Being present

One of the most important elements of leadership is presence - personifying a purpose and relating it to others. If we let our emotional intelligence judge for us, it's actually something that is relatively easy to discern. Look at anyone who aspires to or is engaged in leadership and ask yourself, "Is what I'm observing authentic and compelling?"

David Marchese, a writer for the NY Times, asked the famous musician and humanitarian, Yo-Yo Ma, about how he thought about the settings where he plays. His response is instructive for any form of engagement with others, and especially for those who seek to offer leadership.

As a performer, my job is to make the listener the most important person in the room. The only way to avoid burnout is to care about where you are. Being present. Caring. You're working with living material. That goes back to memory. The living material is only living if it is memorable. Not only that it's memorable but that you pass it on. That is what I'm thinking about with every single interaction. Whether it's a kid, someone on the street, in a concert hall or with you, David. It's the same thing: How to be present. Because if you're not?

Rosling - Factfulness

How can I more accurately interpret both mainstream and social media reports that are often biased or outright misrepresentations of truth? I picked up Hans Rosling's Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things are Better Than You Think (2018) with the hope that it might offer perspective that I could use and share with others. While Rosling's assertions are not revelatory, they were useful and offer an opportunity to be more critical interpreting what we read and hear.

When searching for understanding about issues of concern to me, I know to be cautious about social media, checking the origin of information I read and seeking alternative sources to confirm reports that are shared or receive numerous "likes." However, I frequently complain about journalists who do not present fair and unbiased views. Rosling places the responsibility clearly on us, recognizing that journalists or activists for any cause should automatically be assumed to advocate a particular view. If bias is assumed from almost every source, then the only place to turn is critical examination that will improve my ability to sort through hyperbole and disinformation that distracts from real concerns.

Based on deep analyses of a variety of topics, and quizzing/speaking to audiences in various workforce sectors across the world (including the World Economic Forum, World Health Organization, UNICEF, and others), Rosling found that the most common misconceptions about current conditions in the world result from hasty decisions made without critical examination. And these decisions involve ten significant errors of interpretation:

• Gap - dividing everything into distinct and conflicting groups, when most people and situations fall somewhere in the middle of a continuum
• Negativity - tending to notice bad more than good, exacerbated by glorifying the past, selective reporting of the present, and feeling it's cruel to view things as improving
• Straight line - assuming a unidirectional and inevitable path with just one outcome 
• Fear -  attending to the most dramatic and unlikely dangers while ignoring other things that could be riskier
• Size - focusing on immediate problems rather than larger dynamics that could cause more harm
• Generalization - mistakenly grouping people and things together that are fundamentally different
• Destiny - believing that people, countries, religions, or cultures have a predetermined fate
• Singularity - measuring human progress by one, or a few, indicators rather than the complicated intersection of many factors
• Blame - fixing responsibility on a clear or simple reason, exaggerating its importance and neglecting other explanations
• Urgency - jumping to action when danger appears imminent, while it rarely is as immediate or devastating as we envision

Rosling provided lots of examples and proof of how our lives are captured by the interpretation errors above, and he provided tips for how to avoid the mistakes and come to a more factful understanding of the world. Each of the above is influenced by the reality of a world that is divided into roughly four broad divisions of  prosperity, with the U.S.A. and Europe mostly at level 4, the majority of the world in the middle (2 and 3), and a few countries at level 1 - all growing toward level 4. The other influence is that the world has both bad and good things going on; under these circumstances, a "possibilist" perspective rather than either a defeatest or naively optimistic view is warranted.

The achievement that Rosling claimed at the beginning of his book was the most revolutionary of his lifetime is that "Over the past twenty years, the proportion of the global population living in extreme poverty has halved" (p. 6). Indeed, this is such a foundational change that it impacts almost everything else in our world. However, some of the disasters referenced as possible threats in Factfulness are now part of our more disrupted world. First, the COVID 19 pandemic that shut down the world and second, two wars now raging in 2023. On top of these, anti-democratic forces are present in the U.S.A. and around the world that threaten the very foundations of modern life. Acknowledging positive changes in our world, as well as understanding potential threats, requires even greater discipline as we seek factfulness in our daily lives.

Graeber & Wengrow - The Dawn of Everything

What would happen if we examined the emergence of culture from a completely different point of view than most of our history books tell us? What if inequality isn't a natural human condition and, instead, is the result of the imposition of western misinterpretations designed to justify the way of life that "advanced" cultures have adopted? What if reinterpretation of the historical record started with indigenous peoples and not the elites of world culture?

These are questions woven throughout Graeber & Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021). The impact of reading this deep dive into archeological and anthropological research was mind-boggling. I appreciated the level of detail in the interior chapters, although it was sometimes overwhelming. Upon review of the sections I highlighted while reading, I found that Chapters 1, 2, and 12 beautifully captured the core purposes of the entire book, and that was to propose the possibility that history has been shaped in ways to support current political and economic systems, systems that have created inequity, abuse, and violence. Further, Graeber & Wengrow ask the reader to explore the potential that the conditions observed so widely in the contemporary world were not inevitable and that change, even now, is possible.

Chapter 1 began with reflection on the impact of Hobbe's Leviathan, "in many ways the founding text of modern political theory" and its assertion of "humans being the selfish creatures they are... 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short'" (p. 2). This original state (reinforced by Torah and Old Testament Bible stories of original sin, and accompanying isolation, competition, deprivation, and war) was envisioned as being correctable through the "Enlightenment" advocated among European philosophers and intellectuals of the 18th century. What's fascinating is that Enlightenment thought related to individual liberty and political equality actually came from early European exposure to Native Americans and their communities, which were unusual in "qualities of mutual care, love and above all happiness" (p. 20). While some of the early voyagers to "Turtle Island" characterized Native Americans as "noble savages," others saw that they were freer societies than those of Europe.

