Critical Perspectives in Leadership
This course isn’t like most leadership courses. Instead of handing you models and frameworks to apply, it asks you to step back and interrogate where our ideas about leadership even come from: the philosophies, the assumptions, and the power structures underneath them. Each module pairs classical thinkers with contemporary scholarship and asks you to engage critically with what you read, not just absorb it. This post is my reflection on Module 2, which took us all the way back to Aristotle and Machiavelli.
Walking in
I was surprised. I wasn’t expecting Module 2 to open with Machiavelli, The Prince. It’s funny, because one of my closest friends sent me something about The Prince before starting this assignment. Quite serendipitous.
I wasn’t expecting so much philosophical input in this course. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t Aristotle. I’ve never had a course, outside of philosophy courses, that interrogates the theory and the analysis we come up with. I admired that piece…to question everything, which is one of my values. It’s also encouraging you to not only analyze what you read, but to deeply inquire about what you’re reading, and then interrogate your insights.
Why do you believe them? Why might they be true? Why might they be false? What about your beliefs could be a blind spot?
What the module covered
This module focused on leadership from a historical and philosophical perspective, which I love (because philosophy is gold), rather than as a modern organizational practice. It challenged many assumptions about leadership.
Something that stuck out to me: it pushed the narrative that leadership isn’t innate, more on this later.
Aristotle’s ethics argued that effective leadership begins with developing good character, which I one hundred percent agree with. Virtue, values, all of it. Leadership is a mirror of who a person is, and that reflection is developed through actions over time.
The idea that hit hardest
But here’s the thing: character is not an objective measurement. It’s subjective. Some people will look at character and morality and see good; others will value those same traits differently. Ultimately, the decisions (even the good ones) leaders make always have consequences, every avenue you pick has one. Practical wisdom grows and evolves through continual reflection, continual actions, continual decision making.
Where it collided with real life
Where does this apply? I think about it from a technological perspective, but my peer honed in on healthcare. In both industries, you constantly navigate competing priorities and different levels of morality, especially in healthcare, where so much is happening at once. Fairness, integrity, sound judgment: you navigate all of those while dealing with actual business priorities. Leadership goes beyond technical competencies; it’s about values and character. But character isn’t everything, it can’t be placed in a box, and it’s shaped by expectations, biases, organizational culture, and situational context.
Questions worth sitting with
Before you scroll on, run your own beliefs through the same interrogation this module put me through:
- Why do you believe your insights? Why might they be true? Why might they be false?
- What about your beliefs could be a blind spot?
- What are we assuming is right, and what should we be questioning more?
- Is the truth being presented as objective? If so, why?
- Why am I accepting this argument so easily?
My advice: prepare to question everything
Our advice to students who are about to take this course, or who are considering taking it, is to prepare to question everything. One of the strongest lessons from this module is that there is almost always another layer beneath what we see, hear, feel, and assume we understand. This course requires us to question the rationale, philosophies, facts, findings, and theories presented in the readings. When reading Aristotle, Keyt, and the other scholarly articles, students should ask: What are we assuming is right, and what should we be questioning more?
For every moment when we agree with an author or are tempted to accept an argument at face value, we should pause and ask why we are accepting it so easily. Is the truth being presented as objective? If so, why? Students taking this course should develop an intense level of interrogation, not only to better understand critical leadership perspectives but also to leave the course with their own informed philosophy rather than one adopted passively.
From this course forward, students should no longer simply intake, digest, and passively read assigned texts. They should actively question the readings and the theories behind them. Without doing so, it is difficult to say that we are truly assessing leadership theory critically or fully understanding what we are reading.