August 28th Readings

It is a popular notion that leadership is a nebulous, inborn trait found only in a select few individuals. But that raises the question, what exactly is leadership? Colin Powell, in his address to Colgate University, explains that the best leader is one “who can convey [a] sense of purpose...” and can properly train and equip their followers. The first two chapters of The Student Leadership Challenge, by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, outline five practices for a successful leader: model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, and encourage the heart. Finally, Deidre Combs uses the mandorla, an ancient symbol similar in connotation to the yin-yang symbol, as a metaphor for leadership being about the unification of disparate ideas. Among these visions of leadership, none describe it as an inborn quality.

                Rather, the overarching theme of the readings/videos is that leadership is not a quality possessed by only a select few gifted individuals, but a wholly-learnable skill set. Among the previous definitions of leadership, the idea can perhaps be boiled down further into two principles: inspire others and empower them. There exists perhaps no more striking example of these principles put into play than Zainab Salbi (unfortunately, the provided video would not load, so I watched this instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR38GUWUcdQ). Starting only with a desire to help women abroad, especially in concentration/rape camps in Bosnia, Salbi, through persistence and force of will, managed to scrape together the resources and assemble the people necessary to found Women for Women International, an organization that, to this day, provides support to women survivors of war.