Page 26 - The extraordinary leader

Demystifying Leadership • 3

the most useful data. But after carefully examining the watch, Holmes then
proceeded to tell Watson a series of hypotheses about the owner. These
included:

● The watch belonged to his older brother, who inherited it from his
father.
● He was a man of untidy habits.
● He had gone through a period of poverty, with intervals of prosperity.
● He had taken to heavy drinking before he died.

Watson sprang from his chair and accused Holmes of having made
inquiries into the history of his unhappy brother and then pretending to
deduce it from his observations of the gold pocket watch. He concluded by
saying, “It is unkind and, to speak plainly, has a touch of charlatanism in it.”
Holmes proceeded to explain how he had come to each of his conclusions
by simply observing important data and seeing their implications. The initials
on the watch’s back, “H.W.,” suggested a family member, and gold watches
usually were passed from father to the elder son.
The watch was 50 years old. The initials appeared to be as old as the watch,
and so it was most likely the father’s watch, passed to Dr. Watson’s brother.
The owner’s untidy habits were revealed by the dents and scratches that came
from carrying this expensive watch in the same pocket with other hard objects
such as coins or keys. Inside the case of the watch were scratched in pinpoint
the numbers of a pawnbroker’s ticket, suggesting that the owner had gone
through a period of dire poverty. The fact that he regained possession of the
watch would imply that he also had periods of prosperity. The owner’s drink-
ing problem was revealed by thousands of scratches around the keyhole where
the winding key had slipped and scratched the case. Holmes noted, “That is
characteristic of a drunkard’s watch, not a sober man’s.”

Solving the Mystery of Leadership
Our hope is to take an enormous amount of data collected about and from
leaders and, through careful analysis and observation, begin to unravel the
mystery of leadership. We will do our best to emulate Sherlock Holmes. It
would seem that if careful attention is given to the clues that lie inside huge
databases, the continuing mystery of leadership might be penetrated.