Trevor and I were talking about leadership during our drive into town yesterday for Charlie’s wedding — somehow the topic just got drilled into us over that last few years, and we can’t keep ourselves from picking at it — and we covered a lot of areas we would hope for as Seabury searches for a new dean.
As we enumerated the various qualities we thought valuable, it became unnervingly clear that there is, as the rock’n’roller might have said, such a thin line between leadership, and narcissism.
Posted by AKMA at September 19, 2004 08:16 PM | TrackBackOr elitism?
I just keep thinking that not everybody wants or needs to know everything about everything-- competent leadership does NOT equal putting up a referendum on the color of paper napkins for the community dinner-- Just Pick A Color. And does sometimes entail resolving delicate situations gracefully and privately. But of course the dark side of those skills of decisiveness and discretion is the question of accountability.
Not sure how narcissism is ever close to the valuable skills, but I'd like to hear.
Posted by: laura at September 19, 2004 08:56 PMWell, right Laura; our dean ought to be a good listener, among other characteristics that you wouldn’t expect to attribute to a narcissist. I suppose we just hit a strong of features that all pointed to someone near that borderline.
Luckily, no one could possibly say that about (for instance) an Associate Dean.
Posted by: AKMA at September 20, 2004 09:04 PM