Leadership and the Forgotten Generation
Well, it’s happened again. Generation X has once again by overlooked and forgotten.
Thankfully though, we’ve got the jokes.
Read more about it here.
And speaking of…
Pick of the Week: The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman
I honestly cannot remember where I heard about this book but I started listening to it this week and so far, it is incredible!!!
Here’s the description from Goodreads —
The Nineties: a wise and funny reckoning with the decade that gave us slacker/grunge irony about the sin of trying too hard, during the greatest shift in human consciousness of any decade in American history.
It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. In the beginning, almost every name and address was listed in a phone book, and everyone answered their landlines because you didn't know who it was. By the end, exposing someone's address was an act of emotional violence, and nobody picked up their new cell phone if they didn't know who it was. The '90s brought about a revolution in the human condition we're still groping to understand. Happily, Chuck Klosterman is more than up to the job.
Beyond epiphenomena like Cop Killer and Titanic and Zima, there were wholesale shifts in how society was perceived: the rise of the internet, pre-9/11 politics, and the paradoxical belief that nothing was more humiliating than trying too hard. Pop culture accelerated without the aid of a machine that remembered everything, generating an odd comfort in never being certain about anything. On a '90s Thursday night, more people watched any random episode of Seinfeld than the finale of Game of Thrones. But nobody thought that was important; if you missed it, you simply missed it. It was the last era that held to the idea of a true, hegemonic mainstream before it all began to fracture, whether you found a home in it or defined yourself against it.
In The Nineties, Chuck Klosterman makes a home in all of it: the film, the music, the sports, the TV, the politics, the changes regarding race and class and sexuality, the yin/yang of Oprah and Alan Greenspan. In perhaps no other book ever written would a sentence like, "The video for 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' was not more consequential than the reunification of Germany" make complete sense. Chuck Klosterman has written a multi-dimensional masterpiece, a work of synthesis so smart and delightful that future historians might well refer to this entire period as Klostermanian.
Leadership
What makes a good leader? What are the most important and integral qualities of leadership? That seems to be a question that can never be fully answered. Dictionary.com defines leadership as —
noun
the position or function of a leader, a person who guides or directs a group: He managed to maintain his leadership of the party despite heavy opposition.
ability to lead: As early as sixth grade she displayed remarkable leadership potential.
an act or instance of leading; guidance; direction: They prospered under his strong leadership.
the leaders of a group: The union leadership agreed to arbitrate.
Hmmm. Call me crazy, but that doesn’t tell me all that much. What about the fine folks at Merriam-Webster?
1: the office or position of a leader // recently assumed the leadership of the company
2: capacity to lead // a politician who lacks leadership
3: the act or an instance of leading // leadership molds individuals into a team— Harold Koontz & Cyril O'Donnell
4: LEADERS // the party leadership
Well…that’s not any better. Let’s try looking somewhere else.
Mary K. Pratt on TechTarget states —
Leadership is the ability of an individual or a group of individuals to influence and guide followers or other members of an organization.
Leadership involves making sound -- and sometimes difficult -- decisions, creating and articulating a clear vision, establishing achievable goals and providing followers with the knowledge and tools necessary to achieve those goals.
Leaders are found and required in most aspects of society, from business to politics to region to community-based organizations.
An effective leader possess the following characteristics: self-confidence, strong communication and management skills, creative and innovative thinking, perseverance in the face of failure, willingness to take risks, openness to change, and levelheadedness and reactiveness in times of crisis.
[…]
What makes a great leader?
Multiple definitions of leadership exist, although the different definitions generally converge in the theory that great leaders have the ability to make strategic and visionary decisions and convince others to follow those decisions. The consensus is leaders create a vision and can successfully get others to work toward achieving that goal. They do this by setting direction and inspiring others to want to succeed in achieving the end result. Moreover, they are capable of getting people excited and motivated to work toward the vision.
In other words, great leaders know how to both inspire people and get followers to complete the tasks that achieve the leader's goal.
Former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower articulated this idea when he said, "Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it."
What about our good friends over at Wikipedia? What do they say about leadership?
Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets viewed as a contested term.[1][2] Specialist literature debates various viewpoints on the concept, sometimes contrasting Eastern and Western approaches to leadership, and also (within the West) North American versus European approaches.
U.S. academic environments define leadership as "a process of social influence in which a person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common and ethical task".[3][4] Basically, leadership can be defined[by whom?] as an influential power-relationship in which the power of one party (the "leader") promotes movement/change in others (the "followers").[5] Some have challenged the more traditional managerial views of leadership (which portray leadership as something possessed or owned by one individual due to their role or authority), and instead advocate the complex nature of leadership which is found at all levels of institutions, both within formal[6] and informal roles.[7][need quotation to verify]
Studies of leadership have produced theories involving (for example) traits,[8] situational interaction, function, behavior,[9] power, vision[10] and values,[11][need quotation to verify] charisma, and intelligence, among others.[4]
From all of this, the one point that really stands out to me is from Pratt’s piece and it is simply two words — “inspire people.” That, to me, is the key to leadership.
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves a point must be made. Leadership and management are not the same things. Being a great manager does not automatically make one a great leader and vice versa.
What do I see as great leadership? Well, like so many others, I’m not sure how to define it exactly but I know when I see it (and when I don’t). There is something intangible to great leadership, an “it” factor that cannot be defined.
So, since I am unable to define what I see as great leadership, how about some examples of individuals who I think were great leaders? In other words, these are the people (fictional and nonfictional) who I would emulate if I was in a leadership position.
Commander William T. Riker (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Martin Luther King Jr.
Captain Christopher Pike (Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds)
Abraham Lincoln
The 14th Dalai Lama
Take from this what you will. (As one can probably tell, I’m a bit of a Trekkie.)
One Band, 5 Songs
Hailing from London, England, Fresh plays a brand of indie-punk that pulls equally from the indie rock of the 1990s to the punk and emo of the 2000s, resulting in a sound that sounds not only familiar but, pun intended, fresh. On top of that, singer/guitarist Kathryn Woods is a singular voice who punches with biting lyrics, humor, and heart-felt social commentary.