I just started reading The Poker Face of Wall Street by Aaron Brown and read an interesting line:
Trader's know well: "Your first loss is your least loss." As you attack incalculable risks, you learn things that help you calculate. If the result of that calculation suggests that you are not getting sufficient odds to justify further investment, give up just as quickly and decisively as you began. By the way, being able to fold too soon rather than too late is one reason poker players sometimes make bad leaders. There are situations in which the leader should strive until all hope is gone, even dying on the battlefield or going down with the ship. That can be good for the cause, but it's bad poker and deadly sin for traders.
It seems the point that Brown is trying to make is that leaders must fight for the cause, no matter the consequences, due to fact that they are the leader. In reality, though, I believe the best leaders know exactly when to walk away and steer towards a new direction. In fact the best CEO's often change strategy and change strategy often. The best presidents change policy and change policy often in the face of new data. Conversely, the worst presidents (read: George W. Bush) stick to their policies in the face of overwhelming data that indicates that they should change course.
Traders, just like leaders in any field, are constantly processing information and adjusting as necessary to make constant and incremental progress. The notion that traders are somehow insulated from the decisions that "actual" leaders make is patently false, and furthermore, methodologically impossible if they want to be successful. Although, I agree that traders might be leaders of few (sometimes only one - themselves), the traits and skills that they share with other leaders are probably more similar than different.
