Clear some space on your office bookshelf for a little Shakespeare, Sophocles and Fitzgerald beside your Welch, Covey and Collins. Notre Dame College is putting a literary spin on professional development with a monthly seminar series, meeting October through May, that explores the timeless leadership lessons found in great works of literature. “There’s a real need for something more substantive than the sometimes pablumy, frequently checklisted approach to leadership development classes,” says Andrew Roth, Notre Dame College president and one of three facilitators for the series, themed “Leadership: The Moral Challenge.” Roth offered this partial glimpse at the required reading list.
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Book and Author
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The IB
Notes
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Leadership
Question
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The Professor’s
Take
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A Parallel
for Today
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The Secret Sharer
Joseph Conrad
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A young captain is thrust into leadership with a new ship and crew. After secretly allowing a mysterious stowaway to board the ship, the captain must confront his qualms about his readiness to lead.
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Am I ready to take responsibility?
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“If I am ready, what about me is ready, and what am I ready for?” says Roth. “This story is an entree to questions about what leadership means, and what the responsibilities and burdens of leadership are.”
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Nearly all new leaders experience such doubts and insecurities, insists Roth, and must confront these critical questions to determine what sort of leaders they will be.
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Antigone
Sophocles
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After the death of Antigone’s father, King Oedipus, her two brothers take opposing sides in a civil war in which both die fighting for the throne. The tragedy unfolds as Antigone defies the new king, her uncle, who has denied a proper burial for the brother deemed traitorous.
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Where should my loyalties lie — with the authority of my organization, my personal morality or some external code of ethics?
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The right answer depends on the situation, says Roth, and a good leader
at times must juggle
allegiance to all three.
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Suppose you work for a tabloid magazine or other organization with a loose notion of truth. Should your loyalties lie with the guy signing your paycheck or with a personal or industry code of ethics?
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The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Set in the 1920s, self-made millionaire Jay Gatsby’s obsessive love for Daisy Buchanan drives
him to pursue material
wealth and power at any cost. The
Ethical compromises he makes along the way prove to be his downfall.
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Do I have a
good dream or
vision for myself/my organization?
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“It’s [a reminder] for anyone to ask themselves, ‘Why am I doing what I’m doing?’” says Roth. “Is it simply to get a big paycheck? Or is there some larger purpose I serve?”
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Fitzgerald’s commentary on the materialism of the Roaring ‘20s is eerily familiar today, “as we teeter on the brink of an economic collapse that was fueled largely by people whose greed got the better of their common sense,” says Roth.
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Macbeth
William Shakespeare
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Spurred on by his wife, Macbeth murders his rival to become King of Scotland. The illegitimate means of his rise to power touches off a sequence of events that results in the deaths of King and Lady Macbeth.
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Can I resist the flow of success?
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A rise to leadership
presents inevitable
opportunities to
take shortcuts. Will
you pursue your ambition while resisting the
urge to cheat along the way?
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You’re one of three candidates for your organization’s
top spot. “Can you
resist the temptation
to stab the other two
in the back?” asks
Roth. “Are you will-
ing to compete
straight-up?”
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The Prince
Niccolo Machiavelli
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The sole departure from fiction in the series, this political meditation contains Machiavelli’s advice to a young prince on how to acquire, exercise and maintain power.
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Is leadership moral?
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Leadership is moral, says Roth, yet presents many circumstances that challenge the leader’s morality.
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The moral leader facing financial crisis tries every alternative before resorting to layoffs. In contrast, says Roth, the immoral leader lays people off just to keep others on their toes.
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