In my Introduction To Toastmasters, where I discussed the importance of leadership, a commenter said: “Really? The most important people in the world were leaders, eh? What about all the scientists, artists and musicians who toiled away on their own, shunning social contact to perfect their works” Thanks for the comment, I think this misunderstanding is important enough to deserve an article on its own.
In science, there are two tasks: discovering knowledge, and communicating knowledge. Assume, for now, that the former task, discovering knowledge, requires no leadership ability. A scientist can huddle in some dark corner and emerge with some sort of arcane truth he deduced from solitude. How is he supposed to communicate that knowledge? He can submit it to an academic journal and hope it’ll be published. Publication isn’t automatic. He can make a website and communicate his ideas there. He might be viewed as a crackpot. He could go present his findings at a conference.. but wait, that takes leadership.
Our scientist must get his work accepted into the mainstream scientific literature. Otherwise, it’s just mental masturbation. Getting his work accepted will be much easier if he has connections and leadership skills. If he’s a social outcast, good luck.
Certainly there have been examples of scientists working in isolation and going on to get their work noticed. In most cases, their work would have passed out of all knowledge with their death, were it not for the assistance of other scientists who were better leaders. Srinivasa Ramanujan and Evariste Galois, for example, their contributions could very easily have perished from the earth, were it not for the assistance of scientists with some actual leadership skills (Hardy and Liouville, respectively). How many more tragic scientists could have contributed greatly to our understanding of the universe, had they been better leaders?
Leadership is all about communicating ideas and knowledge. Just because a scientist isn’t an elected official, doesn’t mean she isn’t a leader. Most great scientists are also great leaders.
Here are some other articles I wrote. If only some great scientist would find my humble articles and spread them far and wide…
Introduction To Toastmasters
“Problems” In Mathematics
The Higher Infinite
Is Society Biased Against Smart People?