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About this quote

What does it mean?
A deep scientific look at our leaders would reveal shocking truths about their mental state.
In plain terms
Leaders would look very troubled if examined by psychiatrists.
What can you take from it?
Leadership often hides serious psychological or cognitive issues.

Where it applies

  • political analysis
  • organizational review
  • public trust

Putting it to work

  • evaluate leaders deeply
  • check mental fitness for office

Questions to consider

  • What qualities should leaders have mentally?
  • How do we assess leaders fitness?

Another view

Leadership roles vary, and not all require deep psychological scrutiny.

More from Alfred Korzybski

  1. Man's achievements rest upon the use of symbols.... we must consider ourselves as a symbolic, semantic class of life, and those who rule the symbols, rule us.

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  2. Bankers, priests, lawyers,... politicians, [and news media] constitute one class [of our rulers] and work together. They do not produce any values but manipula…

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  3. The main thesis of this non-Aristotelian system is that as yet we all (with extremely few exceptions) copy animals in our nervous processes, and that practical…

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