Some of the most successful people I know suffer from depression or other mental illnesses. Look through history and you will see that many influential people suffered from similar illnesses. I have often wondered if there is a link between mental illness and brilliant leadership. Although not all great leaders are depressed, I now have evidence to support this belief.
Nassir Ghaemi's book, A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness, provides strong arguments to support my hypothesis. While I think more science is needed to determine the truths Ghaemi teaches, it remains a fascinating start to an important conversation.
After all, mental illness is often portrayed in a bad light. For this reason, there is a stigma that extends strongly throughout society. However, by recognizing the difficulties faced by many world leaders and the possible benefits of mental state on society, we can break the stigma. We can come to celebrate the usefulness of psychiatric illnesses instead of fearing them.
Here are three of the most interesting lessons about the potential benefits of mental illness:
1. Depression and bipolar disorder have benefits that can be helpful in leadership positions.
2. Historical leaders like Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Winston Churchill, and JFK suffered from disorders that helped them make better decisions.
3. Knowing the benefits of mental illness can help us eliminate the stigma surrounding it.
Looking for hope in the midst of your own or others' mental illness? Get ready to find what you're looking for in these lessons!
Lesson 1: The benefits of illnesses like bipolar disorder and depression can be helpful as a leader.
The serious and devastating nature of depression and anxiety easily shames us. Depression runs in my family and we've always had a hard time talking about it. Even though the situation is improving, the social taboo surrounding mental illness still persists today. But there is hope in the abilities that people with mental illnesses have that others do not have.
Let's take a look at major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder as examples. Major depressive disorder, or more commonly known as depression, is, for the sake of simplicity, like deep, unbreakable sadness.
Ghaemi says that because of what most people with depression feel, or sometimes don't feel, they are more empathetic. Depressed people can thus better understand the difficulties of the human experience.
Bipolar disorder, on the other hand, occurs when people experience depressive episodes but also manic periods. They may fluctuate frequently between sadness and euphoria, even within a few hours. Often spontaneous, these people have heightened moods at both ends of the spectrum.
People with bipolar disorder spend time in aberrant regions of emotional highs and lows, where most other people never go. Ghaemi thinks that because of this, they are more likely to see things from this aberrant perspective. They may be more creative than the rest of us. Let's look at how this, along with the benefits of depression, has helped society in the past.
Lesson 2: Nations have fallen on hard times throughout history thanks to their leaders suffering from mental illness.
Did you know that Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi both attempted suicide when they were young? Both suffered from depression that began in childhood. Later in life, it appears that the stress they experienced worsened their mental state. This makes sense given the big changes each of these individuals brought to the world.
Consider the heightened sense of compassion that depressed people experience. Both King's and Gandhi's civil rights movements were, at their core, radical empathy. These two great men emphasized the importance of love above all else. They knew the despair others felt because they had felt it themselves. Their level of concern for others is summed up well by a quote from King:
"Darkness cannot come out of darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hatred; only love can do that.
Winston Churchill was another case of a depressed leader making better decisions due to his illness. In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain heroically declared that he would meet Hitler directly. Chamberlain hoped to persuade Hitler that war was unnecessary. Churchill, on the other hand, was more realistic due to his depression.
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