Practically wise leadership isn’t about a leadership style or a personality type. Practically wise leadership is the art of navigating nuance to make the right decisions and move the right people to get the right things done. It’s a way of being.
Problems that require great leadership to solve rarely present themselves in black and white. Real leadership is needed where values compete, egos collide, and context is incomplete. The leaders who rise to meet that challenge are those who have cultivated the moral imagination and emotional maturity to respond wisely.
The highest demonstration of human reason is ability to practically apply knowledge in real world situations in the presence of strong emotions, ambiguity, time constraints, and significant consequences. Practical wisdom is the best term we have to describe this peak use of reason. The concept of practical wisdom can trace back to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguished purely intellectual wisdom (sophia) from the more useful form of wisdom, practical wisdom (phronesis). Translations into English have varied slightly over the centuries, but a working Aristotelian definition for practical wisdom is a true and reasoned state of capacity to act with regard to human goods.
Practically wise is a way of being. It is the embodiment of the virtue practical wisdom in your daily life. Being practically wise is about consistently applying practical wisdom, habitually and intentionally, so that it becomes part of your core character. Being practically wise allows us to make wise decisions and take wise action that improve our lives and the lives of those around us. To be the most effective person you can be, to achieve your potential, you need to consciously focus on becoming more and more practically wise over course of your lifetime.