Enlightenment thinkers were especially impressed with the discourse, debate, and reason of Kandiaronk of the Wendat tribe during his visit to France. Kandiaronk declared as a result of his visit, "What kind of human, what species of creature, must Europeans be, that they have to be forced to do good, and only refrain from evil because of fear of punishment?" (p. 53). Kandiaronk also observed that forcing people to behave would be unnecessary but for the presence of "money, property rights and the resultant pursuit of material self-interest" (p. 54). The French saloniste of the 1750s recognized the conflict between commitments to freedom and equality versus the regime of private property ownership, which brought Rousseau to question how Europeans had turned wealth into domination and power, allowing the winners to tell others what to do, to exploit them, and care so little about their human condition.

Countering the prevailing theorizing about the formation of states, The Dawn of Everything proposed that small communities either existed on their own or broke away from organized despotic abusers and abuses in numerous examples. Now proven untrue, previous cultural anthropologists viewed state formation as an inevitable linear evolution from bands to tribes to chiefdoms to states based on advances in technology such as agriculture. Instead of a linear progression, organized communities emerged through a process of what 1930s anthropologist Gregory Bates coined as "schismogenesis," where self-governing communities formed to differentiate themselves from the abuses of classism, monarchy, and militarism. The new understanding of what constituted organized community was most evident in the North American example of the urban center Cahokia, which already existed when Europeans arrived in North America. Cahokia included three elementary freedoms - "to move away, to disobey, and to build new social worlds" (p. 469). This and other Native American examples demonstrated that is is possible to avoid the evolutionists' view of organized states and this view was embraced by Enlightenment thinkers.

The analysis included in The Dawn of Everything showed that the rise of "states" such as Egypt and the Maya depended on confusing the two functions of care and domination. This confusion was central to how humans eventually lost their ability to see another way of living in community as even possible. As the cultures that we commonly view as most significant began forming, charismatic figures created expanded systems of care around themselves (sometimes focusing on preparation for a presumed afterlife), which grew into the ability to dominate through threat of life or livelihood which was enforced either through a systematized administration or military mobilization. These tools of despotic states are not present in examples such as Minoan Crete, where women's influence was much more prominent and equality more common. Relegating these examples to the margins of history, rather than recognizing them as legitimate human aspiration, extinguished them as demonstrations of communities embracing greater equity, caring for each other, and preserving the natural world.

Graeber & Wengrow proposed that by continuing to reduce humanity to simple, barbarian-like depictions, social scientists might actually have impoverished history - "and as a consequence, to impoverish our sense of possibility" (p. 21) in the modern day. The evidence was right under our noses, but maybe that's the point. How Native Americans lived was a threat to notions of property ownership, accumulation of wealth, and domination through control of information and threat of life.

Desmond - Poverty, by America

 Matthew Desmond's Poverty, by America (2023) references McGhee's The Sum of Us (2021) and repeats the critique that systemic racism and classism undermine opportunity among oppressed classes. Where McGhee focuses more on how this oppressive classism costs everyone, not just those put down by it, Desmond addresses ways that America created this system and how privileged segments of Americans are served by perpetuating it.

The earlier chapters review why America has not been successful in addressing wealth inequality, including disenfranchisement of workers, poor people paying more for what little they get, and reliance on welfare as a nod to addressing poverty. The later chapters move to ways that America might actually move forward in creating a fairer economy.

Desmond poses the shared dilemma, "We are much richer than citizens of other countries, including other wealthy ones, and we're much richer than our forebearers. And yet, the dominant mood among the American middle and upper classes is one of fret and worry" (p. 103). The complaint of Americans who can be judged by most standards as being comfortable is that they work nonstop. In addition, having worked so hard for their living then translates to expecting products that are readily available and cheap. Herein is the problem, fast and cheap is only possible when supply lines erupt and collapse based on demand and when all the working class can expect is poverty-inducing compensation for their time. Heaped on top of fast and cheap is that as accumulated wealth increases, the wealthy are ever more able to withdraw from reliance on public goods and services. Increases in wealth then result in declining willingness for the wealthy to support and fund public services which leads to deteriorating quality of service - a destructive downward spiral. Whether it's resources outside one's immediate neighborhood like schools or public parks and recreation, or mass transit, it's always a fight to gain support in wealthier enclaves.

How did we get here? Desmond identified the major driver of sustained poverty coming from the biggest tax cut in U.S. history, the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 of the Reagan Presidency. Of course, the tax reduction benefit went primarily to wealthier citizens and even the more progressive policies pushed by those in this group tend to "pose no real threat to their affluence" (p. 115). Working class whites see how progressive moves weren't intended to help them and they soon become resentful about elites and the institutions that they support.

How do we get out of this cycle? First, we should cease exploiting working-class citizens. Second, we must stop subsidizing affluence over alleviating poverty. Third, we should stop allowing privileged communities to isolate themselves from the broader world. The things that can make a difference include making sure that low-income Americans can easily access assistance for which they qualify, ensuring that safe and affordable housing is available to all, that all children have a crack at security and success, and driving down the "agonizing correlates of poverty, like violence, and despair" (p. 124).

