Author: Matthew Barnes

Both of the readings focused on redefining leadership, or citizenship to better engage our current society. In McFarland’s piece on redefining leadership, there were several shifts in how leaders should be. It moved away from the traditional top-down style and more towards a collaborative, holistic, humanistic style of leadership that is prepared for constant change. This reading reminded me of the women’s leadership reading and the followership piece, because it called for recognition of leadership within the traditional follower group as well as calling for a more interactive leadership style.

I think the most important part of Williamson’s piece was when he stated that the foundation for democratic citizenry is “shared commitment to one another, our shared commitment to the common project of building an inclusive democratic society, and a shared willingness to take the concrete steps needed to bring that ideal into reality” (Williamson 20). This was similar to McFarland’s call for leadership, because Williamson wants us to all engage collaboratively and interactively together to make our democracy thrive. Hopefully, if leadership does shift towards the newer definition, Williamson’s vision of a more democratic United States will come to life.

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I thought this reading was interesting. The dynamic ingroups and outgroups form by playing off each other reminds me of a catch 22 in some cases. In the case of an American who is fluent in Japanese, it seems like it is not possible to penetrate into the group because of the lack of the common group knowledge, but the only way to get that knowledge is to be a part of the ingroup.

One of the most interesting factors for me was how much of an effect language has on creating and maintaining ingroups and outgroups. On a basic level it makes sense, because if you don’t speak the common language of a certain group, it will automatically mark you as someone different. However, one factor that I didn’t really consider is the fact that each language has specific markers and emphasis on how it is spoken, the way it is spoken, and what is spoken. For example, I read an article recently called “Why the French Love to Say No.” One of the points in the article explained that while the English language has over 500,000 words, French only has around 70,000. As a result, while English is rather explicit and direct in how it is spoken and not heavily reliant on context, French is much more reliant on context and other expressions to show meaning, and ‘non’ can have many different layers of meaning and not actually mean no. Considering the fact that different languages operate in fundamentally different ways can be very helpful in converging different groups.

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I went to the Sharp Viewpoint Speaker Series on the 12^th, where Michele Norris gave a talk called The Race Card: Observations on Race, Identity, and Inclusion. One of the main things she talked about was The Race Card Project, a project she started several years ago where people would tell stories about their identity in 6 words. It was an inspiring speech, because the goal of this project was to promote speech and give a voice to topics that are generally silent. The project has collected over 500,000 post cards, and that number is constantly growing larger with digital cards and social media allowing for even larger participation.

Some of the most interesting points in her speech, for me, was when she brought up how racism is a spectrum that can range from a noose down to a small social papercut (microaggression), saying that “biases are baked into western DNA.” Serious, uncomfortable discussions are necessary to move us closer to a post-racism society. To end, Michele Norris’s two six-word stories are “fool them all, not done yet” and “there’s still work to be done”

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I found it very interesting to read and watch about the emergence of the women’s suffrage movement and the development of leadership styles associated, or not, with different genders. The piece by Rosner focused primarily on data of the ways women lead, classifying it as ‘interactive leadership’ where there are “efforts to encourage participation and share power and information… [and] inclusion is at the core of interactive leadership” (Rosner 151). I am glad the Schein reading was paired with this, because, in my opinion, the Schein reading added a dimension that the Rosner reading lacked. Schein focused on how attention should be focused on “erasing the differences between the sexes … to provide opportunities for the most qualifies of either sex” (Schein 167). The point was that categorizing leadership styles by gender is not accurate, because leadership is not neatly gender divisible. Schein’s ideas work to have interactive leadership as a leadership style that can be used by any gender and the chosen style dependent on each unique situation.

During this past summer, I saw interactive leadership where I was working. Every Monday, our department would meet in the morning to give status updates on projects and clients we were working with. My manager used this time to either field new ideas or have others field new ideas about various projects/events/etc that were going on. I think it was a great example of interactive leadership, because everyone was encouraged to speak up, give advice, or give help to others so we would all accomplish our goals.

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Kelley’s In Praise of Followers focuses on the redefining of the relationship of leaders and followers, and the advantageous results that can come from it. Instead of viewing the two groups differently, Kelley calls for a reimagining of leaders and followers as equals, but with different roles. One of the most interesting points to me was when Kelley pointed out that effective followers have “initiative, self-control, commitment, talent, honesty, credibility, and courage” (Kelley). However, these are traits commonly associated with leaders. I liked that Kelley was calling for the development of followership, because his ideas work to raise the agency or potential of everyone in the group, and that in turn will allow the organization to grow.

This reading reminded me of Gardner’s because he was also talking about how groups do not fall into easy divisions of leaders and passive followers. Rather, there is a dynamic between the leaders and followers that affects both in shaping the group. While the idea of a dynamic interaction between follower and leader is attractive, Kelley raised the point that “in practice, followers who challenge their bosses run the risk of getting fired” (Kelley). This is problematic, because it creates sort of catch 22, where the followers cannot be effective if they don’t challenge the leader, but if they do, there is always the potential they will be fired, at least in the corporate world.

