Formal jobs in 4 different sectors since age 17, various organizations since several years before that. I get where this is coming from though; I had a brief conspiracy theorist phase that ended because I realized how hard and messy it was to orchestrate things.
Working a variety of different jobs/settings, and doing leftist organizing for over 5 years, was what led to this idea- that leadership is an arbitrary umbrella concept that is better off with its fragments standing alone.
I would also watch presidential debates and speeches and think "the best debate bro doesn't necessarily have the best strategy, and the person with the best strategies is not necessarily the best at implementing them".
Also in college I took a course where we spent the first week doing nothing but coming up with rigorous definitions of the terms we used. Eventually I started to do this for all kinds of terms.
A good leader doesn't dominate or subjugate others, they're invested with trust and responsibility
Many would disagree; they would say that a leader inherently imposes their will on others; they would say that leadership is not about having all the dials at the right level, but about what you do in the face of the limits to the trust and responsibility that are purveyed to them. "A leader is not someone who has things go according to plan, but who responds to things not going according to plan" is a fairly agreeable statement... but it makes the concept less clear, not more. There are all kinds of platitudes about leaders and leadership. "Responsibility" is also a very broad idea and I'm not all that certain what it really means.
Can you make a delineation of what leaders are or aren't, what they do or don't do, and use that to say whether someone is a leader or not? Can you define leadership rigorously, the way one can define chemistry or Scandinavia? In my effort to define leadership I made a long list of qualities and realized they were all independent of each other, and involved separate skills.
Are you sure leadership is A Thing, and not just a word that is peculiar to your language and culture, and which you've been conditioned to think about the world in terms of?
In my effort to define leadership I made a long list of qualities and realized they were all independent of each other, and involved separate skills.
Saying someone is a good leader is like saying they're a good basketball player. Of course you can break it down into smaller constituent skills, of course some good leaders/players have different strengths among those skills, but at the end of the day it's useful to talk about the concept as a whole, too.
And lacking a solid, commonly accepted definition doesn't mean something isn't real. Is happiness real? You can make all the same critiques of that as a concept.
And lacking a solid, commonly accepted definition doesn't mean something isn't real. Is happiness real?
There's the word/concept I was looking for. I'm so glad you asked.
Happiness is absolutely not real. In fact, that was the first or second "umbrella concept" that I started to break down, along with intelligence. I know what joy, gladness, serenity, pleasure, optimism, adoration, pride, excitement, satisfaction, and gratitude are. They never occur or exist all together at once, but that is what the idea of "happiness" implies: that there's one dial that's either high or low.
After thinking about happiness, I don't believe I know what it means anymore, and I'm actually glad I don't, because my life makes more sense and is more affirming after breaking it up into its component parts.
I'm not about to go out and say that every word and concept is flawed and should be dissolved. Only a few of them, and they tend to be broad ideas with relatively simple words that we are taught very early on, and have lots of synonyms.
Formal jobs in 4 different sectors since age 17, various organizations since several years before that. I get where this is coming from though; I had a brief conspiracy theorist phase that ended because I realized how hard and messy it was to orchestrate things.
Working a variety of different jobs/settings, and doing leftist organizing for over 5 years, was what led to this idea- that leadership is an arbitrary umbrella concept that is better off with its fragments standing alone.
I would also watch presidential debates and speeches and think "the best debate bro doesn't necessarily have the best strategy, and the person with the best strategies is not necessarily the best at implementing them".
Also in college I took a course where we spent the first week doing nothing but coming up with rigorous definitions of the terms we used. Eventually I started to do this for all kinds of terms.
Many would disagree; they would say that a leader inherently imposes their will on others; they would say that leadership is not about having all the dials at the right level, but about what you do in the face of the limits to the trust and responsibility that are purveyed to them. "A leader is not someone who has things go according to plan, but who responds to things not going according to plan" is a fairly agreeable statement... but it makes the concept less clear, not more. There are all kinds of platitudes about leaders and leadership. "Responsibility" is also a very broad idea and I'm not all that certain what it really means.
Can you make a delineation of what leaders are or aren't, what they do or don't do, and use that to say whether someone is a leader or not? Can you define leadership rigorously, the way one can define chemistry or Scandinavia? In my effort to define leadership I made a long list of qualities and realized they were all independent of each other, and involved separate skills.
Are you sure leadership is A Thing, and not just a word that is peculiar to your language and culture, and which you've been conditioned to think about the world in terms of?
Saying someone is a good leader is like saying they're a good basketball player. Of course you can break it down into smaller constituent skills, of course some good leaders/players have different strengths among those skills, but at the end of the day it's useful to talk about the concept as a whole, too.
And lacking a solid, commonly accepted definition doesn't mean something isn't real. Is happiness real? You can make all the same critiques of that as a concept.
There's the word/concept I was looking for. I'm so glad you asked.
Happiness is absolutely not real. In fact, that was the first or second "umbrella concept" that I started to break down, along with intelligence. I know what joy, gladness, serenity, pleasure, optimism, adoration, pride, excitement, satisfaction, and gratitude are. They never occur or exist all together at once, but that is what the idea of "happiness" implies: that there's one dial that's either high or low.
After thinking about happiness, I don't believe I know what it means anymore, and I'm actually glad I don't, because my life makes more sense and is more affirming after breaking it up into its component parts.
I'm not about to go out and say that every word and concept is flawed and should be dissolved. Only a few of them, and they tend to be broad ideas with relatively simple words that we are taught very early on, and have lots of synonyms.