Poverty in America is systemic and begins with tackling tax cheaters, estimated as a loss of $1 trillion annually. Along with plugging tax evasion, policies should be enacted that demonstrate goodwill and avoid stoking suspicion that kindles resentment. A successful and popular policy that resulted in a 50% reduction among those who live in poverty in the 1960s was the Social Security amendment of 1965. This program is constantly threatened by conservatives who label it as social welfare, but most Americans know that they invested in it and deserve to benefit from it. Poverty in America is also personal and each individual can help by adopting "poverty abolitionist" habits of shopping and investing with a commitment to human dignity - and let others know you've chosen to change. The compelling reality is that the U.S. has a lot of economic vitality, in fact it is abundant, and this reality must be asserted to counter those who insist on maintaining focus on competition for scarce resources of various sorts. There is enough to go around if unequal access is addressed!

hooks - The Will to Change

Keith Edwards' referral called me to read hooks' The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity and Love. hooks' writing is insightful, engaging, and compassionate while still recognizing the peril that male domination presents. hooks admonishes men and women to draw together in combatting a mutual adversary - patriarchy and the toxic masculinity that emerges from it. And of men, hooks says, "To know love, men must be able to let go the will to dominate. They must be able to choose life over death" (Loc 92).

"Patriarchy is a political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence" (p. 17). One of the most powerful foundations of patriarchy is emotional stoicism, which results in men believing that they cannot feel if they want to be manly. Should they feel even a shadow of emotion, they extinguish it and certainly don't let other men know. Both men's and women's silence about what they experience in families, often void of emotion and connection, maintains the patriarchal culture without question. By contrast to the silence, hooks advocated as early as 1984 that both men and women should join as comrades in the struggle.

The perpetuation of patriarchy is fostered in many ways and the dynamics are notably more powerful during the adolescent years for boys. During this liminal period of not being a child but not being an adult, feeling out of control is common. It is during this period that boys are told to "be a man" when they feel pain or when they face disappointment, thus starting down the path toward denial and stuffing down their feelings. This disembodiment of emotion and feeling is tantamount to lying as young men take on the role of male chauvinists and sexists. Chauvinism claims male superiority which is known in the deeper selves of most men and women to be destructive and untrue.

Having learned their lessons well, boys move into adulthood struggling to establish authentic emotional connections with men or women. The beginning of the tragedy of men's and women's life partnerships is that, if not changed, relationships with women are frozen in time. Appearing to be almost a compensation for lack of capacity in relationships, patriarchal culture then places the most value on what men do, the work they perform. To reverse the pattern, hooks proposed love and defined it as "the will to nurture one's own and another's spiritual and emotional growth" in ways that "combine care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect, and trust" (p. 65). hooks' response to changing masculinity that diminishes and threatens is to love men out of their lethargy - support them in taking off the imposed mask to release them to a fuller way of being.

Edwards - Unmasking: Toward Authentic Masculinity

I downloaded Unmasking: Toward Authentic Masculinity (Edwards, 2023) essentially because I had become acquainted with Keith Edwards from his interviews for "Student Affairs Now." My immediate impression of Keith was that he was an attentive listener who demonstrated great curiosity.  The impression was no doubt derived from the skills he refined through the research methodology behind his book - progressive interviews with a sample of young men who shared their stories of coming to understand their masculinity in unique ways.

Unmasking... referenced bell hooks', The Will to Change, which caused me to read it as well, although after reading Keith's book. hooks provided important philosophical background that Keith characterized by saying, "For many centuries and millennia, men as a group, often with many other dominant identities, have been controlling and utilizing political power, scientific discoveries, business development, and more for their benefit" (p. 9). While these systemic conditions have benefited men, "the same patriarchal system granting men these privileges also harms men through the gender expectations it places on them" (p. 10). The purpose and process of Keith's research was to listen and to give his subjects, and men who are reading his book, permission to explore who they were expected to be in comparison to who they really are or wanted to be.

Germain to, and confirmation of, my life experience is that masking has been enforced over time as a way of protecting male privilege while simultaneously putting men in a strait jacket of expectation. Men either conform, uncomfortably accommodate, or resist the masculine images that they hardly notice - unnoticed because the messages are like the air we breathe. Men who conform either naturally or uncomfortably project what they believe are masculine images of dominance in presence and presentation, often including "Breaking the rules... by showing independence from social norms, irreverence for authority, and indifference to the impact on others" (p. 72). Conforming to a rule breaking and uncaring image can be seen in behavior patterns from elementary school on through higher education, contributing to boys and men achieving less in studies and in fact being represented in lower proportion to women by the time they could be entering college. Even in the cases where boys and men do things outside the typical masculine image (e.g., playing piano or violin, painting, dancing, or cooking), the only way to escape derision is to excel in competitive ways, beating one's peers.

Conformity to masculine stereotypes results in harm to others and to self, including oppression of women, hierarchies of masculinity, relationship avoidance, and a general lack of well-being. Perhaps one of the most tragic consequences of masking is what Keith terms as "manestesia," the inability for men to share with and be vulnerable even with good friends. Keith offers numerous insights on identity development, intersectional identities, and the costs and benefits of unmasking. He also offers a way out of masking and moving toward openness to authentic being, which include focusing on the success strategies of 1. Well-being, 2, Strengths, 3. Be grateful, 4. Practice mindfulness and meditation, 5. Be kind, and 6. Foster relationships. Keith's admission that "I am harshest with men who remind me of previous versions of myself..." through "blaming and shaming" (p. 162) was particularly helpful because behind these judgments is the desire to be the good male who doesn't hurt himself or others. The lesson is that standing apart in judgment does little to invite other men into unmasking with you.

