Review: A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness

A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness by S. Nassir Ghaemi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the most interesting book that I have ever read on the link between psychopathology and leadership. I have always been interested in exploring the relationship between creativity and genius. But I always thought that the leaders are immune to psychopathology of any kind. Because, that is what makes them leaders in the first place. You need to have a robust mental health to be a leader and influence people. But, I was shocked and amused at the same time to learn that even some of the greatest leaders of the world are not an exception.

The basic premise of the book is this: normal times need normal leaders and abnormal times need abnormal leaders( though not categorically).I will explain you how in the coming paragraphs. He starts off the book by giving the example of William Tecumseh Sherman who was an alcoholic to the core. He is suspected to have been bipolar going by the correspondence he has done with his friends and colleagues of his times. He was also paranoid to some extent and a chain smoker. But what set him apart from his colleagues was the ability to see things in their true light. That made him tactfully superior to his rivals during the civil war and emerge victorious.I am not saying that it is his psychosis and addictions that made him a legendary strategist of the american civil war. But I am trying to point out that it is his acumen to take a stock of the situation correctly that made him so, and that was hugely influenced by his psychopathology.

Mood disorders in particular such as depression and bipolar, apart from the discomfort, pain and dysfunction that they would bring in a person affected with a particular disorder also carry certain
benign characteristics, if heeded to, would help the person not only elevate his own life but also that of others for whom he is responsible for leading and showing the way. Nassir Ghaemi points out the concept of 'depressive realism'- the ability to see the things as they are, instead of how they should be. This can especially be crucial in times of a crisis.

If you take depression for instance, it is observed that people with depression have a heightened sense of empathy and they are hyper realistic. This is what makes them miserable in the first place. Giving the example of Abraham Lincoln, he points out that Abe Lincoln was of melancholic disposition. In today's terms he would be given the diagnostic label of a chronic depressive. It is his very depression which made him identify with the pathetic state of the slavery existing in his times, and tough stand against it. And, he was right. Without his depressive realism, America would have been a house divided against itself.

Not only realism and empathy, but creativity and resilience are also one of the characteristics of the mood disorders such as bipolar. He points out how the realistic Winston Churchill has been ringing the alarm bell against the rise of Hitler since 1930's. Winston Churchill must have been a unipolar depressive for sure, according to Nassir Ghaemi . It is his realistic assessment of the crisis which made him stick to his guns, though he had nothing to offer but blood,toil, sweat and tears. With his persistence, he saved the free world from the impending Nazi doomsday.Hitler, according to him was a Bipolar whose condition worsened due to the abuse of amphetamines. No wonder his ideologies were so flawed. Very convincing Nassir!

Mood disorders are not ' either or' phenomenon. They exist on a continuum. People like Frank Delano Roosevelt and John F Kennedy were hyperthymics- a kind of personality where the person is always happy and resilient at all times. That's how Frank Delano Roosevelt could face his polio crisis and John.F. Kennedy his host of illnesses which was not known to many. Gandhi, according to Nassir was a dysthymic. Meaning, his personality was prone to persistent sadness. That's what made him empathetic towards the sad plight of the Indians, and initiate the freedom struggle.

All in all I learnt a lot from this book.

View all my reviews