Mars: You know, I stumbled upon this article the other day, 'The myth of leadership' by Eric Markowitz, and it really threw a wrench into my perception of, well, *leaders*. We spend so much time putting these 'Great Men' and visionary figures on pedestals, it's almost impossible to even *gasp* consider that our entire understanding of leadership could be completely upside down, right?
Mia: Oh, it's absolutely radical! I mean, from the ancient epics we grew up reading to every modern biography out there, we're practically *programmed* to revere these singular, heroic figures. It's like historian Moshik Temkin hit the nail on the head when he asked if we should be studying how the world *produced* and then *constrained* the leader, instead of just how the leader single-handedly changed the world. Maybe leadership isn't the spark that ignites everything, maybe it's just the smoke, you know?
Mars: Wow, 'the smoke,' that's such a brilliant way to put it. So instead of always pointing to one charismatic individual as the sole reason for every breakthrough, we'd actually be looking at the intricate systems, the norms, the entire network that allows change to even happen. But seriously, how did those super ancient myths manage to bake this whole obsession with the all-powerful individual so deeply into our culture?
Mia: I mean, just think about it: Gilgamesh, Achilles, Odysseus – these epic tales are literally built around these godlike champions. And then medieval monarchs and even Renaissance princes just totally borrowed that same script. Honestly, in every single era, formal institutions – whether they were guilds, royal courts, or now our massive corporations and think tanks – they're the ones shaping what any leader can *actually* achieve. We've just, for some reason, fixated our gaze on the shiny person out front instead of the incredibly complex machinery behind them.
Mars: So if that traditional, 'hero-centric' view is, shall we say, a little bit flawed, what's the next big idea we should be wrapping our heads around? You've hinted before that maintenance, of all things, is this totally unsung hero of progress.
Mia: Absolutely! Alex Vuocolo, writing in Noema, brought up this brilliant example: New York's R32 subway cars. These things ran *way* past their expected lifespan, not because of some grand visionary, but thanks to these absolutely tireless maintenance crews. These workers weren't just tightening a few bolts; they were making strategic choices – smart parts sourcing, meticulous inspections, all these tiny, incremental fixes – that literally kept these decades-old trains safe and reliable. It's wild.
Mars: Right? From our perspective as riders, the train is either *on time* or it's *not*. We genuinely rarely notice all that incredible, painstaking effort until something spectacularly breaks down. But honestly, in a world where our infrastructure is crumbling and climate change is breathing down our necks, that consistent, behind-the-scenes care is actually the real, unsung backbone of resilience.
Mia: Exactly! And that distinction is so crucial: repair is about fixing something *after* it's already broken. Maintenance? That's about making things *last* in the first place. What's even more fascinating is how, under all that austerity, those crews basically became the system's true stewards. They literally turned deferred investment into this proactive philosophy of care, essentially ensuring the entire system held together when it absolutely, critically mattered most.
Mars: So maintenance really paints this entirely different picture of progress, doesn't it? One that's built on sheer persistence and incredible foresight, instead of just those dazzling flashes of individual inspiration. But stepping away from just metal and concrete for a moment, where else can we see this kind of hidden, steady influence at play?
Mia: Oh, you're going to love this one. The Seattle crow experiment is literally the perfect illustration of embodied knowledge in action. So, researchers, wearing very distinct masks, would capture crows. And get this: *years later*, those exact same mask designs would trigger alarm calls from crows that had never even been *alive* when the original event happened. How wild is that?
Mars: Wait, so these crows were essentially passing along a collective memory, just through their calls, their body language, how the flock moved – literally teaching generations of birds without a single formal instructor or, dare I say, a leader figure? That's just mind-blowing.
Mia: Precisely! They're like living, squawking embodiments of culture in action. It really drives home that true transmission, the kind that sticks, happens when behaviors are just *lived* and relayed organically, not through some stuffy formal instruction or, you know, those classic top-down directives.
Mars: It's almost like when we finally shift our focus from the 'spark' of one individual's brilliance to the 'smoke' of systemic care and just, you know, shared practice, we actually unlock a much more sustainable and frankly, a more realistic path forward.
Mia: Yeah, I think we're onto something here. Maybe the truly unseen power that actually drives resilience and creates lasting impact isn't found in those flashy heroic individuals at all, but rather in the quiet, consistent work of maintenance, in the deep, lived wisdom of embodied knowledge, and in the incredibly robust systems that those things sustain. It's a whole different kind of hero, isn't it?
