'm going to resist the temptation to ask about the topics in each of all of your books and mainly focus on your book, which is Prophets, phonetically the same, but prophets as in making prophets and prophets as in who become prophets and what they are. Coaches and kings, when do leaders matter? I think now more than ever, people are thinking about modern leadership and themes of past in leadership.

First, I would like to know what is a prophet? P-R-O-P-H-E-T.

Jared Diamond (3:32)

Profit means for my purposes, religious leaders, because my book about leadership looks at leadership in four spheres, the political sphere, the business sphere, sports, and finally, religion. I use the word prophets to refer to religious leaders because it makes for prophets, prophets, coaches, and kings.

I don't care about whether they prophesy the future. It was simply my word for religious leaders.

Andrew Huberman (4:05)

Let's talk about leadership in each of those categories and people that stand out to you as the lightest and darkest in each of those categories. And we can go into the middle of the continuum if you want as well. But your book starts off talking about Hitler, which for the vast majority of people alive is considered one of the darkest leaders ever.

Tell us about Hitler and what you learned about him that perhaps can inform how we think about leadership more generally.

Jared Diamond (4:35)

I was born in 1937, which meant that I grew up in World War II, growing up in the United States. I was not bombed, I was not orphaned, but every day of my life that I can remember was formed by the war. My first memory, the first data thing that I can remember was the first photo that the US. Army released of dead American soldiers. It was a famous cover of Life magazine, two American soldiers dead face down on Buna Ngana Beach in New Guinea.