Harry Anderson The Presidential Leadership Academy 10/15/2011

Abrasiveness
What role do you think personality plays in leadership? Please give examples.
This week I met with a representative from Teach for America. For those of you who aren't familiar with the organization, Teach for America sends teachers into schools whose students live below the poverty line. It's a great program, but something the representative told me didn't sit well with me. He was explaining the recruitment and training process that corps members go through, and he told me that they are unable to train leadership -that people are either leaders or they aren't -so they recruit people who have held prominent positions at their universities, and train them in education methods to teach kids from low income families. What I disagree with is that I think the whole concept of proper educating hinges on the belief that leadership can be taught. If you think about it -despite all that you may have be conditioned by standardized tests and the multitude of scantrons which you have inevitably filled out here at Penn State -if you really think about it, good education teaches students to be critical thinkers, and improper "education" conditions students to be drones. Example: when you were a junior in High School and you were preparing for the SAT, did you decide to simply apply yourself more in school, or did you purchase the Kaplan textbooks which taught you exactly how to most efficiently complete the test? Paying more attention in school would teach you to think critically about the material you're confronted with, and thus be able to create your own opinions and even counter arguments to the content, but test taking seminars will only teach you to find the answer which is expected of you. Granted, I grew up without scantrons and standardized tests, and as a result think that they're absurd, but I invite you to humor me here for the next few paragraphs of this essay. My point is this: leadership is not acquired, and the only connection to personality that I am confident that is has is whether a person is of an active mind, and not a passive one. My argument hinges on the assumption that the status quo of our world today is everything but perfect, and requires men and women in every culture to be active agents of change in their communities if we are ever to progress. If you look at history, time and time again when unjust leaders have assumed power, they have done so by conditioning the

Harry Anderson The Presidential Leadership Academy 10/15/2011

public to see only one valid argument. It works; it worked with the Nazis, it worked with Communist China, it worked for Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Passiveness can be conditioned, and leadership can be inspired. Personality obviously plays a role in leadership syle, but frankly if good leadership means leading justly, consistently, and serving those who put you into leadership, then does it really matter whether someone is an introvert or an extrovert? If the goal is reached - given proper conduct -then what real consequence is the route taken? It is for this reason that I argue that the only personality trait that is of true consequence is abrasiveness. I believe that the world is a very dark and sickly place, and it takes abrasive men and women to stand up for justice. MLK, Ghandi, Mandela, Bonhoeffer, Calvin, Wilburforce -all of these men, though very different personalities, had one thing in common: their disillusionment by the status quo, and their conviction to speak against it. I think that we often confine leadership to the broader, political, business, science public position, but I believe that we're missing the point if we fail to recognize the need for leadership to begin at the most ordinary level; the people right here around us. How will we choose to handle personal disputes, family matters, and friends of ours who are in need of council for problems of alcoholism and abuse? The question we must ask ourselves is how will the ordinary and personal in our lives set the foundation for our leadership in the public sphere. If we really are leaders good ones then we will inevitably seek to influence those around us for the better. What good is a representative if he creates a thousand jobs for his constituents if he cheats on his wife or if he abuses his children? Has he actually made the world a better place? Good leadership begins at the bottom, and maybe makes its way up to the top eventually, but only by being consistently abrasive to the status quo. I am not writing of how to win friends and influence people, but rather of the leadership that the world actually needs. We don't need politicians with empty promises or business leaders who care about nothing more than their position or their compensation. As far as I'm concerned, you can win the world easily, but true leadership shows itself in the leader's restlessness for the pursuit of justice.