[LI] Leaders & leadership (3 items)

I have become more critical of how we use the terms "leader" and "leadership." These three replies to posts on LinkedIn reflect some of that evolving thinking. Or more accurately, since there is nothing really substantive here, they indicate I am thinking about this set of concepts. Reply to post by Adam Grant of the …

[LI] The poor & professionals in urban planning; responsibility & power in complex systems

Two quick takes on hierarchies of knowledge and power, posted to LinkedIn during February 2020. "What if the poor were part of city planning?" by Smruti Jukur Johari, TEDWomen 2019, December 2019 (posted February 2020) Interesting TED talk by Smruti Jukur Johari about involving poor city dwellers in urban planning. Appreciate her noting 2 myths …

[LI] Power, brain damage, incompetence & the “cult of the tech founder”

Three items posted to LinkedIn on power and its dysfunctions. "Power Causes Brain Damage," by Jerry Useem, The Atlantic, July/August 2019 (posted July 2019) Another cautionary about concentrating too much power in the hands of individual people. "How leaders lose mental capacities—most notably for reading other people—that were essential to their rise" Reply to post …

Depth of language, limits of leaders

The first three characters in the Chinese saying, 天行健，君子以自強不息, "tiān xíng jiàn" (which have a meaning perhaps something like "heavens in ceaseless motion"). A recent blog article on difficulties China's president Xi Jinping had with some literary references in Chinese bring to mind two separate but intersecting issues: the cultural depth of languages; and language …

[LI] Limits of leadership; dangers of charisma; impossible job

There are limits to an individual's competency, and in large and complex organizations or countries, the role of executive tests those limits. The single leader paradigm is a fixture in our thinking, but are there cases where it is no longer functional? On the flip side, there is a danger in how the charisma of …