

Solitude and Leadership - efolsom
http://www.theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/
Why is it so often that the best people are stuck in the middle and the people who are running things—the leaders—are the mediocrities? Because excellence isn’t usually what gets you up the greasy pole. What gets you up is a talent for maneuvering. Kissing up to the people above you, kicking down to the people below you. Pleasing your teachers, pleasing your superiors, picking a powerful mentor and riding his coattails until it’s time to stab him in the back. Jumping through hoops. Getting along by going along. Being whatever other people want you to be, so that it finally comes to seem that, like the manager of the Central Station, you have nothing inside you at all. Not taking stupid risks like trying to change how things are done or question why they’re done. Just keeping the routine going.
======
dsplittgerber
This is one of the best lectures/essays I have ever read. Argues for better
(moral) leadership in nearly all of society's institutions, and what is
required for that, exposing, along the way, not only military bureaucracies
and the kinds of people these attract, and much more.

------
balding_n_tired
Some of the points about the military and bureacracy remind one of Tocqueville
on the characteristics of peacetime militaries in a democratic state.
Tocqueville could have learned it by reviewing the US performance in the War
of 1812--start with a Hull and a Wilkinson, end with Jackson, Brown, Scott.

As for solitude & introspection, I don't know. These are not necessarily the
qualities that make the warrior.

------
confusedcitizen
Reading the entire article would be a good first step in practicing his ideas.
:) Interesting read...

