What Quintessential Leaders Do and Are

Posted: April 23, 2020 in Qualities of a Quintessential Leader, Quintessential Leadership
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quintessential-unquintessential-leaders

There are a lot of people in leadership positions who have no business being there. They are the epitome of unquintessential leadership and the consequences of that are destructive to many people beyond their own teams.

It’s actually easy to know what quintessential leaders don’t do. Look at what these unquintessential leaders are doing and determine what the opposite action should be. It’s, sadly, as simple as that with many of the people who are in leadership positions now.

So, let’s take a look at what quintessential leaders do and are in contrast to what we’re all seeing on a daily basis. Read the rest of this entry »

Quintessential Leadership Amid COVID-19

Posted: March 27, 2020 in Examples and Analyses of Quintessential Leadership, Quintessential Leadership
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I’ve watched more live news coverage in the last week than I have in the last five years. I cut cable several years ago, and I limit myself to daily perusal of the headlines from several credible news outlets, stopping only to read in-depth if it’s a topic I’m interested in or that I need to know.

anthony-fauci-andrew-cuomo-quintessential-leadershipI have had, by listening to the daily briefings on COVID-19 from the White House, the opportunity to see quintessential leadership. And unquintessential leadership.

I’ve also had the chance to see quintessential leadership at the state and local levels, and I’ve also seen unquintessential leadership.

Dr. Anthony Fauci and Governor Andrew Cuomo (New York) have shown a lot of quintessential leadership in the way they have addressed the rapidly-spreading COVID-19 in the United States (New York is now the epicenter, leading the nation in confirmed cases and in deaths). Read the rest of this entry »

Book Review – “The Coddling of the American Mind” by Jonathan Haidt

Posted: February 17, 2020 in Quintessential Leader Book Reviews, Quintessential Leadership
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The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for FailureThe Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Jonathan Haidt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

While Haidt makes his case in a very narrow sense that focuses on the current higher education environment, the reality is this is the current pervasive American (regardless of age) mindset. We’ve, collectively, just turned off our brains from any kind of critical thinking and just absorb the opiate of the masses around us until it becomes the tainted glass through which we see and respond to everything.

We’re dumbed down and weakened by not be aware enough and courageous enough to stand alone and think for ourselves using common sense, logic, and reason within a moral and ethical framework that is unchangeable. Read the rest of this entry »

Quintessential Leaders (Almost) Always Take a Step Back

Posted: July 10, 2019 in Practical Quintessential Leadership
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We find ourselves, in the middle of 2019, living in a completely unfiltered world. It was, until recently, a world reserved for people who had neurological impairments caused by dementia, mental illness, tumors and cancer, or neurosurgery that was imposed in the dark ages of neuroscience (frontal lobotomies) or that went wrong (even the best neurosurgeons make mistakes).

Now, however, almost everyone, regardless neurological function and cognitive abilities, has  taken up residence in this world.  Read the rest of this entry »

Father’s Day 2019 and Quintessential Leadership

Posted: June 16, 2019 in Examples and Analyses of Quintessential Leadership
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Dr. Ned Moses Ross, DVMThe first quintessential leader I ever knew and the one I knew best was my father. A man of integrity, intelligence, and wisdom, my dad was also one of the most humble, caring, and generous people who ever walked the earth. 

Daddy was a family man. Although he worked hard – “whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might – his devotion to God and to his family always came first.

Daddy was a deep man, a thinker. I suppose all those years growing up on a large family farm in Burlington, NC, spending hours alone, with just a mule and a plow, working the fields from February or March to October or November (after school during the school year and then 12-14 hours a day during the summer) gave Daddy a lot of time to think. And because he was a reader, he always had plenty to think about.
Read the rest of this entry »

Book Review of “Churchill & Orwell: The Fight for Freedom” by Thomas E. Ricks

Posted: March 5, 2019 in Book Reviews
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Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom

Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom by Thomas E. Ricks

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a perspective I’d never made a connection between. While Orwell has always been one of my favorite authors (fiction and non-fiction), Churchill has never been that endearing to me as a person or as a politician.

This book helped me see that both Orwell and Churchill were on the same team in decrying the moral evils and corruption that enabled the dictatorships of the 1930’s to take hold in Europe and Asia, and eventually led to World War II.

Churchill and Orwell, although they came from different British classes, had childhoods that were remarkably similar. They both had absent fathers and distracted mothers, which led to a penchant for solitude, although they both wanted families (and had them eventually). That solitude gave them time to observe, to think, and to create discussions and conversations and speeches that were astoundingly prescient and shocking (for the time).

I definitely recommend this book. It gives insights into both the author and the politician that show just how much they shared the same view of the extraordinary time they lived in.

View all my reviews

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