For an introduction to Edward's Unmasking, see his interview on Student Affairs Now. Sudent affairs staff are essential to help male students explore issues of identity, especially since enrollment and retention among men has declined in recent years.

The Singing Revolution

I've posted previously about the many benefits of music training and listening. For the Love of Music (Mauceri, 2019) and Experimentalism and Empiricism are examples. Neither of these posts specifically call out music as a revolutionary act although both of them imply the potential.

A good friend, Kathy Beardsley, offered a wonderful travel post from Bob and her exploration of Estonia this last summer in which she referenced "The Singing Revolution." Kathy's dedication to learning from travel and sharing with others is a wonderful example of Traveling with a Critical Perspective, a view I've grown to embrace. The Singing Revolution is a documentary about the role of music as Estonia cast off the USSR's military and attempted cultural control of the Estonian people. This documentary has so many lessons to inform both individual and group leadership. The first lesson is that natural characteristics of groups are often times the most effective in mobilizing shared purpose. In the case of Estonia, singing in groups had long been something that drew them together. The second lesson is that music can symbolize, and often gives voice to, shared yearning that otherwise would remain invisible. An annual gathering of singers while Estonia was still controlled by the USSR turned into a spontaneous realization of the loss of freedom when a single individual road past the assembly flying the outlawed Estonian flag. The third lesson is that joining together in common cause is unstoppable. Once the singing revolution gained momentum, the crowds swelled to as many as 300,000 singers in one event. Although the USSR saw the threat and considered military action, they knew the number of peacefully protesting singers was too great a force.

Coincidentally to Kathy's post about the Singing Revolution, we attended a concert at Chicago's Ravinia Festival that was curated by Marin Alsop. The "Breaking Barriers" concert series at Ravinia featured young female composers with the crowd warmly applauding the new, fresh, and innovative artistry of both composers and performing artists. As a follow-up to the concert, the local FM station WFMT interviewed Alsop and her friend and colleague Jude Kelly on "Leadership and Purpose." During the interview, Alsop commented "courage is important in leadership, but accountability is, too." Her belief is that conducting requires a balance for who she's leading, holding them accountable for doing their best, while providing room for all artists to be themselves. Kelly also commented on a British architect she admired who advocated "Always build toward the light" - in other words, always travel towards something that has got hope inside.

The Singing Revolution, Breaking Barriers, and joining together in the exploration of our humanity through music are powerful forces and perhaps unstoppable in many other places than just Estonia.

Chiaroscuro of Leadership

One of the things I've grown to understand over decades of studying leadership is that recognizing the chiaroscuro of leadership is essential. It may seem odd to use the term chiaroscuro but it captures the problem beautifully. Chiaroscuro involves highlighting contrasts of light and dark, a technique used by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Caravaggio. At an earlier point in studying leadership, I was inclined to see only positive engagement (bringing light) as leadership and attributed examples of negative engagement (bringing darkness) to the destructive imposition of authority and power. Years later I came to accept both the dark and light of leadership and the necessity to accept that both exist and that some acts of leadership can actually involve both. Further, the reality of our world is that the darkness of humanity frequently is what calls forth light-giving leadership.

Six quotes that might be useful in exploring the importance of chiaroscuro in leadership:

• "Our community will work toward change that will result in this tragedy being a 'distant and unimaginable past'" - Boulder, Colorado, mayor's statement after mass murder, March 23, 2021.
• "We will lead not by the example of power but by the power of our examples" - Joseph R. Biden Presidential Inaugural Address, January 20, 2021.
• "Muddied water left to stand becomes clear" - non attributable.
• "May your heart be pure and your will firm" - Jamil Karam, Eid greeting, 2021.
• "Hallelujah, whatever" - Van Jones, Juneteenth coverage, 2023.
• "Faith is not bound by what I don't know but what I do know" - Van Jones' guest during Juneteenth coverage, 2023.

How do these fit together to inform our understanding of both negative and positive in leadership? In the first example from the Boulder mass murder at a grocery store, the mayor proclaimed to the community that they had been challenged, and must respond to, the heinous act by working together to address all sources of potential violence - creating a distant and unimaginable past. In the second example, following the incredible January 6 attack on the Capital of the United States and all is institutions and safeguards, President Biden declared that wielding power remedies little but that acting in faithful and concerted unity can restore when all else seems to have collapsed. The unattributable quote reflects that easily discernible solutions to complex problems are elusive (muddied waters) but that left to settle, pathways toward resolution can emerge. The fourth quote was offered as an Eid greeting by a former Qatar colleague and admonishes that we can make a difference when our hearts (e.g. motivation, intent, purpose) are examined and clarified, which then allows for the will to remain resolute. During discussion on air covering the 2023 Juneteenth celebrations around the U.S., Van Jones characterized the day as confirming a common African American belief - "Hallelujah, whatever!" The meaning here was that, although the journey of African Americans across generations of enslavement to Jim Crow to the present has been extraordinarily difficult, celebration of the journey and progress that has been made is essential. And, finally, an artist Van Jones was interviewing described his ambivalence regarding faith over his lifetime by saying that "Faith is not bound by what I don't know but what I do know." This last quotation guides me to confirm the faith I have, letting go of doubts that will surely persist throughout life, as well as leaning into what we know about light-giving leadership instead of being confounded by what we don't know.

