What Makes Great Leaders & How to Live an Extraordinary Life | Dr. Jared Diamond
Dr. Jared Diamond discusses his book 'Prophets, Coaches, and Kings' examining leadership across political, religious, business, and sports domains, arguing that effective leaders vary widely in personality and that individual leaders matter more in specific contexts than in broad historical patterns. He emphasizes that charisma is just one of approximately 37 ways to be an effective leader, drawing on examples from Hitler to Harry Truman to illustrate how circumstances, followers, and historical timing interact with leadership qualities.
Summary
In this extensive conversation, Dr. Jared Diamond, a renowned polymath scientist and author, discusses his recent book on leadership across four spheres: politics, religion, business, and sports. He begins by challenging the common misconception that charisma is necessary for effective leadership, noting that Stalin and Augusto Pinochet were highly effective leaders despite being totally uncharismatic. Instead, Diamond argues there are approximately 37 different ways to be an effective leader.
Diamond examines whether individual leaders actually make a difference in history. He discusses Hitler as a case study, noting two historical near-misses—a 1930 car accident and a 1944 assassination attempt—that could have prevented World War II and the Holocaust. While acknowledging historians debate Hitler's uniqueness, Diamond presents evidence that Hitler was distinctive in his charisma as an orator, his industrial-scale approach to genocide, and his skill at deception. However, he distinguishes between patterns that span continents over millennia (as discussed in 'Guns, Germs, and Steel') where individual leaders matter little, and events during his lifetime at local scales where individuals significantly shape outcomes.
Examining religious leaders, Diamond analyzes Joseph Smith, Ann Lee, Jim Jones, and Jesus. He argues Jesus succeeded partly through being in the right place (the Roman Empire) at the right time, but also because his message was universal rather than tribal, and because he was followed by an effective organizer, St. Paul. Diamond notes that founding religions typically requires not just a charismatic founder but also an organizer and often a military defender. Jim Jones exemplifies how followers matter—Jones attracted predominantly poor, elderly, and African American followers in Indianapolis through desegregation efforts before gradually becoming delusional. Diamond emphasizes that not all followers are equally susceptible to charismatic leaders.
Diamond recounts his own formative experiences with leadership, particularly Sir Brian Matthews, who forgave him for flooding a laboratory at Cambridge rather than ending his career. This experience shaped Diamond's approach to forgiving his own graduate students and postdocs when they made mistakes. He also discusses how he negotiated with UCLA's dean, Sherm Mellencoff, to pursue research on New Guinea birds alongside his physiology work, a flexibility that enabled his multi-disciplinary career.
On business and sports leadership, Diamond explains why business school professors study sports—because sports outcomes are measured frequently, results are public, and coaches are visible. Through analysis of variance (ANOVA), researchers found that coaches account for 15-30% of sports success variance, with similar proportions applying to CEOs in business. Diamond argues that John Wooden succeeded not just through mastering details but because he treated basketball as a philosophy of life, a perspective he couldn't fake. He contrasts this with most contemporary tech leaders, though he notes Steve Jobs had a clear design philosophy and Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia exemplifies a leader with an integrated life philosophy.
Diamond discusses his own multifaceted career across physiology, ornithology, history, and geography. He explains his obsessive list-making since age three, learning 13 languages including Italian at age 61, and his decades-long work on New Guinea birds. At 89, he consciously prioritizes remaining time for synthesizing his New Guinea ornithological work and engaging with Bach's church cantatas. He emphasizes that his diverse interests stemmed from intrinsic enjoyment rather than obligation, and he advises others to pursue what they genuinely enjoy, are good at, and that benefits the world, rejecting societal pressures about how to spend time on trivial conventions.
