Georgia O’Keeffe and the Art of Unapologetic Leadership

A note to young leaders.

Leadership is not a popularity contest.

You can’t lead if you’re constantly looking over your shoulder – seeking endorsement, craving approval.

In 1915, at just 28, Georgia O’Keeffe defied the art world’s obsession with realism: “Let them all be damned, I’ll do as I please. Nothing is less real than realism,” she declared.

She was right. But it takes courage to defy the fashions of your day.

“I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life,” she once confessed, “and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.”

In her late sixties, O’Keeffe was offered something extraordinary: a solo exhibition at the Louvre – the first ever for a foreign female artist.

She turned it down. “No, it would be too much trouble,” she replied. Not out of disdain, but because she valued her autonomy more than acclaim.

News of her refusal soon spread within art circles and only burnished her legend.

You don’t exist to please or impress others. Bow to nothing less than your higher calling.

Leadership is conviction or else it is vanity.