Purposeful and courageous response to trauma, perseverance in the face of significant problems, examination of one's own purposes, celebrating all gains as they are achieved, and relying on what we know rather than what we question - these seem to cover some essential elements in the chiaroscuro of leadership.

Komives & Owen - A Research Agenda for Leadership Learning

Staying on top of trends and innovations in leadership research can be challenging. The recently released A Research Agenda for Leadership Learning & Development through Higher Education (Komives & Owen (Eds.), 2023) was conceived to help leadership educators and scholars stay up with current and emerging research ideas.

As a contributing co-author with Aoi Yamanaka for the chapter on "International perspectives in leadership learning," I highly recommend the book for several reasons. The first reason is that Komives and Owen are extraordinary in the breadth of their contacts and awareness in leadership research and have used their deep knowledge to inform the entire project. The second reason is the insight gained from the writing process; Komives & Own enlisted all contributing authors in the review and critique of each others' drafts which led to improving the sharpness, integration, and substance of the broader collection of chapters. The third reason is that our chapter (Roberts & Yamanaka) was revelatory in the exploration of truly internationally-informed leadership research and was a cross-cultural and cross-generational project of its own. I deeply enjoyed writing the chapter and hope that readers will embrace our assertion of the importance of "international context" and that it leads to fundamental changes in the way that researchers approach their work.

Traveling with a "critical perspective"

I'm a student affairs "lifer" and can't let go of the calling I accepted to pursue a student affairs in higher education career in 1973 (50+ years ago!). That calling was to contribute to the learning and development of students and colleague faculty and staff and it was a commitment to a critical perspective that involved doing research, applying practice to theory and back to practice, and being reflective in everything I did by writing, presenting, or engaging with others.

My fifty-year career took me to several higher education settings in different states and concluded with work abroad, first in a visiting faculty role in Luxembourg, and second in Qatar where working for Qatar Foundation opened an entirely different world to me. The cumulative impact of career and life experiences calls me to stay current in philosophical and theoretical orientation, regardless of whether or not I'm full-time employed. One of the theoretical lenses I've grown to appreciate and has garnered considerable attention in contemporary writing is John Dugan's "critical perspective."

At this point in my life everything is fused so maybe that is why applying a critical perspective to not only work-related but also life-informing experiences has become paramount. What does that mean for travel? It means that I feel a responsibility to reflect on, and show appreciation for, the places I've been and continue to explore. This commitment has become more urgent for me recently as I view the travels that many are taking around the world. In very interesting ways, "The Case Against Travel" in the New Yorker raises questions similar to my own.

As I've observed the rush to travel after the pandemic, fueled by improving financial means of privileged Americans, I decided to respond to those who post about or share their travel experiences only when they demonstrate a commitment to appreciative and critical learning. This is challenging and has required constant monitoring of what motivates my decisions. I am sure I've missed travelers who are committed to inquiry and understanding and I'm sorry for having missed them. Three wonderful examples of critical perspectives in travel are Kathy Beardsley, Keith Edwards, and Patrick Love. In these examples, documentation and posts about travel are like a public journal, including reflection and appreciation for the places visited, taking the posts beyond "been there, done that" to what people and places reflect about history, art and architecture, and the broader view of human striving.

Particularly in the age of social media, and specifically during a time when Facebook has been abandoned by youth and adopted by "boomers" and older Millennials, I've grown very cautious about what I say or post, knowing that negative emotional consequences may be an unintended outcome for some of those who hear or view my updates. The negative impact of being left out or marginalized in youth has been documented but not much is being said about the impact for mid-life and older adults. Every celebration of travel, places I've been or things I've done, has increasingly included consideration for who has the passport, time, resources, and physical ability to engage in international travel. The spirit of why I share, and the inclusive intent of my sharing, has become central in my considerations.

What kinds of travel can be not only enjoyable but have the broader outcome of connecting across culture, understanding history, and examining my own privilege as a white, heterosexual, mainly fully abled, male American? To check my own authenticity, I looked back over my blog of the last eighteen years to see if my view of travel has changed and what types of experiences had the most profound impact. To be sure, a few of my blogposts have been just "been there, done that" but most have included a lot of reflection and appreciation for what I observed. What's interesting about the reflections that began in 2005, accelerated in 2007, and continue to the present is that they started not as tourism but as intentional learning. And the most powerful learning in travel was almost always the result of encounters with cultural informants in settings that were very different from my own life experiences. Realizing this has caused me to perceive a possible answer to a question that Aoi Yamanaka and I recently raised in a chapter on international context in leadership research. We asked what experiences can be most useful in stimulating deeper learning about international leadership? As I reviewed my blogposts, my travel started with seeking to learn and that has shaped all my subsequent experiences, which gradually included increasingly distant and diverse cultures. Perhaps this is an insight about how international travel might be introduced to anyone - before even receiving a passport, how important is it for there to be intentional consideration of "why am I doing this and what do I anticipate being the outcome for myself, my learning, and the way I live in the world?

Some examples of reflection and appreciation in travel using the elements of Dugan's critical perspective taking include: compositional diversity (Who's traveling and who is encountered in travel?); historical legacy of inclusion and exclusion (Whose stories are honored and whose are silenced?); organizational/structural aspects (What do the palatial residences of monarchs and edifices of religious institutions tell us about equity?); behavioral climate (Who is welcomed and given attention?); and, psychological climate (Whose identity and being is celebrated and what does it mean for travelers today?). If these were used in preparing for travel and as a framework for reflecting on what we encounter in travel, I suspect that outcomes of travel might be immeasurably enhanced.

