Valuing Solitude

In Lead Yourself First, the authors Raymond M. Kethledge and Michael S. Erwin emphasize “to lead others, you must first lead yourself” and “personal leadership comes through solitude.” They present the reasoning for their argument, not via qualitative research, but rather anecdotes, illustrative stories that demonstrate their point. In particular, they highlight the usefulness of solitude in providing space for reflective thinking to foster creativity, clarity and moral courage. The busyness of modern life is real. In the typical corporate workplace, calendars and schedules tend to become more crowded, more planned out, not less. Emails, messages, texts come your way, seemingly at all times; by responding, you often cause more of them. The more you interact with people or organizations, the more incoming there is for you. Social media has certainly exacerbated this. It is all signals vying for your attention. To think independently of other human beings is impossible, and if it were…