Commentary on Leadership

Some initial thoughts:

I think that “leadership” is hard to define because it can be controversial—what one person may see as leadership another might think of as manipulation or usurpation of power. Take an obvious example: pick any dictator in history—Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Castro; their followers considered them leaders, their opposition considered them demagogues. But then again, maybe ‘usurpation of power’ is a definition of leadership as well—why do we necessarily attach a positive connotation to the word? Mao certainly led his country—but led them to what? Starvation, oppression, poverty, and regression. So then “leadership” should be defined differently—not as a position of power but as an act of making progress for an entire group. I’m not sure the author’s definition of leadership was clear—is a leader necessarily someone with the authority to make decisions that influence others or is ‘leadership’ simply a character trait, a personal attribute?

On to Greenwald’s main arguments:

Greenwald mentions that the academic community did not take leadership programs seriously when they first started to appear in colleges and universities. I used to more or less feel the same way: without actually taking the time to look into any of these programs, I thought they sounded elitist and somewhat trite. I also related to Greenwald’s description of these programs as ‘offering a false promise to students’ because to me it seemed like students should be able to learn leadership skills through it’s real-life applications in other classes, in their jobs, or in life in general. People should learn leadership qualities as the need for leadership is presented—as it is in everyday life. In fact, I would say that leadership is so integral to all aspects of life in one way or another that it might be impossible to define the term standing alone. So I thought, what could students possibly learn from a leadership class that is not applied to a specific subject? Especially since leadership requirements vary drastically from situation to situation and from person to person. Thus I’m not surprised that leadership programs were often not taken seriously. On the surface, “leadership” is such a vague term. What is taught in these programs is hard to define, so I can see it being difficult to justify. Further, skills taught in leadership programs are not so concrete—like voltaic cells or World War II— making it hard to measure the programs’ success.

But then I realized that I really haven’t learned all the skills I need to become a leader in my other classes (we certainly learn to follow…hmm, food for thought). I realized that I am too passionate about too many things to simply be a passive observer or follower. I want to have a voice, to have influence to make changes (who doesn’t?)! I want to right wrongs in society that our past and current leaders have instated, continued, or at least acquiesced to maintain. I want to have the power to make progress. After realizing this, I found that the term ‘leadership’ was defined for me in a truly meaningful and personal way. Now I believe that I can take advantage of such a leadership program. As Greenwald argues, leadership should be defined ‘in a meaningful way before it can develop a meaningful curriculum for its students.’

I also agree with Greenwald in that we are entering a riskier world than that of the previous generation. First of all, I believe that government (at least in America but presumably elsewhere too) is becoming both more and more secretive against the public eye, and more and more greedy—politically, economically, diplomatically…or at least it is festering its greed more and more. Thus our need for reform is becoming desperate. New technology is always changing our medium of communication, for good or for bad—and communication is obviously vital to leadership. Further, and maybe most importantly, I believe that misinformation is our society’s biggest problem. New misinformation is spewing out of every media channel while old misinformation is ever more ingrained into our society. Then, we are struggling with overpopulation—which is simply adding strain to every single one of society’s issues. The more people sucked into these issues, the harder it will be and the longer it will take to resolve anything. In other words, the world of the emerging generation is riskier because we have been digging a deeper and deeper hole. Many current leaders are either ignoring or denying problems and thus they are only growing.

So yes, I think our world does need leaders like never before. However, I disagree that the problem is lack of people with the skills of becoming a leader. It’s not so much that leaders are nowhere to be found, it’s that we have successfully set up our society so that the leaders in power have freedom to be corrupt and those with leadership potential are often shunned out of the running because they endanger the job security and reputation of those already in office. It’s like you have to ‘play dirty’ to win power, and you have to make sacrifices that become regressive policies in order to keep your power. In other words, politics always triumphs--even if that means making a bad economical decision or maintaining/instating a corrupt or regressive policy. Economists, scientists, and activists are constantly shushed when what they have to say is not what politicians want to hear. The result is that as individuals we are pummeled with misinformation and as a society we are manipulated. Greenwald touches on the fact that we need self-reliance in order to make our own opportunities; how can we be self-reliant when we don’t have the tools to make informed decisions? Everyone wants to be free; I think students want to learn leadership skills so that they can be.