Vinci learned more studied more knew
more about observation and how we see
than anyone in human history to this day
he may still be the greatest master in
sight let’s have a look at one of his
most famous paintings mentioned earlier
today the Mona Lisa one of our
colleagues mentioned that it was 16
years for Leonardo to paint the Mona
Lisa and in fact the Mona Lisa is
essentially unfinished as are all the
works of Leonardo da Vinci to the point
that was given in the TED talk earlier
about the originals Leonardo who
privileged painting precisely because it
can communicate in one image in one
instant what a person could not
communicate in a hundred words a
thousand words or five thousand words he
considered it to be the most noble way
to communicate and the most effective
and this as we know is essential for the
future so let’s take a few moments to
look at how Mona Lisa is painted why do
we look at her she is inanimate and yet
she is animated we become inanimate as
she gazes upon us how is it that her
gaze is so mysterious and appears to
move as we move was Leonardo just having
a good day fact is that Leonardo wrote
thousands and thousands of pages most of
which have not survived but some of
which have and we know that Leonardo had
measured and studied
science of sight the science of painting
in fact he wrote a very very important
discourse called a treatise on the
science of painting Leonardo discovered
that we have two eyes not one we are not
cyclops and that our eyes see from two
different angles and by measuring these
angles and representing with perfect
precision these angles that we can
create correct perspective in art and
this is something that we see in the
Mona Lisa what does this have to do with
leadership we’ve all heard the word
vision and we hear people talk about it
all the time but what is vision if not
the creation of an image that is so
precise that all of us align with it
just as we are always aligned with in
the gaze of Mona Lisa this is leadership
lesson number one let’s go on to another
painting and speak about creativity Don
Quixote and Sancho Panza two of the
greatest characters ever created are
more famous than their creator the
Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno
wrote many many many years later that he
could not understand the lack of wisdom
on the part of Cervantes that he would
create characters who would become more
famous and more important than Cervantes
himself why is it that this image is so
powerful why is it that when Mikasa was
asked to draw Don Quixote and Sancho
Panza he did it in the very instant in
which he was asked he was one of those
procrastinators in this respect
and yet was also original what do we see
in the painting about creativity Don
Quixote in Sancho Panza our creations
but Don Quixote himself had read so many
books of chivalry that they became real
to him and he created a world in which
he acted that caused everyone around him
to see the world in the same way that he
did this is an example of influence
another essential trait of a leader
additionally we have the creation of Don
Quixote of changing and transforming
Sancho Panza who could imagine as this
poor fat peasant could become a great
governor Don Quixote envisioned it for
him and it became true in the fiction of
the book Don Quixote Pablo Picasso
represents these two figures in an
astonishing way the windmills who are
giants – Don Quixote become miniature in
the painting of Picasso Sancho Panza who
is a low peasant named for his fat belly
is also a giant in comparison to the
windmills is the leader able to see
windmills as Giants and Giants as
windmills and have everyone around them
see them in the same way and act
accordingly this too is an example of
leadership what about the Sun in this
painting how high is it how high is Don
Quixote is it possible that the Lance of
Don Quixote could reach up to the Sun
that he himself could reach up to the
Sun it is a trope or a figure from Greek
mythology that Icarus aspired to go all
the way to the Sun and what was his fate
but to be destroyed by the height of the
Sun but not Don Quixote he his skin Ally
seated on his skinny Rocinante and he is
as tall as the Rays of the Sun the Rays
of the Sun mirrored in the Rays of the
windmills light and dark dark and light
figures in black it is an act of
creativity inspired in Picasso by Don
Quixote and Sancho Panza Don Quixote
inspired by the acts of creativity of
hundreds of books about the Knights of
chivalry inspired by Cervantes Cervantes
himself inspired by his surroundings in
a prison who would believe that these
figures were created and the depth of a
prison leadership lesson on creativity
leadership is necessary in change in
order to change creativity must be a
part so this is the next leadership
lesson that we learn from the Masters of
observation which is that the leader
most of you if not all of you know this
painting very well and again we can ask
a question what is it in this painting
that is so relevant to us and has
continued to be relevant for so many
hundreds of years in this painting we
can focus on one aspect in particular
which is trust Trust is represented here
is that space between two figures the
figure of the divine and the figure of
the human they do not touch but they
trust each other they are near each
other they know each other and one the
