The Higher You Rise, The Further Your Shadow Falls

Antony and Cleopatra, from Shakespeare.
Samson and Delilah, from the Bible.
David and Bathsheba, ditto.
Heathcliff and Catherine, from Wuthering Heights.

A man at the top of his game, top of the world, losing everything over a woman.

It’s a story as old as time. And apparently, we’re still writing new chapters.

Just ask Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, who now finds himself embroiled in a romantic scandal with an alleged Chinese spy.

The details are still emerging; no one knows what the investigation will reveal. Jensen has already stepped down as CEO. The commentariat is of course circling like buzzards, keen to feast on whatever remains of the man. 

We don’t know him personally; we weren’t there, our guess is as good (or bad) as anyone else’s. We’re more interested in the underlying lesson that mankind can’t seem to learn: Being favored by the gods, whether you’re a king, an emperor, or a billionaire CEO, doesn’t free you of the human condition.

You can be brilliant. Disciplined. A visionary. Capable of building something that changes the world. And still be susceptible to the same temptations as the rest of us mere mortals.

But the higher you climb, the more people can see you. And the more people can see you, the greater your responsibility to demonstrate the behaviors you hope to see in them.

Human beings learn what acceptable behavior is by watching other human beings. And the more influential the person we’re watching, the more weight their behavior carries.

Imagine a CEO who gives a stirring speech about integrity on Monday, then lies on his taxes on Tuesday. What lesson have the employees just learned?

Not necessarily that everyone should do exactly the same, but something much more general, and potentially much more damaging: That what we say we believe and what we actually do can be two entirely different things. And if you’re important enough, you can get away with it.

Nobody expects leaders to be gods. But if you’re going to ask people to live by a set of values, you’d better be prepared to live by them yourself.

Which is a good lesson for us all. Hopefully we’ll actually learn it this time… until it doubtlessly happens again.