As today – January 16, 2017 – marks the United States’ federal observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday (Dr. King’s actual birth date was January 15, 1929), it is a good time to review some of the quintessential leadership traits that Dr. King possessed and that we should be looking for and developing in our own quintessential leadership journeys. Read the rest of this entry »
The Quintessential Leadership Traits of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Posted: January 16, 2017 in Examples and Analyses of Quintessential LeadershipTags: Commitment, Dr. Martin Luther King, integrity, quintessential leader, team building, trust, trustworthiness
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Is a Lie by Any Other Name No Longer a Lie? – The Quintessential Leader Perspective
Posted: January 2, 2017 in Quintessential Leader BasicsTags: deception, dishonesty, editor-in-chief, Gerard Baker, lying, moral intent, objectivity, unquintessential leadership, Wall Street Journal
Among the many legacies the past 20 or so years have left us as a society with, one of the most tragic, from a quintessential leadership perspective, is the widely-accepted and heartily-embraced death of the truth.
This death has occurred everywhere in our society: in our businesses, in our homes, in our schools, in our religious organizations, and in our local, state, and national governments.
Sadly, it is a death virtually no one has noticed – because it was a slow, subtle, creeping death – and virtually no one has mourned or is mourning. Read the rest of this entry »
Book Review of “Lady Bird and Lyndon” by Betty Boyd Caroli
Posted: December 25, 2016 in Book Reviews, Examples and Analyses of Lack of Leadership and Unquintessential LeadershipTags: bipolar illness, Lady Bird Johnson, Lyndon Johnson, paranoia, power, unquintessential leader, Vietnam War
Lady Bird and Lyndon: The Hidden Story of a Marriage That Made a President by Betty Caroli
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I was way too young to know anything about Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson when they were in the White House and much of the scant knowledge I had of Lyndon Johnson – which left me with a negative impression of him both as a person and as someone in a leadership position – before reading this book has been acquired through my extensive study of the long history of war, beginning with the French in the 1950’s, in Vietnam. Read the rest of this entry »
Is There Really “No Such Thing, Unfortunately, as Facts Anymore”? – The Quintessential Leader Perspective
Posted: December 11, 2016 in Quintessential Leader InsightsTags: 1984, Aldoux Huxley, Brave New World, dishonesty, Donald Trump, facts, lack of character, lack of honesty, lack of understanding, lack of wisdom, lies, Scottie Nell Hughes, the truth, unquintessential leadership
If you haven’t read 1984 by George Orwell in a while, or if you’ve never read it at all, I strongly urge you to read it now.
Written almost 70 years ago, there is no novel – except perhaps Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel, Brave New World (which describes a completely different component of the world we live in today: illiterate, superficial, pursuing immediate gratification and a life devote to pleasure-seeking, eschewing knowledge, education, and thinking as dull and boring and unnecessary), which I see as a companion novel to 1984, even though they were written 17 years apart – that describes the world you and I now inhabit. Read the rest of this entry »
Portraits of Unquintessential Leadership: Steve Bannon
Posted: November 20, 2016 in Profiles in Unquintessential LeadershipTags: alt-right, Breitbart, darkness, Darth Vadar, Dick Cheney, Donald Trump, power, Satan, Steve Bannon, unquintessential leadership
The Quintessential Leader stays away from discussing politics intentionally. That is because politics of any kind – governmental, social, religious, etc. – and quintessential leadership are incompatible. They do not and cannot coexist. Where you see politics, you see unquintessential leadership.
However, this blog does look at people who are involved in politics because quintessential or unquintessential leadership is demonstrated in who people are, what they think, say, and do. Read the rest of this entry »
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