Why Cursory Knowledge Shouldn’t Guide Your Ideology in Leadership

Leadership is incomplete without a solid ideology. A true leader will always pledge allegiance to some kind of ideology to be able to amass any influence at all. The absence of a substantial credo can lead to major failures and eventually, the demise of the social movement in concern.

This is because a leader who preaches without prescribing to a set of beliefs, historical evidence, future goals, and a social code of conduct will only confuse his followers. Humans are born with a psychological disposition to identify themselves with someone or something and be able to follow a given code of life.

A true code of life only comes with true understanding. Your job as a leader is to cry out for insight and ask for that understanding, as famously commanded in the book of faith.

If your ideology is missing core values and missions, then your followers won’t be able to feel fulfillment and purpose. The lack thereof can end up in a profound existential crisis. Not having an ideology to stick by can aggravate this existential crisis so much that some people decide to end their lives.

However, to be able to establish an ideology that people can relate with, the leader has to seek the right knowledge. A quote the insightful advice from the Bible, “Turn your ears to wisdom and concentrate on understanding” is another spiritual proof of why understanding is fundamental to true leadership.

If the individual in authority internalizes the wrong set of ideas in haste or doesn’t fully study the ideology he seeks allegiance with, it can result in big, irrecoverable blunders. Knowing too less is just as scary as knowing too much. A leader who seeks only cursory knowledge will end up distorting the most basic values, and that can be incredibly dangerous.

Whether it’s social, political, religious, or intellectual, any movement can become a threat to humanity if inspired by cursory knowledge. Here are 3 reasons why.

1. It May Lead to Extremism
The thing about condensing ideological knowledge is that you may end up skipping the most important facets. Take a social ideology like communism, for example. Many people end up distorting Karl Marx’s theories because they don’t study it in the social and historical context and become absolute fanatics.

In a fit of passion to annihilate capitalism, they end up boycotting the entire system. This is an extremist step because the solution isn’t abandonment. It is to create and educate individuals who become genuine leaders and fight against societal oppression. It is not to fight the ills of society with violence but to systematically defeat them with organized efforts.

Only a leader who has fully understood socialist principles will know that peace will never come with abrupt measures. Only complete and thorough knowledge of the ideology can help a leader truly help his followers in restoring justice in the society. Otherwise, they will turn into a fringe leader with an extremist ideology based on only cursory knowledge.

2. It Can Diminish Your Followers
A leadership that is devoid of critical and complete knowledge will have spillover effects on the followers as well. Followers will lose the true intrinsic purpose of what they believe in and will resort to extremist ways.

Or they will become entirely clueless under your leadership and decide to leave. Either way, a leader who doesn’t seek proper knowledge will end up creating followers that have no direction in life.

3. No Integrity and Vision of the Future
The main job of a leader is to push people forward and enable them to think of a brighter future. However, a leadership based on cursory knowledge and lack of critical awareness will also be devoid of moral integrity. If there is no sincerity and futuristic goals in what the leader preaches, the ideology will fall on itself.

Gaining true and complete knowledge will reap wonderful benefits that can only be best described through a bible quote, “For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will fill you with joy”.

Cursory knowledge is the death of true leadership. Knowing the ideology in and out while working to make it a catalyst for a brighter future is what an ideal leader should do. A true leader is sincere in what he learns and preaches and wishes the best for everyone.