human is naked the other the divine is
clothed because the divine cannot ever
be fully known or fully seen it is an
enormous leap our ‘fl image trust is an
essential feature for a leader because a
person who inspires trust and who is
trusted is a person who is able to have
relationships with others as we saw in
don quixote and sancho panza that allow
for the possibility in the power of
so much is written and so much is
researched about strategy strategy is
simply a plan but ultimately it is a
plan in a world of uncertainty because
indeed we do live in a very uncertain
world
so what plan can we have that will lead
us through the uncertainty here we have
one of the most famous and popular
paintings in all of Spanish history the
surrender of Breda this is a painting
not about the act of war but the act of
defeat so let us begin there are leaders
people who have failed and the answer is
yes and then the next question is how
badly do you have to fail to become
excellent at leadership and
unfortunately the truth is just as we
saw before research about the originals
the research is the greater the fall if
we survive the greater the failure the
more likely we are to have a role of
great leadership afterwards and why is
that why would you imagine that to be
true because when you have had a brutal
bone-crushing terrible failure and you
have survived it you know that you have
the resources to survive failure
additionally you know that you can
always continue because you no longer
fear what most of us fear tremendously
which is in fact to fail here again we
see the same Lance’s and Spears that we
had seen indicated in the Picasso
painting we have the gesture of grace in
defeat and in victory and indeed we see
that as my colleague Ryan mentioned
earlier to me we see that one person had
a strategy that succeeded and one person
had a strategy
that failed that’s in the moment soon
sooo without question one of the
greatest and most important writers in
history and the writer of one of the two
oldest works that is continuously read
The Art of War
wrote for us probably the greatest work
ever on strategy of the many many many
wise statements made in that work I will
mention two one is that the greatest act
of strategy in war is the strategy that
allows you never to go to war and that
is much represented here because rather
than the end of a war leading to a
disharmony in this painting it leads to
a harmony which is congruent with
exactly what Sun Tzu and his wisdom has
described in the art of war and the
other is the power of momentum are we on
a momentum toward war on we on or are we
on a momentum toward peace in this
painting Velazquez depicts the momentum
of peace which in the view of this image
is a time of humanity even the horse for
which Velasquez is justly famous is an
indication of a kind of love and
affection and humanity rarely seen in
paintings that appear to be about war so
another leadership lesson for us here is
about strategy which is that strategy is
the plan for uncertainty and the leader
has such a plan
finally we turn now to a painting that
was shown last year in the Picasso
Museum in Malaga the largest painting
ever created by Jackson Pollock he
created it he was one of the originals
in his time he was asked by Peggy
Guggenheim to please create a painting
for her to hang up in her apartment she
was going to have a great event to
celebrate his work and he could not
paint he just could not do it and he was
very very inspired by the Guernica of
Picasso which as many of you know was
housed at that time in the Museum of
Modern Art being protected from what
Picasso was concerned about with the
political environment here in Spain
Jackson Pollock took a canvas so large
that he made the floor his easel because
no easel could be large enough to hold
it and it all at once he painted this
great miraculous work called mural also
inspired by the muralists from Mexico si
quieres and Diego Rivera and he paints
the stampede of the American West with
images of Buffalo and antelopes and cows
and horses taking the animals that he
had seen in Guernica and creating this
enormous feeling of energy and vitality
all at once of course he became famous
for what would become the action
painting which is a painting made with
the whole body with the whole being over
a whole canvas after he painted this
many other artists
made fun of him for having such a large
painting and then they themselves
competed with him to make paintings just
as large or even larger the leadership
lesson here is yes you can have trust
and creativity and vision and strategy
but without action there is no
leadership and this is shown and felt in
this incredibly emotional painting by
Jackson Pollock to conclude I would like
to ask everyone here a question what is
your painting because each of us is in
fact a painting we are a self-portrait
each of us creating ourselves every day
just as Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings
continuously change because of the
materials on which he painted we too are
painting receiving impressions from
others from the world around us the
brushstrokes the colors the lines the
forms the perspectives this is we at the
same time we are also giving image
impression acting on others acting on
the world we are our own portraits and we are our own masters thank you