About this episode
Dr. Jared Diamond, PhD, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, physiologist, evolutionary biologist and Professor at UCLA. We discuss the surprising and often chance events that shaped human history and leadership in politics, religion, business and athletics. As one of the most influential public-facing scholars of the last 100 years, Dr. Diamond also shares his advice on how to pursue a career and life that reflects your unique interests and that makes a positive contribution to the world. He also shares the tools he uses to keep his mind and body vigorous. Read the episode show notes at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/huberman Function: https://functionhealth.com/huberman Rorra: https://rorra.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Jared Diamond (00:02:51) Leadership, Prophets; Hitler, WWII (00:09:17) Hitler, Leadership, Deception (00:11:45) Unlikely Leader: Harry Truman (00:13:45) Sponsors: Rorra & Eight Sleep (00:16:28) Leaders, Introspection, Charisma; Individuals, History Patterns (00:22:35) Leaders & Addressing Mistakes, Forgiveness (00:25:36) Religious Leaders, Jesus & Leadership, Organizers (00:30:42) Leader Partnerships, Science, Religion (00:35:18) Jim Jones, Effective Cult Leaders; Followers (00:39:53) Sponsor: AG1 (00:41:06) Leaders & Clinging to Power (00:44:29) Learning Languages (00:49:59) Taxonomy, Lists & Names, Studying Birds (00:56:41) Curiosity, New Guinea Birds, Success & Support Across Different Careers (01:04:55) Travel, Intellectual Explorer (01:07:44) Birds, Vision & Sound, Ecology; Bird Song, Monkeys (01:14:50) Sponsor: Function (01:16:27) Academic Leadership; Time & His Remaining Projects (01:25:54) Humanity Risks, Population Bomb (01:30:46) Physical Activity; Sports Leaders (01:38:08) Coaching Philosophy, John Wooden; Business Leaders, Yvon Chouinard (01:44:31) Great Leadership; Advice for Others (01:51:22) Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow, Reviews & Feedback, Sponsors, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Key Insights
- Diamond argues that charisma is only one of approximately 37 ways to be an effective leader, with Stalin and Pinochet serving as examples of highly effective uncharismatic leaders.
- Diamond distinguishes between large-scale historical patterns spanning millennia where individual leaders matter little, versus events during one's lifetime at local scales where specific individuals significantly shape outcomes.
- Diamond claims that founding successful religions requires not merely a charismatic founder but also an effective organizer (like St. Paul for Jesus) and often a military defender (like the Mahdi or Mohammed).
- Diamond argues Jesus's success as the basis for world religion resulted from being in the right place (the Roman Empire) at the right time, combined with having a universal message and an effective organizational successor in St. Paul.
- Diamond observes that of 22 major post-WWII political leaders studied, only two—Nelson Mandela and Lee Kuan Yew—stepped down voluntarily, suggesting powerful leaders rarely voluntarily relinquish power once they believe themselves effective.
- Diamond claims that Jim Jones, despite founding Jonestown, had previously led desegregation efforts in Indianapolis and attracted followers through idealistic church teachings, demonstrating that cult leaders and their followers involve matching dispositions rather than pure victimization.
- Diamond asserts that business school professors' leadership research methods were developed and debugged in sports because games produce frequent, public results with visible coaches, unlike secretive CEO decisions.
- Diamond demonstrates through ANOVA analysis that coaches account for only 15-30% of sports success variance, with similar proportions for CEOs in business, yet coaches and CEOs are frequently fired for random variation in outcomes.
- Diamond argues that John Wooden's exceptional coaching success derived not primarily from technical details but from treating basketball as a philosophy of life—an integral worldview he could not fake.
- Diamond claims he maintained interests across multiple disciplines (physiology, ornithology, history, geography, music, languages) since age three through obsessive list-making and note-taking, treating these pursuits as intrinsically enjoyable rather than obligations.
- Diamond reveals that at age 89, he consciously prioritizes time for synthesizing New Guinea ornithological research and studying Bach's 210 church cantatas, demonstrating explicit temporal reasoning about finite remaining lifespan.
- Diamond argues that contemporary major tech leaders (Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk) lack articulated life philosophies extending beyond business, unlike John Wooden, Steve Jobs, or Yvon Chouinard who integrated their business leadership into broader philosophical frameworks.
Topics
Transcript
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. Any question that you or anybody else would ask about how can we generalize about leaders, there are some generalizations about leaders, but not personality generalizations, because there are different ways to be an effective leader. 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…
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