What Is Wisdom?

Wisdom is traditionally associated with spirituality and religion and with abstract concepts such as truth, knowledge, beauty, and the right path. The path of pure wisdom might lead one to become a philosopher, a guru, or a monk—someone who practices or contemplates wisdom in a state detached from the world. In this view, wisdom is the gift of sages and spiritual leaders.⁸ This picture is woefully incomplete. In fact, wisdom is our birthright. We all are born with the seeds of wisdom, but we sometimes don’t cultivate or nurture those seeds to let them flourish, focusing instead on tending to our smartness—the acquisition and use of new knowledge for primarily personal benefit. In the organizational context, wise leaders are people (not just business leaders or politicians) who step up to take action in the service of others. This kind of wisdom is more pragmatic in nature, regardless of its roots, which is why we call it practical wisdom and leadership that embodies these principles, wise leadership.

Calling practical wisdom the master virtue, Aristotle described it as “figuring out the right way to do the right thing in a particular circumstance, with a particular person at a particular time.”⁹ The Bhagavad Gita, valued as a book of practical wisdom for Hindus, carries the key message that wise leaders understand how to balance the extremes and act from a state of equanimity.¹⁰ In this book we focus on developing wise leadership in the business context. This kind of practical wisdom can have spiritual or nonspiritual roots or both, depending on the individual leader. What matters is that wise leadership is grounded in action and gives ethical clarity and higher purpose to smart leadership.