Mark Zuckerberg's Magic Touch

Facebook's shares open for trading today. Chances are, you're holding your breath or rolling your eyes. Whether you're inspired or baffled about the company's valuation and prospects, the occasion is hard to ignore. What we are witnessing, and participating in, is more than an IPO. It's a collective rite. The event will sanction Mark Zuckerberg's place in the pantheon of innovative entrepreneurs who built fortunes upon technologies that changed the world, or more precisely, that changed the way people experienced and lived in the world. At a time when identities and communities are as fluid as ever, Zuckerberg grasped, before and better than anyone else, the craving for spaces where we can hold on to — or reinvent — ourselves in relation to others. He gave existential questions of uniqueness and belonging a twenty-first century home on the web.

The share of the world population attracted to Facebook, and the time we spend on it, has grown in parallel with the mystique surrounding its founder. Zuckerberg's appeal has long transcended the boundaries of the business and technology communities. This is nowhere more apparent than in the media coverage of his attire.

When he showed up in a hoodie for a meeting with potential investors in New York City recently, Wall Street analysts and financial journalists turned into fashion critics and psychoanalysts for the day. Depending on whose opinion you read, his signature garment was a signal of immaturity, confidence, defiance, conformity, insensitivity, consistency, carelessness, or calculation. The hoodie was clearly in the eye of the beholder. The episode was a microcosm of an ongoing collective preoccupation with the motives and moves of the brilliant young man on whose "book" we have become accustomed to writing our own stories. It was one among many attempts to unveil the magic of Zuckerberg's leadership, which only further revealed our fascination with him. This is not a new phenomenon. Leaders in every sphere, at every level, have been treated to a mixture of scrutiny and mythologizing since times immemorial. We try to capture and dissect their vision, character, abilities, clothing — their luck, even. But those never fully explain the magic that keeps us enthralled. Because what attracts us — or repels us, or turns us off — is not just how they think and act, or the stories they tell. It's the stories they represent. On the one hand, the story Mark Zuckerberg embodies is quintessentially contemporary. He is a poster boy, architect, and beneficiary of the intermingling of our off- and on-line lives. He is a role model for a generation whose members view entrepreneurship as the best avenue to express themselves and serve society with their work.

On the other hand, his story is not entirely new. It is a story of ambition and genius that meet opportunity; of impeccable timing and ruthless focus; of the geek that becomes a star; of the once marginal that makes it to the top. It is a story known by many as "the American dream," and regarded with as much reverence and suspicion nowadays — salvation for some, illusion for others — as its hooded incarnation. Leaders can learn three important lessons from Zuckerberg's appeal and in the scrutiny that surrounds him: Charisma and vulnerability go hand in hand. What gives leaders their magic appeal is our collective desire for stories that give meaning and hope to our lives and communities. People for whom your story holds promise will hold you in high regard. Those who are left out, or for whom the story spells danger, will likely vilify you. Your people's adulation and others' contempt may push you into becoming an even more fervent advocate of your story — and make it harder for you to challenge it, change it, or bridge it to others. This is how great ideas, over time, degenerate into absolute beliefs.

Scrutiny comes with the job. When you are leading, don't blame people for questioning your motives and your competence. It's how they determine whether or not to trust you. Scrutiny reveals your courage and integrity. People will only follow you if you articulate clearly and embody credibly a story that is theirs as much as yours. So make it personal, but not about you. Leaders need grounding, not insulation. You are going to need support to remain grounded in your story without losing the capacity to question it. Avoid surrounding yourself with people that only protect you and bolster your appeal.

Being bestowed with the magic of leadership can be wonderful, burdensome, seductive, or intoxicating. Using it well requires giving yourself to a story that you and your followers hold dear, but without giving yourself up. Owning it fully without becoming so possessed by it that you stop revisiting it and considering its consequences. Taking your ambitions and others' expectations seriously without being controlled by either. Looked at this way, leadership is like a hoodie. How you feel about it, if you care at all, depends on whose shoulders it rests and what that person means to you. If you like it, don't sit on your admiration. Get one yourself. When it rests upon your shoulders, make sure that it suits you and it helps you show up. You will never be able to predict, let alone control, what others see. You will have to work with it.