I really liked the Harvey reading, especially in terms of the analysis of each question. Specifically, I liked the analysis of the “how are we doing” question. In this section, Harvey explains how many teachers received satisfactory scores in terms of their teaching and there were relatively low amounts of teachers who received unsatisfactory scores. I saw the correlation between this idea and the Forsyth reading we did a little while ago, about confidence boosting and self esteem for college students. For example, Harvey says that if “we can’t distinguish between good and bad teaching, how can they succeed in their mission of teaching?” (Harvey 211). I saw this point relating to the point in the Forsyth reading about students becoming “complacent” in their levels of studying and academic success. If students can not separate effort from confidence/self esteem, then how can they improve in their mission of learning and academic performance? I know that the Harvey reading was centered around leadership and I liked his overarching comments about leadership throughout this section and the article; however, I saw a correlation between these two points and wanted to think further about how they are related.

Additionally, I really liked Bezio’s comments about Brexit in particular. Specifically, I liked Bezio’s commentary about how youth (the 45 and under category) tend to have “a higher capacity for cross- national cooperation” (Bezio 60). I think this is an interesting point because as Bezio points out, this is a quality of future generations that will definitely have an impact on leadership. We would definitely be able to see this is we applied Harvey’s questions to the leadership of these future generations. Additionally, I think it is interesting to look at the current Brexit decision (UK leaving the European Union) in comparison with Bezio’s comments. The youth, who tended to suggest that the UK stay in the European Union, were outvoted in this decision. How will this effect the future of leadership for the UK, especially if they have this “cross-national” cooperation and attitude? How will this then affect Harvey’s questions?

COVID-19 Warning:
I really liked reading the Harvey piece and thought a lot of the questions he raised regarding leadership are relevant questions we should be asking ourselves right now amongst this pandemic. One point in his first question, “who are we” that struck out to me was the line, (it should be ) “understood that it is more important to know who you are than where you are going, where you are going will change as the world around you changes.” (Harvey 206) While this is a critical question leaders must ask themselves to assess their influence during different times, I think it is something that everyone should ask themselves. I find this to be incredibly relevant right now, as many of the things I and other classmates set up for ourselves for the rest of the semester and summer have been canceled due to the outbreak of the virus. Before the virus, I had accepted a position to intern for a company I really cared about, signed up to be a counselor at Camp Kesum, and was accepted to go abroad in the fall which was something I have been looking forward to since high school. Now, the recruiter I had been in close contact with for months leading up to my offer said they will likely not be having their program this summer, Kesum will be online if it were to happen, and my abroad program is up in the air. It can be very discouraging at times, to think of all the time I spent to make these things become realities to no longer being able to accomplish the things I planned to. However, the point Harvey made that really stuck out to me is to keep these values at your core and not let the externalities of the world affect those values. The world is constantly changing all around us, largely in ways we cannot control. While this can be discouraging, I agree with his point that knowing who we are is the best way to prepare for uncertainty and remain motivated to accomplish the goals we set out for ourselves.

Another part that really stood out to me in this reading is the distinction Harvey made between ‘where are we going’ versus ‘how will we get there?’ When looking at political campaigns, I always get frustrated when candidates have blanket statements to try and enact some sort of change but do not detail how they attempt to bring about that change. I think people as a whole romanticize the idea of long term change, but rarely realize or maintain the steps they need to achieve that goal. I think this is relevant to micro levels of people giving up their ‘New Years Resolution’ by February, or on macro levels in creating legislation for acts they care about. The ‘where we are going’ question has the end goal in vision, but the ‘how we will get there’ question focuses on the steps needed to get there.

Bezio’s “From Rome to Tyre to London” brought up a couple of interesting points. First, I agreed with one of her very first assertions that history and fiction are “irreducibly complex.” I am often bothered when leaders try to exactly emulate past figures, or when people applaud current leaders for this emulation, because context is so important. Some people celebrate Trump’s likeness with Ronald Reagan, but the tactics and characteristics that made Reagan stand-out aided his success mainly because of the time period in which he existed. To hone in too much on the individual figures distorts their image. I think part of this emphasis comes from our evolutionary tendency to associate successful societies with good leadership and failing societies with bad leadership, as a previous reading pointed out. I think it would be interesting to further investigate why our emphasis falls on the person and how it relates to this evolutionary tendency.

