By: Joe Byerly
Have you ever watched a baking show and thought, I could do that?
Or seen a YouTube clip of someone playing a popular song on guitar and thought, How hard can it be?
Or listened to a podcast and said, I could make one of those?
Then you try and end up with cookies as hard as bricks, a guitar abandoned in the corner after too many wrong chords, and selling barely used podcast equipment on Facebook Marketplace.
Those are the harmless consequences of thinking we can do something right the first time —without putting in the work. We don’t see the years of messed up cakes, the ones before there was a baking show. We don’t see mom and dad dropping her off at guitar lessons week after week while she was only in elementary school. And we certainly haven’t listened to the botched podcast episodes that the host refuses to release.
They all make it look like anyone can do it. And let’s be honest, no one’s going to get hurt if your cookie cake looks like Cookie Monster had an allergic reaction. No one will die from your fat-fingered chords. No one’s losing sleep waiting for your new podcast.
Those failures only cost you a few dollars and a little ego. But in positions of power and authority, the costs of inexperience aren’t borne by you alone.
Does experience matter? Does expertise matter?
Can someone leap right into a high-level position they haven’t prepared for? Can someone run an organization of hundreds of thousands of people if they’ve never led one of 500 people?
When you’re in charge of hundreds or thousands in an organization that matters to your community—or to society at large—the consequences of ignorance are magnified.
Giving unprepared leaders power is like handing a sledgehammer to a chimp, then a gorilla, then King Kong. The bigger the beast, the greater the destruction. The same is true in leadership—the larger the organization, the more important the mission, the heavier the cost of ignorance.
That’s why it’s dangerous to answer the call of power without first doing the hard, unglamorous work to prepare; serving in roles where you can gain experience while the stakes are lower, studying leaders of the past and the challenges they faced, and reflecting honestly on your own strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in knowledge.
Just as you can’t compress years of practice into a single weekend before baking a perfect cake, you can’t suddenly acquire the knowledge required for leadership once you’re already in the seat
Henry Kissinger captured this idea over a decade ago:
“The convictions that leaders have formed before reaching high office are the intellectual capital they will consume as long as they continue in office. There is little time for leaders to reflect. They are locked in an endless battle in which the urgent constantly gains on the important.”
We have to know our craft, know ourselves, and know the people we’ll be responsible for. We need to be able to distinguish between the relevant and irrelevant. Cut through the noise to hear the signals. And there is no “hack” that gives us that ability. Only preparation and experience.
Xenophon’s Memorabilia echoes a similar warning. In it, Socrates has an in-depth exchange with an overly ambitious young man named Glaucon who wasn’t yet twenty. The youth declared he wanted to be head of state. Socrates began asking questions about national defense, the economy, the rule of law. The young man couldn’t answer a single one. Wor se, he had never even thought to ask those questions himself.
“Do take care, Glaucon,” Socrates warned, “that your daring ambition doesn’t lead to your fall! Don’t you see how risky it is to say or do what you don’t understand?”
From the outside, positions of power can look easy—just like the baking shows, Youtube videos, and podcast discussions we listen to. In reality, most require us to climb the learning curve one step at a time—not make a single leap to the top. They demand preparation built on experience, supplemented by studying leaders of the past and the challenges they faced, and reflecting honestly on your own strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in knowledge.
Without preparation, power is a loaded weapon in untrained hands. It’s King Kong with a sledgehammer. The time spent understanding one’s field—the learning, the practice, the humility, are not a delay. They are what prepare us for the challenges of leadership, the tests of power. They are the safeguards against the consequences of our hubris.
Joe Byerly is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel with 20 years of service, including tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and command of a cavalry squadron in Europe. He earned numerous prestigious awards, including multiple Legion of Merits, Bronze Stars, the Purple Heart, and General Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award. In 2013, Joe founded From the Green Notebook.
A passionate advocate for self-knowledge through reading and reflection, he authored The Leader’s 90-Day Notebook and co-authored My Green Notebook: “Know Thyself” Before Changing Jobs, a resource for leaders seeking greater self-awareness. If this post resonated with you or sparked any questions, feel free to reach out to him at Joe@fromthegreennotebook.com.