Hawken - Drawdown

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming (Hawken, 2017) is a well-documented encyclopedia of scientific ideas rather than a story to be read. It is a compilation of various authors' insights on alternatives to fossil fuel use, including various other natural resource reductions, and how each can plausibly lead us out of the current threatening environmental tailspin.

The solutions that are included could all result in "regenerative economic outcomes that create security, produce jobs, improve health, save money, facilitate mobility, eliminate hunger, prevent pollution, restore soil, clean rivers, and more" (p. x). The premise of the entire
book is that atmospheric transformation that is descending upon us requires reimagining almost everything we do. But reimagining is not some far-fetched impossible scenario - it is doable and as citizens of the Earth we have a responsibility to act.

An important principle of the combination of solutions is that each is still emerging, which will result in some strategies being immediately viable while others will improve in potential over time. The book is too extensive to list all the possibilities but options that are included and analyzed are wind turbines, microgrids, geothermal, solar farms, rooftop solar, wave & tidal, biomass, and nuclear. And these solutions can be used in concert by using one source when another is less or not available, providing the opportunity to consistently maintain the necessary levels of power.

Two of the current challenges that require attention are storage and distribution of power. Strategies to store power for when power cannot be generated, such as solar power at night, are essential and will require cooperation across the globe. In order to do this, grid adaptability and storage during peak production must be solved.

As a future treasured resource, which will surely be revised over time, Hawken's book concludes with a summary of the net costs and savings of each of the environmental solutions covered in the book. The bottom line of examining the costs is that repair is less costly than where we are presently headed in coping with environmental degradation and the resulting shortages, disasters, and irrevocable consequences we face. And the concluding sentence - "What it takes to reverse global warming is one person after another remembering who we truly are" (p. 217).

Hamid - The Problem of Democracy

The problem of dealing with unsavory characters is a challenge across a variety of situations. Think of dealing with a "pesky" neighbor, the business that failed to repair your car or a public official whose views are repugnant. In international diplomacy, dictators and despots perpetrate abuse of their citizens. In each of these examples, are there ways to maintain relationships that over the longer haul can result in positive change?

Shadi Hamid's The Problem of Democracy: America, the Middle East, and the Rise and Fall of an Idea (2022) explores the difficult issue of the contamination of democracy promotion versus the values of the liberal, Western, world. Hamid's view is that American politicians have fused the two by advancing a particular type of democracy, one that embraces among other things gender inclusion, equal rights, and free market economic principles. The result of the U.S.A. fusing democracy promotion with liberal ideology is hypocrisy in action and ineffective diplomacy that results in the world not trusting America's expression and advocacy for either. America has regularly aided unsavory governments and their leaders in order to achieve advances in liberalism or beneficial business and commodity bargains. On the flip side, America has abandoned grass roots democratic movements when it was not prepared to deal with the disruption and chaos that is a natural by-product of governmental transition.

Hamid's focus is primarily the Middle East (African countries in the north that border the Mediterranean, to the Saudi peninsula, and across to Iran). What these countries have in common is the influence of Islam. The bottom line is that American politicians are profoundly skeptical of Islam due to the perception that it is fundamentally anti-democratic. However, the precepts of Islam advocate fairness, equality, education, and advancement through diligent work. To be sure, Islamists come in many different guises, sometimes contradicting the values for which they presumably stand. But could this not be said about democracies around the world, including the U.S.A.?

The problem of democracy promotion then requires, quoting Roger Scruton's essay, "Limits of Democracy," the "ability or willingness to be unhappy but still obliging when one's adversary wins an election." Hamid's conclusion after reviewing presumed democracy promotion efforts in the Middle East is that liberalism must be separated by observing democratic minimalism "with its emphasis on the preferences of majorities or pluralities through regular elections and the rotation of power, over liberalism, which prioritizes individual freedoms, personal autonomy, and social progressivism" (locator 170 in Kindle). Democratic minimalism involves placing the foundations of legitimate government at the center of American foreign policy rather than any other liberalizing outcomes. The approach would require abandoning the advocacy of individual freedoms in favor of the collective obligations of free expression and participation in electing one's government.

The disruption that results in formerly undemocratic cultures from expressions of dissent is often avoided at all costs when the American government is involved. This has been part of America's Middle East foreign policy for generations and is largely the result of its protection of Israel. Pushing Arab regimes, many partially or entirely Islamic, to make peace with Israel significantly undermines the prospect of democracy because embracing Israel is only possible when an autocrat imposes it against the will of its citizens. American's commitment to security over democratization was graphically demonstrated during the "Arab Spring" of 2011-13 when Egypt erupted in mass demonstrations and protests. A more contemporary Middle East example is the fact that at the same time "Saudi Arabia and the UAE were becoming more repressive at home and promoting regression abroad, they were attracting more, rather than less, American support" (locator 752).

The bottom line of democratic advocacy in the Middle East is that it presently, and likely forever, will require the acceptance of Islam as central to its people and governments. As Hamid indicates, "one can think that Islamists are bad and still prioritize their participation in the democratic process" (locator 2871). The discomfort with Islamists must be countered in these circumstances with a fuller and more persistent commitment to democratic minimalism that welcomes participation by the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been vilified over the years. With the Muslim Brotherhood's founding partially a reaction to Israel's occupation of the holy land, America's unqualified advocacy for Israel is a potential, but not necessarily a determinant, obstacle. The Botherhood's adoption in 2004 of its "Reform initiative" as a commitment to a constitutional and democratic system within a framework of Islamic principles is a building block on which U.S. foreign policy could be centered.

