Suggestions for a Course on Leadership

[Sarah Ruth Lorenz]

The Grand Inquisitor in Ivan's story from The Brothers Karamazov is making decisions on behalf of all of humanity, in a way that infringes on their moral autonomy. That's easily excerpted. The elder Zosima provides a good contrasting model of leadership---you could read the parts near the beginning that cover his encounters with the common people or his attempt to mediate among the Karamazovs. Plenty of substance for discussion there.

Turgenev's Bazarov has the personality of a leader, certainly with respect to his acolyte Arkady---but is himself bested by Odintsova, not just because he is attracted to her, but probably also because of her greater maturity or sense of self. It's not a long novel.

Olga tries to lead Oblomov in Goncharov's novel, but I don't know how you'd excerpt that.

I hope your group doesn't expect literature to be anything like a self-help book, though!

Ruth Lorenz



On Oct 4, 2013, at 11:13 AM, Steven Brett Shaklan wrote:

Dear Seelangers,

I’m putting together a continuing education course on Leadership in Literature for a professional audience. The goal of the course is to get students to really dig in to a good selection of nuanced, complex fictional situations where characters need to make decisions and exhibit leadership behaviors and have the students debate the issues at play and the wisdom of the characters.

I’d also like to provide some non-fiction readings (philosophy, essays perhaps) to provide some frameworks through which the students can consider the fictional episodes (Plato, Machiavelli, Nietzsche come immediately to mind).

I have a short-list of works, but I am appealing to the group to see if you have any suggestions for readings that relate to this theme. They need not be explicitly about political, military, or business leaders (although that’s great too), as long as they present situations where characters demonstrate (or fail to demonstrate) key characteristics of leadership. Particularly welcome are short stories, novellas, or longer works that can be excerpted; it’s an adult, day-job audience and I don’t want to overwhelm them with reading. That said, I do want to be reasonably comprehensive on the topic.

Any suggestions would be greatly, greatly appreciated.

Thank You!

Steven Shaklan

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