The largest takeaway from this article was how to connect historical leaders and events to present circumstances. Considering the fact Bezio dedicated the first 11.5 pages to understanding the story and the context in which it was written, that appears to be the first step. In fact, I think it is the most important step when trying to make these connections. As I mentioned before, I object to the comparison between Reagan and Trump because their contexts were so different. Bezio did a great job of breaking down Shakespeare’s context of post-Elizabethan England so that every choice Shakespeare made in his writing made sense in that context. Once that was done, making the connections between those smaller pieces and Brexit was a lot easier and straight-forward. I think that if someone broke down all pieces of Reagan’s presidency then I would object less to an off-hand comparison of the two because the argument would be more concrete. Once Bezio broke down all the pieces of Shakespeare, i was impressed by how easy and intuitive those connections to a modern concept were, showing how important a through investigation of the past is. I think it will be interesting because 50 years, 100years, 200 years from now people will be analyzing and breaking down events like Brexit or Donald Trump’s election, having to explain every bit of context  which makes perfect sense to us because we are living in it.

I think that the Harvey questions are super important when you are leading a group. One that I was particularly interested in was the Why do we care question. I think that that is something that a lot of people don’t look at when they are leading. They either don’t know or can’t effectively communicate to their followers why they care about doing something that the leader tells them to do. With COVID-19 it is pretty clear why people are saying to stay inside and social distance, its to save lives, but not every problem in the world is that straight forward. There are nuances and different opinions that go into it. A lot of politics is trying to answer why. Though it may seem like they are trying to decide how will we get there, but they are arguing why people should care about different things. The republican party is trying to share why everyone should care about protecting the second amendment and the democratic party is trying to explain that guns now are different than guns during the revolutionary period, therefore, the rules should be different.

I was thinking about this when I was reading the Bezio article. Back in Shakespearian times, kings did not have to explain themselves to anyone and there was no one holding them accountable. This is why there were so many issues with monarchies not doing what was best for their people and doing what was best for themselves and their nobility. I’m not sure if that was because they didn’t have to explain themselves to their followers or if they really only cared about the high-class people, but it still lead to lots of issues in countries with monarchies.

Something that stood out to me in the Harvey reading was the difference between “where are we going” and “how will we get there.” The author says that “there is something poetic or prophetic about stepping forth to answer the question ‘where are we going?'” However, the same aura does not exist in answering the question “how will we get there?” People want to hear their leader tell them where they are going. They want to hear that things will be better than they are now. Answering this question is easy. All a leader must do is paint an idilic picture and tell citizens what they want to hear. However, actually outlining and taking the steps to get to this place is harder. The truth is, there is no way for a leader to create a perfect situation for all people. Some will be angry or disappointed with the outcome. So, leaders often focus more on the “where are we going” question, and do not put as much thought into the steps it will take to get there.

I think that this is an issue that is present in our current political system. All presidential candidates are guilty of this (though some more than others). They tell voters what their vision for the country is, but are vague about their plan for getting the country to that place. This issue comes up a lot in presidential debates, where other candidates press their opponents to be more clear about their plan. Unfortunately, I think that a lot of voters do not care a lot about the “how will be get there?” question. They will vote for the candidate that tells them that they will improve the country, even if that candidate has no idea how to do so. The distinction between the “where are we going?” question and “how will we get there?” question is one that tells the difference between a good leader and a bad one, and I think that the US needs to listen more carefully to the hows in this presidential election.

I also found the communication section was interesting. I think there is a fine line between simplifying the complex challenges that leaders face so that everyone will understand them, and not providing the whole truth. In my opinion, this burden often falls on the media to present the public with all of the facts in a simplified manner, which is the only way to keep and open and healthy communication between leaders and the public.

In Bezio’s essay, there is a large discussion over England’s past government, and how it has shifted, in both directions, between absolute monarchy and more of a democratic state. There is a lot of comparison to Shakespeare’s Pericles, which I find intriguing and relevant for me specifically because my research project is based around the Royal Family, and I have honed in on the levels of power between Parliament and the Royal Family in my recent findings. Based on Pericles and Shakespeare’s time, decreasing personal ownership of the state helped preserve a type of monarchy that allowed for democratic pieces which led to a sort of “modern Western nationalism.” All of this information was led into a discussion over the “Brexit” vote, which I believe is unnecessary and should not take place. But then again, I am a part of the “under 45” population who are generally against Great Britain seceding from the European Union.

Those under 45 tend to side with the idea of a sense of a global community, rather than a national community. Belonging to the entire globe rather than just England is also a characteristic that was depicted in Pericles. Those under the age of 45 have had the privilege of growing up in an age where the global community has been connected both physically, through further opportunities in travel, and technologically with the new advancements of social media. Much like Marina, these people are able to identify with the global community, rather than just the English community. I agree with Bezio’s final statement that we must continue with this sense of globalization, just as Marina did. While it may not be extremely obvious to those over the age of 45, those coming of the age of leadership in Great Britain will hopefully be able to uphold a larger sense of community that expands further than the national borders.