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While this was a really interesting podcast to listen to, it was also very very disturbing. For me, besides the 900+ people dying, the most disheartening part of the story was that Jim Jones started off fighting for equality and spiraled down a terrible path. The path he followed seemed to parallel the concept of power we cover today that absolute power corrupts absolutely. While his followers initially joined the church based on a semi-permanent structure of inequality (joining a hierarchically structured church), there was no abuse, or oppression involved. However, Jim shifted his role as leader when he essentially refused to follow a path of temporary inequality, making himself into a god, and causing the deaths of 900 people.

Obviously, Jim Jones is a great example of a toxic charismatic. He was extremely successful in gathering a following and then manipulating them for his personal goals. What I find really concerning is that despite all of the warning signs, Jones was still able to cause a massacre. Is there not a way that outside intervention could have been better, or the followers could have subverted Jone’s authority? It seems like by now (after WWII with Hitler and this example) that we should have built some kind of safeguard to work against toxic charisma, similar to the ways that groupthink can be dispelled.

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I went to the environmental activism presentation earlier today and it was very interesting and concerning at the same time. In the first part of the presentation, various facts and statistics were presented about what the current trend of climate change is producing and the increasingly detrimental outcomes that will come further on. One of the most concerning points was about the massive increase in heat that we have seen. Since 2001, 18 of the 19 years have been the hottest years ever recorded, with the hottest of them all being the previous 5. This is extremely concerning because heatwaves, like the one in Paris this past summer, are more likely to cause deaths in older and younger populations, and there is no effective way to stop a heatwave from coming.

One thing that I found surprising was the amount of implementation that renewable energy has already had. In Europe, almost all of the energy comes from windfarms or solar. However, in the US, over 50% of our energy is still reliant on natural gas. It was encouraging to hear that the University is working to become carbon neutral by 2050 by constructing a solar farm.

All of the solutions I heard related to renewable energy were related to decreasing or offsetting the amount of CO² that was released. While being carbon neutral is advantageous, and certainly better than current practices, I would also like to see renewable ways that CO² can be removed from the atmosphere.

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It was interesting to read about groupthink. Normally, I would think that the more people you have, the better the decision will be, because there are more opinions and expertise available. However, that does not work when there is a cohesive group, because the decision making process can easily fall into groupthink and have disastrous consequences.

One of the interesting points in the reading was the comparison of the Bay of Pigs and how it led to groupthink, because it was dominated by consensus and there was no real challenge to the intelligence of the CIA. However, Janis pointed out that the Cuban Missile Crisis was handled extremely well by the same administration. It was interesting to look for parallels between the reading and Thirteen Days to see how the situation did not fall into groupthink. The major reason that I saw was Kennedy’s resilience against the single-minded view of the chiefs to go to war. Kennedy forced many people to come up with alternative opinions that would not drive the US to war.

Overall, I think it is important not to fall into the belief that good decisions will be made simply because there is a consensus on an issue or ‘experts’ agree on it. It’s necessary for any democracy constantly challenge its ideas and policies to make sure they are the best possible decision rather than one made through groupthink.

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I thought the critique and revision of transforming leadership in the Couto reading was interesting because it added another layer of complexity to the Bass reading. In contrast to Burn’s original definition of transforming leadership, Bass’s model does not include the aspect of social change, exclusively focusing on executive leadership.

A particularly interesting point for me was when Couto talked about how “Burn’s transforming leadership is attractive, [but] it may be unattainable and distract us from the important task of being as effective as one can be … with little hope of epoch change” (Couto 107). It seems that despite the idealistic nature of transforming leadership, it is not quite as realistic and easy to put into practice as the transformational model of leadership. This led me to wonder that if there is little hope for epoch change through transformational leadership, what models of leadership/other would Couto use to explain major social movements such as the Civil Rights Movement that clearly demonstrate an epoch change.

One of the main points in the other reading was about how transactional leadership uses penalties and rewards to motivate employees and how money and perks are powerful motivators. Because transactional leadership is primarily results driven, there does not seem to be any value in getting employee involvement in the decision-making process. While this may be advantageous for structures like the military, I worry that it would be detrimental for most groups, because it automatically imposes values and goals onto all the followers, regardless of if those values and goals are what are best for the group.

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From the two readings, it seemed like the biggest difference between the traditional leader and the servant leader is the motivational force driving the leader into a leadership position. For the servant-leader it is the “natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first” (Greenleaf 83). The desire of the servant-leader is to serve the community they are representing it, rather than the traditional leader, who may be more focused on their image/vision of leading the community.  This idea also ties into tyranny related to how focused a leader is with themselves vs. the followers. 

I think the idea of the servant-leader and humble leadership tie closely together. In Spears, ten characteristics were attributed to servant-leadership: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community (Spears 25). These characteristics align closely with the idea of humble leaders, because healing, awareness, listening, and commitment to the growth of people all require a leader to carefully consider and shift values to align with those of the followers.  

