
The Types of Leaders Who Create Radical Change - sds111
https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/the-three-types-of-leaders-who-create-radical-change
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ukulele
> Why did Occupy Wall Street subside in a matter of months, for instance,
> while the American Civil Rights Movement thrived, resulting in the passage
> of multiple laws?

This is probably the dumbest comparison we'll see out of HBR. It should be
pretty clear that unavoidable discrimination and violence generation after
generation is going to anger people and foster action way more than losing
money.

And if you wanted to find examples in Occupy Wall Street, I'm sure there were
people "agitating", "innovating", and "orchestrating". These are so squishy of
terms as to be almost pointless.

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BenchRouter
Not to mention that the American Civil Rights Movement had relatively clear
goals and a pretty singular focus: Ending explicit state-approved
discrimination against black people.

The goals and focus of OWS weren't very clear (to me at least): Was it about
ending corporate influence in politics? Was it about seeking consequences for
what happened in 2008? Was it about wealth inequality? It kinda seemed to be
about all of the above. How can you really rally anyone if it's not really
clear what they're getting together for, other than some vague sense of being
wronged?

Also, whereas the civil rights movement had measurable goals (repealing Jim
Crow laws, for instance), it's hard to imagine how you measure "success" when
your goal is something vague like removing corporate influence in politics.

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mseebach
As I recall it, OWS explicitly did not have goals as a group, this was
something the common meeting (I don't recall the name) in each "camp" was
supposed to work out consensually. The few (if any?) manifests that did end
being adopted by this process were somewhere in the esoteric to pointless
range, and by this time, the process had self selected OWS down to the members
that explicitly enjoyed the process.

Bottom line, you're not going to get anything done if you don't have any
objectives, and it's a lot harder to align large groups of people around
specific objectives than it seems.

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Top19
Most change is generational. Went to my city council meeting last night
because I wanted to make sure new housing was approved for. There were 300ish
people there, probably an average of 60. Very few people under 40, maybe 10
most.

Changes happens when old people die, and new people take over who were shaped
by different generational events.

It’s frustrating in some ways, but really pleasing in others because change
will come, even if it looks like it never is going to happen. It’s a healthy
tension between preservation and innovation. That being said, if you’re in
agitator who succeeds, you’re most likely just in the right place at the right
time...

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dba7dba
Another viewpoint is that those people in 40s become more like the people in
60s when they themselves become get older.

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kelukelugames
Please edit title. Per HN rules it should be The Types of Leaders Who Create
Radical Change.

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sctb
Done, thanks.

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auggierose
Sounds a little bit like: Leadership, Innovation, Marketing.

Yeah, it's good to have all of those three.

~~~
api
It's rare because when someone has one they tend to coast on it rather than
investing in the others.

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danielam
To be sure, there are plenty of those who criticize incessantly without
offering real alternatives where alternatives would be needed, and certainly
one can theorize, but what I find worrying about this article is how it seems
to be worshiping at the altar of leadership and change (and effectiveness in
bringing it about; even the name of the module is "Power and Influence in
Society"), without evidencing the slightest concern over moral considerations.
Does X need to be changed? If so, to what end and in what ways such that we
are behaving morally?