If the U.S.A. were to commit to true democratization in the Middle East, it first must accept uncertainty and secondly commit to a reasoned response to actions that could possibly threaten U.S. security and economic interests. Uncertainty related to Israel would be one of the greatest challenges for American diplomats and politicians, including the potential for the regional order and architecture being fundamentally changed. However, Hamid asserted that prioritizing Arab democracy could be actualized by publicly guaranteeing Israel defense protection if attacked while shifting to a Middle Eastern policy  of placing democracy as the first and foremost priority, abandoning the folly of the "stability first" policy it presently imposes through a hypocritical mix of liberal ideology coupled with democracy promotion.

Genius and Leadership - Mahler, Bernstein, and Tar

Look up "genius" online or, as I first did this morning, in our 1937 Webster's New English dictionary. The online Webster's includes a range of uses for the word including the benign examples of "strong leaning or inclination," a "strongly marked capacity," or "a person endowed with extraordinary mental superiority." The 1937 Webster's starts with reference to persons who have some aspect of deity. I've only personally known two certified geniuses in my lifetime, although I suspect there have been many more. I know that I do not qualify and that I've been intimidated by "genius" in some examples and empowered in others. The fact of it is, genius can count as a result of the privilege we grant those who have it, how it can inspire great things, or how it can destroy relationships, institutions, and governments (remember the declaration of "stable genius?").

Genius is certified in terms of intellectual capability in the IQ test but, based on the definitions available to us, goes far beyond that to the realms of science, business, philosophy, the arts and more.  The ability to influence through exceptional insight or creativity and the genius associated with mobilizing people and ideas are beautifully reflected in music. The 2023 Academy award nominations of the movie Tar stimulated me to look more deeply into genius and the musicians who have demonstrated it. I was not a fan of Tar and was relieved when it received no Oscars. Why? I believe it portrays genius and its resulting power in a very bad light, let alone the near slanderous parallels between the movie's main character and Marin Alsop, a noted female conductor who sponsors female musicians and happens to be married to a woman with whom she has children. Lydia Tar's malign grooming and power-wielding mirror what men do in various sectors every day and, other than novelty and a not-so-sensational revelation that sexism and exploitation come in many guises, what motivated the creation of her fictional character? Finally, regardless of the accolades for Cate Blanchett's acting, the scenes where she conducts are abysmal at best. The director should have known how bad Blanchett was and should have done something about it.

Nevertheless, Tar stimulated reflection for me into the references in the script to Alsop, Bernstein, and Mahler. The lineage here is fascinating and it is direct. Mahler was a conducting sensation in the late 19th and early 20th century who garnered rave reviews from the moment he directed Beethoven's 9th by memory in his debut in Vienna. His flamboyance (genius) as a conductor was controversial enough, and rising anti-Semitism incendiary enough, for Mahler to leave Vienna for a respite period of conducting in the U.S.A. He returned to Vienna in 1911 and died at the age of only 51. Mahler's compositions were not as popular as his conducting during his lifetime but were retained through proteges such as Bruno Walter and revived substantially by Leonard Bernstein in the 1960s.

The use of Mahler's Symphony #2 for John F. Kennedy's funeral in 1963 and Mahler's Symphony #5 Adagietto for Robert F. Kennedy's funeral in 1968, as well as the score draped across his chest at his own burial in 1990, were indicative of Bernstein's affinity to Mahler's compositions. Bernstein's use of Mahler's compositions during American tragedy have become routine to ceremonies of remembrance. Bernstein also came to great public recognition first from his conducting but then through his televised "Young People's Concerts" and popular acclaim in "West Side Story." However, Bernstein's substance as a composer has not always been recognized. Here again, a devoted protege, Marin Alsop, specializes in conducting Bernstein, seeking to renew his prominence as a composer. The fictional character, Lydia Tar, claims to also be a protege of Bernstein, placing herself as a peer to Alsop.

What is this lineage about and what does the choice of the music at the center of the film imply? The choice of Mahler's Symphony #5 and the Adagietto movement are likely indicative of the struggle between artistic death and life for Lydia Tar and perhaps even her struggle with relationships. But maybe there's more. Interpretations of the ending of Tar indicate that perhaps the puzzle image that appears repeatedly conveys that there is a puzzle that the director never intended to reveal. A protege of Leonard Bernstein, John Mauceri, author of For the Love of Music, was the music advisor for "Tar" and surely knew all of the details about Bernstein's affinity to Mahler in general and the 5th Symphony in particular. On the broader topic of music, Mauceri would likely have wanted viewers of Tar to connect with and feel the Mahler #5 and he would also have wanted each individual to discern their own interpretations of what they heard.

My study of musicologists' view of the 5th is that it was the point at which Mahler turned away from "programs" in his music to the broader philosophical questions that he pursued for the rest of his compositions. The 5th itself reflects a massive pivot from the funeral march at the beginning, to searching and yearning in the 2nd and 3rd movements, to finding and professing his love for Alma in the Adagietto, and finally to the triumph and ecstatic celebration in the final movement. The Adagietto is perplexing in itself because it includes moments of lush romanticism but also includes anguish, exaggerated by repeated appoggiaturas, perhaps a reflection of the ambivalence in the troubled relationship Gustav was to have with his malevolent muse, Alma. The anguish of the Adagietto might also be understood by considering the thematic quotations in Mahler's Ruckert Lieder, Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen'. This particular text and Mahler's setting of it is about the deep satisfaction found in solitude, especially of a type that births creation. Might Mahler have been declaring the need for solitude while simultaneously yearning for the connective ecstacy that love provides? 