What interested me the most after reading the two articles was about where these servant-leaders would be coming from. It seemed like Greenleaf was essentially calling for the population to find these servant leaders, because it is the “seekers, then who make prophets” (Greenleaf 80). However, as a democracy, we elect our leaders, so theoretically, we are already seeking our leaders. Despite that, I do not believe Trump falls close to the categorization of a servant-leader. How do we shift the focus/process of our elections so that we can raise leaders to office who are closer to servant-leaders, and not as narcissistically driven? 

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In The Prince, there were two main points that interested me the most and seemed to connect to earlier concepts we’ve learned in class. The first is that “men are so simple and so ready to obey present necessities, that one who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.” (Machiavelli, 122). Machiavelli’s point ties directly into the idea of toxic charisma. Certain people will always be attracted to charismatic people (the Prince), regardless of the deception/falsehood of what is being said. A modern example would be how the German population adopted Hitler’s ideology despite it being terrible.

The second main point was that it is “not necessary for a prince to have all the above-named qualities, but it is very necessary to seem to have them” (Machiavelli, 123). I thought this was interesting, because Machiavelli is saying that the populous only must believe the prince has the qualities of a good ruler, when they could just be putting on a front. This made me think that leaders (princes) could just be eloquent scammers and that is enough to make the state stable.

Overall, the reading was interesting because Machiavelli wasn’t reflecting on what a leader should be, but rather on what a leader must be to remain in power. That could follow the path of just actions, but more likely than not it would require the prince to be cruel, but not cruel to the point of engendering hatred.

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Yesterday evening I went to the first presentation of the Digital Dystopias series. Katie Hafner presented The Origins of the Internet. Her research covered the time period of 1965-1990, focusing on the precursor to the internet and some of the basic structuring behind how it works. One of the most interesting facts to me was the exponential growth of hosts between 1965-1999 (20 million) and since then it has grown to 150 billion. It was strange to think about the invention of something that I have been familiar with my whole life was just coming into existence about 50 years ago.

Hafner also talked about the development of how the internet was structured and packet switching. The precursor to the internet, ARPAnet was developed by Bob Taylor and Larry Roberts to solve a problem that Taylor was having – the three computers in his office couldn’t communicate with each other. It was fascinating to learn that the internet was (and is) created on a decentralized network, because it allows for information to reach a source regardless of if there is damage along the way. Similarly to that, I found it very interesting that packet switching – breaking up information, sending it to the destination, and then reassembling it – was not only invented in the 60’s-70’s, but is still one of the primary ways information is sent securely.

Overall, I enjoyed learning about the positive, hopeful start to the internet, and I am interested to see what dystopias the next speakers will bring up.

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I thought the podcast was very interesting in the way it framed Great Man Theory as being exclusive to men and discriminatory. Before listening, the primary way I thought the Great Man Theory skipped over women was because of a lack of focus/importance associated with women historically. However, what I didn’t fully consider was the literal standard that quantifies what a “Great Man/Woman” is exactly. Even if women are rewritten into history according to the theory, it is still discriminatory, because it is expecting women to adhere to standards stereotypically associated with men. Similarly, this theory can lead to the focus on elites, or a narrow demographic, of the total population.

An example of this was demonstrated in how funding is appropriated for historical preservation. Great Man Theory is baked into that, because when arguing for preservation, some of the criteria are “places where prominent persons lived or worked,” which ensures that nationally enshrined areas are automatically skewed towards the elite of the era.

I really enjoyed hearing about the work being done to create an autobiographical account of the women in science, because that can help to create a more equal representation of history. One thing I was curious about though is what standard was being used to find these women that is more inclusive and simultaneously avoids the problems associated with GMT? Hopefully continuations of works like these can work to overwrite biased theories that are currently embedded into society.

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One thing I found interesting in the Carson piece was the backlash against the mainstream/national memorialization of MLK. Carson believes that this memorialization distorts MLK’s historical importance by posing him as a force of oratory nature holding the civil rights movement together, rather than one among many skilled people driving the movement (Carson, 28-29). I liked how Carson contextualized MLK as more than just a charismatic leader. Describing MLK as both a charismatic leader and a self-doubting person aware of his limitations creates a more human and relatable impression.

Stemming off the point above, an interesting question that came to mind for me was the association of leaders with their respective actions or movements. Carson argues against the narrow view of a leader comprising a movement because it is too simplistic, but is not that how we have primarily related historical events for thousands of years? When we talk about the Egyptians, we tend to focus primarily on Pharaohs, Julius Caesar with the Romans, Hitler with the Nazi’s, etc. I agree with Carson that the notion surrounding Great Men/Women is flawed for understanding human history. However, as we move farther away from the 1960’s and the civil right movement, how do we stop the simplification of the civil rights movement from becoming synonymous with MLK if doing so is historically distorting?

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Role Model – Coach

Leader – Barack Obama

Hero – Captain Marvel

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