
Solitude and Leadership - enduser
http://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/
======
losvedir
This is a great article which I reread occasionally so I'm happy to see it
posted to HN. That said, the one thing that always bothers me about is I don't
really know the leadership credentials of the author. His blurb at the bottom
says:

> _"William Deresiewicz is an essayist and critic. His book, A Jane Austen
> Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things
> That Really Matter, was published in April."_

and Wikipedia doesn't offer much in addition.

The advice seems reasonable, but I'm not sure if it's actually true. Have any
respected leaders agreed with it? I know this talk was given at West Point, so
it seems like that's an affirmation of its value, but does that mean it was
read ahead of time and that's why he was brought in? What does Deresiewicz
know about leadership?

------
UK-AL
I hate it when people think leadership is getting a grades or going to the
best schools. Despite what institutions say it is hard to teach leadership.
You can't pass a course module on leadership and become leader, nor will
getting a in maths make you leader.

Leaders emerge in groups as and when they are needed. There will often be the
natural leader, and the guy with authority. Most institutions don't like that
idea. The natural leader is not always the guy with best education, it is not
always the guy who has gone through a leadership program, it is not always the
guy with the commission, it is not always the guy with huge amount of extra-
circulars(which he joined on purpose to gain a leadership role...)

It is the guy with the vision, and the ability to get people to rally around
him. This sometimes causes huge conflicts in hierarchies, with an enlisted
commanding the hearts, minds and actions as opposed to a commissioned officer
which they follow because of fear.

It's why I find it funny when elite institutions seem to imply they have a
magical ingredient that makes people into leaders, they don't. They dispense
authority not leadership and that's why people HAVE to follow them. It is
self-fulfilling really. They fast track people into senior positions. Since
they are in a senior position it sounds as if they have leadership ability,
when really someone else could of been just as good in that position without
necessarily having been to that elite institution. It was being in a senior
position that made people listen, and not because of leadership skills.

When people say stuff like naturing the best students because they going to be
the future leaders I face-palm. I'm good at maths and cs, but that doesn't
really qualify me for leadership but for some reason it qualifies me to apply
for a commission to 'lead' men... When those men themselves may have been
better applicants for the leadership role.

Leadership to me is the ex-prisoner who reforms and becomes a social
entrepreneur and transforms his community. It is the guy who builds an
organisation that gets disenfranchised youth on the right track. These people
have undisputed leadership skills. They have no amount of conferred authority,
and yet they built organisations from nothing and people follow them. People
follow them not because of a Army commission or a Yale degree or whatever but
because they want to. For some reason they just emerged, and they're not
always the best academically.

I have seen organisations try to replicate natural leadership like the ones I
mentioned. I have seen company graduate schemes that tell people to go out and
start a charity for blind people, raise money for the orphanage or something.
However being told to do it by your boss kind of eliminates the point...

Because your recruiting from ivy league universities, it does not mean your
getting leaders.

