Glaude - We are the leaders we have been looking for

We are the leaders we have been looking for (Glaude, 2024) asserts a belief that many leadership scholars and educators have advocated for years - expanding leadership capacity by cultivating leadership in everyone is essential to tackling the challenges we face. Glaude's focus is on the empowerment of African Americans in righting the wrongs of slavery but the principles are applicable to any organization or system of oppression. He asserts that while key figures of the civil rights movement such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X did much to improve the condition of African Americans in the U.S., moving beyond heroic figures is essential if systemic racism and inequality are ever to be eradicated.

"The ugliness of life is assumed, ascent has happened, and what matters is the insistence on flying anyway. You must maximize your gifts no matter the costs" (p. 1) is both jarring and hopeful. By the "ugliness of life" Glaude is referring to everything from slavery to overt discrimination, harsh parenting, and other challenges in life. In relation to racism, the evidence of the slow march to justice for people of all races has, and presently does, include moments of elation but it also includes the almost inevitable retribution that results from the fear and retaliation of those who perceive they are losing power. "You must maximize your gifts no matter the costs" reflects the necessity of rising above the assumptions, resistance, and persecution of one's oppressors.

Glaude's writing is eloquent and engaging and integrates multiple philosophical perspectives. John Dewey, the early 20th century education reformer, is cited as one of the most influential thinkers in advocating methods based on pragmatism, "an instrument of social improvement aimed principally at expanding democratic life" (p. 16) which could then unleash the imagination to solve human challenges. This pragmatism potentially replaces the expectation of prophetic or heroic figures who are deemed by virtue of their special gifts to have answers for social ills. Instead, Glaude calls for critical engagement in pursuit of what could be (imagination) and acting in the faith that change is possible. In his words, "Faith, then, can be understood as a tendency toward action and imagination as its central conduit" (p. 38).

In addition to challenging the place of prophetic figures, Glaude faults neoliberalism as a "particular way of life and governance that extends the market into the very idea of who we take ourselves to be" (p. 22). The neoliberal way of being reduces the focus on public good by lifting up the values of selfishness and greed as the path to individual fulfillment. By contrast, pragmatism empowered by imagination "opens us up to the wounds and joys of strangers, forging habits that enable us to be suspicious of actions that deny the dignity of our fellows" (p. 44). This opening up is the "politics of tending" that affirms the value of others and encourages receptivity to listening and empathizing with them.

The combination of recognizing the limits of heroism and the emptiness of neoliberalism that drives us apart rather than drawing us together opens the way to abandon the prophesy of others and instead cultivate dispositions among everyone that are required for true democratic life and leadership. The new dispositions include valuing the dignity and worth of all and having confidence in the sanctity of everyone to do good even in the face of evil. Ultimately, Glaude advocates "Black democratic perfectionism," nurtured through self-cultivation, informed by tending to self and others, and reimagining our world "in the context of a society shaped by the value gap that distorts and disfigures our characters" (p. 111). Generalizing beyond African Americans, Glaude suggests "The answer to the troubles in this country rests, as it always has, with the willingness of everyday people to fight for democracy" (p. 120).