I thought the podcast on history’s relationship with leadership was super interesting and is one of my favorite parts of leadership studies. I had Dr. Hayter for my 101 class and we discussed in depth many of the topics we mentioned in class like Hitler and World War II, prohibition, the Civil Rights movement with Malcom X and Rosa Parks, and how history is important because it explains why our world is the way it is today. That is the part I find the most interesting and the thing I was most interested in and surprised to learn when I started my journey through the Jepson school:  how history has shaped the context of our world today and how context is one of the most important facets of leadership. For example when Hitler rose to power, he recognized the context of current anti-Semitic sentiment all across Europe in the mid 1900s and fed off that sentiment during his rise to power. According to Dr. Hayter, he did not necessarily create a rise in those sentiments when he gained political power. We also talked a great deal about what is mentioned in the podcast, that though MLK was a great charismatic speaker he had many unnamed leaders before him who made the Civil Rights movement physically possible. This idea greatly challenges the Great Man theory since we now know he was not the sole cause of the Civil Rights movement.

I also found the Great Man Theory mentioned in the podcast more interesting now with the connections drawn by Dr. Bezio, I did not think too much about it when I first learned about it, but the theory was created at the time when solely rich, white men were considered leaders and they were the ones controlling what was recorded. I had always known this at the back of my mind but when mentioned in the podcast it all makes sense. We can tie this idea back to how representation is important in the media: since white men controlled the majority of history for so long, it gives the appearance that women and people of color contributed little to history. By beginning to change the narrative in terms of who else can be considered a leader, as well as recording so much more information these days, can be thought of as representation in the historical narrative. This representation can be equally as influential as depictions in the media, in my opinion.