Leadership: An Essay

Our World, Our Home

There are some books worth reading more than once. At least they're worth it to me. One is Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I know, I know. I've mentioned it before. It's a fourteen volume fantasy series, the volumes ranging from 681 pages to 912 pages with so many named characters and so many invented terms that each is followed by an extensive appendix of names and terms. It's not everyone's cup of tea.

Here is basically what it is. It is an epic telling a Good vs. Evil story. It has heroes, both male and female. It has villains, both male and female. It is a world of discrete nations and many distinct and identifiable cultures with their various concepts of honor and appropriate behavior. This world and the Wheel of Time were established by the Creator. The world and the Wheel of Time were endangered by The Dark One once before. He was defeated and imprisoned by a previous Dragon. Now in this new age, The Dark one is breaking out of his prison and again threatening the world and the Wheel of Time. The Wheel of Time has spun out a new hero, The Dragon Reborn. He must bring the disparate factions of the world together to meet The Dark One and his forces of evil at Tarmon Gai'don, the final battle. If the good guys lose it will mean the end of the world and the end of the Wheel of Time. The ultimate end of all.

There are small slices and great swaths of wisdom throughout the books. Wisdom that easily applies to our world and the age we live in.

The White Tower is an institution of powerful women led by their Amyrlin Seat. During the course of the story, it is taken over by a tyrannical Amyrlin and is divided. The rebel faction chooses their own Amyrlin, Egwene al'Vere. Her story arc rises to its climax in Book 12,  The Gathering Storm.

Egwene unites the White Tower and is raised Amyrlin Seat of the unified Tower. As Amyrlin she chastises the loyalist members of the Hall of the Tower.

     "You are a disgrace. The White Tower--the pride of the Light, the power for stability and
       truth since the Age of Legends--has nearly been shattered because of you," she says.

Egwene continues,
     "Elaida [the former Amyrlin] was a madwoman, and you all know it! You knew it
       these last few months as she worked unwittingly to destroy us. Light many of you
       probably knew it when you raised her in the first place!

    "There have been foolish Amyrlins before, but none have come as close to tearing down
      the entire Tower! You are a check upon the Amyrlin. You are to keep her from doing
      things like this!

     "You dare call yourself the Hall of the Tower? [the Aes Sedai's legislative body]  You
       who were cowed? You who were too frightened to do what was needed? You who
       were too caught up in your own squabbles and politicking to see what was needed?"

In the United States, we too, have a government that depends on its constitutional checks and balances to assure good leadership. Our leaders do not rule, they must "Lead by presence instead of force, uniting instead of dividing." -- Siuan Sanche Sedai, supporter of Egwene Sedai, Amyrlin Seat.

Our Congress has the same responsibilities as the Hall of the Tower. And we, as citizens, are responsible to hold our representatives to account.

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth -- a review

 

 

This is the most inspirational book I’ve ever read. I qualify this statement with the explanation that I’ve been out of my self-improvement stage for at least 15 years. I do not read inspirational books and you won’t find this one on those shelves at the bookstore.

 There are so many quotable statements in this book. I put post-its on the ones that especially spoke to me so I could come back to them for this review. The book looks rather like a porcupine with all those strips of paper sticking out around its edges.

Chris Hadfield was nine years old when he went to a neighbor’s to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the Moon. According to his book An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, he decided that very night that he wanted to be an astronaut. That probably didn’t make him a minority of one. But he dedicated himself to that goal, and he achieved it.

The first major obstacle to his ambition was his birthplace. He is Canadian. NASA only accepted Americans into the astronaut program.  There was no Canadian Space Agency then. “But . . . just the day before, it had been impossible to walk on the Moon. Neil Armstrong hadn’t let that stop him. Maybe someday it would be possible for me to go too, and if that day ever came, I wanted to be ready.”

Knowing full well that he hadn’t much of a chance at the job, he started right then to prepare himself. He did what any determined 9-year-old would do. He imagined what it would take to become an astronaut. He must be physically fit and he must fly.

He did have several things in his favor. His father was an airline pilot and flying was a part of his life. His parents encouraged education, responsibility, and good sense.

He flew in space three times – the first two during the Shuttle Era, first to MIR then to attach Canadarm2 to the ISS.

This photo was taken 7/2/2014 from the ISS of Hurricane Arthur

off the Florida coast. The object in the upper right quadrant

is Canadarm2 installed by Hadfield in 2001

His third space flight was on a Soyuz back to the ISS where he served as commander living in space five months, returning to Earth in May 2013.

 He talks about attitude. “Our safety depends on many tens of thousands of people we’ll never meet, like the welders in Russia who assemble the Soyuz, and the North American textile workers who fabricate our spacesuits. And our employment depends entirely on millions of other people believing in the importance of space exploration. We work on behalf of everyone, so we should behave the same way whether we’re meeting with a head of state or a seventh-grade science class. Frankly, this makes good sense even if you’re not an astronaut. You never really know who will have a say in where you wind up. It could be the CEO. But it might well be the receptionist.”

 About leadership. There was an emergency EVA just before he returned to Earth from his mission as ISS Commander. “Throughout the five-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, I felt a bit like a choreographer probably does while watching dancers perform; there was a sense of involvement and responsibility, a feeling of shared risk and reward, but also a necessity to detach and trust them to do their jobs properly.” He expresses pride in his team’s work on that EVA and in himself for “living up to NASA’s belief that I was capable of commanding the world’s spaceship.”

 

 

“Determined as I was to be ready, I was equally determined to enjoy myself. I lack the gene for martyrdom.” 

 



Here he is with his cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity"

with a few changes to the lyrics.

Give it a listen and a watch.