Leadership lessons from Stoic philosophy

In the very first of Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius, a foundational text of Stoic philosophy, an admonition advises that to live a better life, we must be constantly vigilant of our time: “Continue, dear Lucilius, to set yourself free for your own sake: gather and save your time, which till lately…has merely slipped through your hands.”

Earlier, when Seneca was at the height of his influence as Emperor Nero’s top advisor, he wrote a little book, On the Shortness of Life, in which he advises: “Life, if you know how to use it, is long. It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste so much of it. Life is long enough to accomplish even the greatest things if it is well invested. But when life melts away through carelessness and the pursuit of luxury and when death finally presses down on us, we realise that life passed us by before we even know it was passing.”

Seneca and Marcus Aurelius both posit that having a consistent goal is key to using one’s limited time well. The Stoics speak of a consistent goal as an organising principle for a well-lived life. But this does not mean living primarily for something in the future: Seneca cautions against “expectation, which depends on tomorrow and wastes today.” I would add that it is vitally important that the pursuit of that goal be as much a source of personal growth and satisfaction as the goal itself. The launch of Rosenkranz & Co. and the decade or so following was the most purposeful period in my own life and in many ways the most rewarding.

Here are precepts that helped me use time well, or at least efficiently:

Prioritise

It is easy to prioritise in business: just count the zeros. If the financial consequences are large, focus your attention fully. If they are small, don’t clutter your calendar or your mind. Decide, in your own situation, what constitutes a meaningful building block of value and simply say “no” to anything beneath that threshold. If a meeting doesn’t have a clear and important purpose, try to avoid it.

Being busy is the enemy of being thoughtful. As Marcus Aurelius says: “If you seek tranquility, do less.” Or more precisely, do only what is essential and do it with greater concentration. An approach that has worked for me is to take an occasional “yellow pad day”. These are full days with no other appointments or distractions. I go off to someplace unfamiliar where I am unlikely to be interrupted (a rare-book library, for example) and turn off my phone. I make notes on a yellow pad: I start with people and consider who I would like to see more of, or less. I think about relationships that might have outlived their usefulness, or that might need repair. I consider opportunities for self-improvement: activities I would like to do more of, or less. Bad habits I may have fallen into. Areas I might want to learn more about, or skills I might want to develop. I move on to review changes in the world to which I might need to adapt. Big opportunities I might be missing. Small projects that might be bogging me down. Risks I may not be thinking about or preparing for.

This sounds more formulaic than it is; each yellow pad day is different and reflects my biggest concerns at the time. By the end of the day, I often understand better what is “essential” to me – a more thoughtful basis to prioritise in life.

Delegate

Another precept is to delegate wherever possible. In general, if someone else can do it, they should. If they can do it as well or better than you would, great. If they can do it reasonably well, that’s probably fine. And if they cannot do it adequately or need more of your time to supervise than you think appropriate, you need to find someone stronger for that role. But don’t fall into the time trap of doing things that should be delegated. In my view, delegating is necessary but not sufficient. Be sure the people with important roles in your business (or in your philanthropic initiatives) have incentives that are well-aligned with your goals and objectives. And once you have done that, don’t micromanage: if you have given them responsibility, give them the authority to match.

In thinking about leisure and personal consumption, I try to be conscious of how my choices impact the way I spend time. I certainly live well and creating our homes has been satisfying, but for me the real luxury is the ability to control how I use my time. In my personal life, as in my business life, I want to delegate as much as possible. I don’t want to spend my time on scheduling or logistics. I don’t like to shop (or in the language of business, I want to hire a purchasing agent, not become one). I want more life-enhancing experiences, not a bigger “inventory” of stuff. I want other people to maintain the household, supervise the staff and do the cooking. As in business, this means hiring the best talent one can find, delegating responsibility and authority, and not micromanaging. Ideally, I want to spend one hundred per cent of my time in purposeful activity and meaningful pursuits.

Valuing the fullness of time

As a modern reader of Seneca, Steven Fideler, puts it: “The key phrase here is ‘free yourself for yourself.’ Three hundred years before Seneca, the Greek Stoics developed the idea that in addition to being enslaved physically, it is also possible to be enslaved psychologically… Stoicism as a philosophy was designed to free its practitioners from the slavery of false judgments and opinions that lead to negative emotions like fear, anxiety, greed, anger and resentment.”

The Stoic concept of freedom is not license to do whatever you like, but self-possession, of “learning how to value and experience the fullness of time.”

This is an edited extract from The Stoic Capitalist by Robert Rosenkranz, published by Bloomsbury Business.

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