TODN Leadership SIG - Leadership and Solitude

Leaders spend their workday talking to people – in person, on email, and by phone and text. They are on the go, go, go connecting with employees, customers, and stakeholder. So, what does solitude have to do with being a great leader? Solitude – the time away from the fray to concentrate and think deeply it seems is pretty darn important. It renews and restores the spirit and helps a leader get clear about their thinking and intentions.

The pre-work for this SIG will be to listen to a lecture that was delivered by William Deresiewicz at the United States Military Academy at West Point in October 2009. It’s about the critical and often overlooked link between solitude and leadership. He claims that solitude is one of the most important attributes of a leader. He rails against organizational bureaucracies that generate dull leaders who are good at jumping through hoops and conforming but lack an original thought. 

We will debrief Deresiewicz’s lecture and answer the question, “What does this mean to our current leadership models and approaches to identify and develop future leaders."

I hope you will join us for an engaging conversation. Here is the prework if you want to get a jump on it:

https://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/

Stay cool!

Bob Stapleton