Pablo Picasso

Whether you are an art fan or not, I trust that you are familiar with the works and style of one of the most famous 20^th century artists, Pablo Picasso. You likely associate him with his distinctive abstract style. If you need a quick reminder for your mind’s eye, take a look at the famous Guernica from 1937.

There is a fascinating story about Picasso that I found in the introductory pages of one of my all-time favorite books, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin. Here is the story:

A guy is riding in the first-class cabin of a train in Spain and to his delight, he notices that he’s sitting next to Pablo Picasso. Gathering up his courage, he turns to the master and says, “Señor Picasso, you are a great artist, but why is all your art, all modern art, so screwed up? Why don’t you paint reality instead of these distortions?”

Picasso hesitates for a moment and asks, “So what do you think reality looks like?”

The man grabs his wallet and pulls out a picture of his wife. “Here, like this. It’s my wife.”

Picasso takes the photograph, looks at it, and grins. “Really? She’s very small. And flat, too.”

I love this story because it directly challenges our notion of reality. More specifically, it calls into question our ability to see reality for what it is. Is Picasso’s art really abstract, or is all art and communication an abstraction, just like the photograph in the man’s wallet?

I’ll give an example from my personal life. I’m not painter or sculptor like Picasso, but I do enjoy photography.

Instagram photography

My favorite compositions are of natural scenery and adventures. I stand in amazement of a majestic scene and it fills my heart with joy and my imagination with wonder. Then I take my camera out, snap a photo, and look at the result with severe disappointment. Often what I see in my photo falls significantly short of the beauty that I experienced first-hand. I’ve improved my technique and bought better cameras, but that has only partially closed the gap.

I close the gap further by tastefully editing the photo. I never slap an Instagram filter on it and call it good. I tweak it manually to recreate the moment as I experienced it.

The photo above is a good example. I captured this moment during a train ride from Skagway, Alaska to Whitehorse, Yukon in 2015. While Pablo Picasso was not onboard, the trip was very memorable for me and I wanted to capture that memory with this photo. I share my photography on social media. If you are interested, check out my Instagram account.

Most viewers appreciate my photography, but occasionally, I’ll draw a comment indicating that the picture doesn’t look real. Of course, there’s always a chance that I overdid the edits. I’m certainly still improving in that regard, but in general, I simply find that to be a peculiar way to judge a piece of art. I feel like responding the way Picasso did to the man on the train:

“So what do you think reality looks like?”

When I experience something amazing, I choose to share that experience with the world through a photograph on social media. How does the viewer even know what real is? They were not there when I saw the sight. They do not know the emotion it evoked within me. The viewer needs to trust the artist. If I simply post a raw unedited photo, that wouldn’t be real either, because it would fall woefully short of the in-person experience.

What does art and photography have to do with leadership?

Six years ago, I completed a Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership. It’s a Master of Arts degree, not a Master of Science. Leadership is both art and science, but in my opinion, it is mostly art. The leader is the artist and the followers are the recipients of the art.

In this analogy, the leader/artist has two key responsibilities: First, she must truly see reality. Then, she must creatively communicate that reality. The followers have a responsibility to receive the art and trust the artist.

It is often said that great leaders have vision. Of course, the only way people know that a leader has vision is because she is effective at communicating and sharing that vision.

I wrote this article because I wanted to challenge my readers. As leaders, we see ourselves as managers, practitioners, and operators. Do we see ourselves as artists? Picasso was one of the greatest artists of the 20^th century, not because he made weird-looking abstract pictures, but because he found a powerful way to communicate the reality of his experience with an audience that had the eyes to see it.

As leaders, we cast our vision of reality by creating and distributing our art. We build culture by cultivating art appreciation among our team members. They receive the gift of art and become inspired to join us on our journey and enroll others in the movement. Like Picasso, we will all encounter critics that claim our vision isn’t real. Trust your skills as an artist. Trust your vision. Remember that your critics are holding onto a picture of reality that is small and flat.

That is the art of leadership.

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