Returning to the idea of genius, Mahler and Bernstein reflect the height of genius, if for no other reason than their prominence in public notoriety and recognition, partially recognized in their own time but more substantially after their deaths. Mahler and Bernstein struggled with demons that likely drove them to offer their creative best and they both attempted to engage with others as they did. They both had impact in their own times as they exercised artistic and human leadership. I believe that the fictional Lydia Tar, with humble background who was drawn to Bernstein's genius, sought to advance herself rather than truly to advance art and the human spirit. After all, the beginning and conclusion of the film are about Lydia's work with publishers on her autobiography, Tar on Tar. Perhaps Lydia Tar began with a commitment to her art but became captivated by her own advancement, abused power in the process, and these brought her cataclysmic downfall. For me, the Mahler #5 was symbolic of the demons with which Lydia Tar struggled and the Adagietto represented the see-saw of ecstatic love and anguish over love that could not be satiated as long as Lydia was unable to be true to herself.

True genius in leadership is about something beyond oneself and, if it is not, the dark and deep spiral of destruction that was Lydia Tar's life will be the end that one is likely to meet. This is the transcending message I take from Tar; for all the flaws in the story and the acting, this is a crucial message to take away about genius and leadership.

Jamail & Rushworth (Eds.) - We are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth

We can never destroy the Earth is a message that rings loud and clear in Jamail & Rushworth’s (Eds.) We are the Middle of Forever (2022). However, that’s not a good message. Instead, it is a statement of the ultimate reality of human existence on Earth – regardless if we destroy the environment and our own survivability on Earth, the Earth has and will continue to replenish itself after untold catastrophic transitions over the millennia. This collection of interviews with indigenous Natives of North America tells us that we can do something about environmental destruction but that we must enter the conversation about saving the natural environment with humility. The lesson of humility is critical across all types of leadership but it is particularly relevant in the context of the environment.

These interviews of Native persons from various tribal backgrounds and experiences include highly educated faculty and researchers, community advocates, grass-roots organizers, and more. Each interview is labeled for its focus and includes areas such as strength, sense of permanence, living from the heart, awareness, trust, kinship, and more, all of which contribute to a set of disciplines for saving Mother Earth. The interview summaries begin with a description of each individual and then proceed through the exploration of ideas that each individual views as essential to respecting nature and the Earth. To be honest, I struggled with the first chapters and felt myself frequently asking, “What’s the point?” As the book builds momentum and connections are made across chapters, the ultimate purpose and prospect of each is revealed.

“Turtle Island” is North America, the name reflecting the separation of the continent from other landmasses around the world. When invaders and settlers began coming to its shores, attacking, torturing, and killing natives into submission, grandmothers warned against complying with the invader’s human and resource views, “No, this is not the right way to relate to the Mother, and there will be consequences” (p. xi). Later in the Longest Walk of 1978, Phillip Deere reminded all of the grandmothers’ wisdom when he said, “We are going to continue to walk, and walk and walk until we find freedom for all the Native people. And I will remind you, you may not be an Indian, but you better join us. Your life is at stake. Your survival depends on this” (p. xvii).

The “sense of permanence” interview of Gregg Castro (Salinan/Ohlone) asserted that reliance on science alone reinforces a view of the superiority of humans when, in reality, all creatures have rights and have a role to play in protecting the Earth as a living, breathing, changing place. The work of dismantling human arrogance must start with fixing ourselves and reversing the relatively recent obsession of civilization with possession, the assumption of ownership, and the resulting greed it engenders. Fixing ourselves of course is dependent on awareness, which is a very strong emphasis among Native peoples. Lacking awareness results in our not seeing ourselves in the context of systems, the world, and across time. The interview of Lyla June Johnston (Navajo and Cheyenne) on trust further exposed the perversity of the colonizers who came to Turtle Island with self-perception so low that they sought to dominate the frontier through white supremacy, sometimes even misappropriating the messages of Christ and his teachings of love to justify the slaughter of innocent native men, women, and children. This slaughter occurred sometimes as extermination and in other cases took the form of children being stolen from their families and assimilated in boarding schools away from the influences of their intergenerational tribes.

The bottom line revealed by Shannon Rivers (Akimel O’otham) in “balance” was that “Mother Earth will balance herself. Whether or not we get to see that balance, and whether or not it will happen in our lifetimes, we don’t know” (p. 156). The antidote to obsessive individualism and destructive accumulation for personal gain is Indigenous values, wisdom, and sustainable ways of living (Nelson on “dispelling delusion with alchemy”).  The Anishinaabe tribal grandmothers’ seven teachings include love, bravery, respect, humility, truth, wisdom, and generosity. These seven teachings are mirrored in many Indigenous belief systems and represent a fundamental rebalancing of all living things on Turtle Island.

Melina Laboucan-Massimo (Lubicon Cree) said that “The climate crisis is the direct result of the Western capitalist industrial complex, coupled with patriarchy and all the other ‘isms’ that exist which separate humans from Mother Earth” (p. 302). Averting the crisis through Indigenous wisdom and practice would revive the sacred loop of ‘healing justice’ that opens the way to “unpack and decolonize, in trauma-informed ways” (p. 314). In straight-forward and meaningful terms, Laboucan-Massimo encourages practices of community ritual, singing and dancing and advises, “You say a morning prayer, ‘Thank you for another day of life. Thank you for keeping me pure during the night. Help me to be a good human being’” (p. 332).