Dr. Bezio’s article was so interesting because it really showed the importance of the sociohistorical context and evaluating leadership. After reading the background of what Shakespeare’s England looked like in terms of politics, my eyes were completely opened up. I have not studied Shakespeare in depth, besides the few plays I read in high school, but I think that it is so intriguing how the Romans and the Greeks represent the English and the Scottish. This rivalry and the information about how the people of England thought that the Scottish people would corrupt the English. This can really be seen in the play Pericles with the way that the Union project and James connects to the looking for marriage in the play. I think that it is so interesting how what was occurring in the 1600’s with the people of England not wanting to unify relates so much to Brexit today and how the people of England want to break apart and be separate again. This really shows the long history of the traditional English identity that has never really been broken.

I think that the reading “Questioning leadership: an integrative model” by Michael Harvey relates to Dr. Bezio’s article because it discusses the importance of a group in regard to leadership. The seven questions that Harvey focuses on mostly identify with what the makeup of the group is and how the leader can best answer the questions and needs of the group. This reading emphasized the importance of communication between the leader and the group of followers because it is super important for the group to know what is going on, where they are going, etc. If there is poor communication, then the group is harder to be united and that is one of the most important things in leadership. It is very important for the group to like their leader and one of the key ways for a leader to gain the trust and likeness of their group is to be open and communicate with them.

COVID-19 Warning

Of the two readings, there was one part of Harvey’s article that really stuck out to be given its relation I saw to current events. At one point Harvey is discussing the different ways of approaching leadership as a group. He discusses an us vs. them mentality that can be made by a group to unify it but also block out “outsiders” and he mentions a universalist perspective. This universalist perspective doesn’t create the same in-group/out-group divide. As I was reading this section of the article, I couldn’t help but think about the approaches different nations are taking in supporting other during this global pandemic.

From what I have seen in the media over the past few weeks, leadership within the United States has seemingly adapted as us vs. them mentality when dealing with coronavirus. This is not to say that the United States has made other nations that enemy during this rather, that the United States has not taken a universalist perspective as demonstrated by some nations. Shaped by the rhetoric that Trump has deployed, the United States has seemingly taken the situation as a race versus other nations (Trump tweeted earlier today “USA STRONG!” which while that is enthusiastic, patriotic, etc… it reads much more as something that would said at a sporting event). This is lead by the “America first” attitudes I have witnessed from people when discussing methods to overcome the virus and the seemingly race to find a cure/treatment. Meanwhile, other nations appear to have taken a more universalist perspective. This is showcased by China sending masks and doctors to other countries. While these changes could have occurred due to the varying number of cases between countries, I do think, especially after reading Harvey’s article, that part of these differences in responses is due to the ways that different countries are creating groups and then answering the learn questions after the creation of the group.

In Questioning leadership: an integrative model by Michael Harvey, I was interested by the question “Where are We?”. When thinking of leaders and followers, many of us don’t necessarily consider our present situation. The example of 9/11 was impactful because it marked a transformative change in the U.S. and across the world. People, who we thought could not cause harm, did cause harm in a manner untraditional to us. No one considered that a hijacker of a plane was interested in islamic extremism. This event showed the common interests and values that all American’s had; however, it showed that many unethical activities would follow. The torture of people believed to have a connection with Al-Qaeda or even the killing of innocent citizens in Iraq. 9/11 brought America together under one flag, but American citizens allowed moral impermissible actions of their political and military leaders.

The question “Do we understand?” also struck me because of the impact of a leader using “a sense of personal connection” (pg.220) in our society. We all want leaders who look like us, think like us, talk like us, and more. If a leader is a representative from our group, our goals and values can be achieved. The interactions that occur between leaders and followers are important to creating a shared identity. FDR was so widely loved by Americans because his followers understood him. He saw the livelihood of Americans as one of the chief responsibilities of the U.S. government. This could be seen in the creation of the New Deal, which opened up job opportunities following the Great Depression. Although FDR was Harvard educated, his academic prowess didn’t impinge on his ability to serve the American people. It is important that followers can see themselves in their leader and that this gap in ability is not too far. Leaders should not be outsiders of the group, but rather insiders. Leaders are the most successful and ethical when they realize that they do not stand above their followers, but for them. 

Michael Harvey explains how leadership depends on a groups distinctive social reality. There are many concepts that and frameworks that contribute to the group and how it affects them. One of the things I really like about leadership studies is how it shows an interconnectedness of many different types of studies. It is these studies that groups take into consideration when deciding on leadership.

The idea that leadership concerns with every identity of the individuals in a group is interesting. Numerous people have a variety of different goals and interests and as a group becomes larger, the more need there is for leadership. A good leader takes into account of all the varying interests and identities of group members to make sure they are all represented. This ties back to how everything essentially intersects in leadership. It comes in a variety of perspectives and a good leader is able to communicate and emphasize those differences in a way that brings the group together. I think modern society has difficulty in embracing differences, as many judge others based on interests, identity, and perspective. I definitely agree that when a group becomes bigger, the harder it is to maintain the cohesiveness in a group.