He distinguishes how two types of leaders - the “statesman” and “the prophet” - face challenges differently. In his latest book, “Leadership: Six Lessons in World Strategy,” Henry Kissinger examines several cases over the last century in which, in his view, key personalities admirably rose to the task. The daunting challenge, in either case, is how to convincingly frame the shifting spirit of the times in a manner that organizes the energy and direction of society into a force field that propels it along a fresh path. Or it can come with a bang, such as a devastating war. Rupture can come with a whimper, in which a way of seeing the world finally succumbs to the entropy of the outmoded. It is at that moment of transition from a rupture in the old patterns of apprehending reality to the construction of a new metaphor when leadership most matters. “A world ends when its metaphor has died,” the poet Archibald MacLeish once said. Nathan Gardels is the editor-in-chief of Noema Magazine.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |