The Arts of Leading: A Conversation with Edward Brooks and Michael Lamb

What does it mean to lead? How might viewing leadership through the many lenses of the humanities expand our understanding of how it is imagined, represented, and enacted?

Join us for a conversation about The Arts of Leading: Perspectives from the Humanities and the Liberal Arts with editors Edward Brooks, Executive Director of the Oxford Character Project, and Michael Lamb, F. M. Kirby Foundation Chair of Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University. We’ll explore how insights from the humanities can transform our understanding of leadership beyond conventional management paradigms. Brooks and Lamb will discuss how examining leadership through diverse scholarly perspectives reveals alternative ways of imagining and embodying leadership across different historical, moral, and cultural contexts. Discover how this interdisciplinary approach invites us to expand our practice of leadership in an ever-evolving world.

The University of Chicago Leadership and Society Initiative

The University of Chicago Leadership and Society Initiative (LSI) supports accomplished leaders in successfully transitioning from their longstanding careers toward purposeful next chapters. LSI Fellows immerse themselves in UChicago’s unparalleled environment of big ideas and multigenerational dialogue, gaining frameworks for learning from their past and planning for their futures.

Through LSI’s rigorous and customizable curriculum, Fellows engage with eminent faculty and expert practitioners to explore how their next chapter can be meaningful for them and for society. This fellowship is a commitment to personal growth, enduring wellness, and dynamic engagement with pressing societal issues.

Video Transcript:

Seth Green: Well, welcome all! We are thrilled to have you here for our conversation on the arts of leading perspectives from the humanities and the liberal arts. We are thrilled to have this conversation with Edward Brooks and Michael Lamb. On a morning like this one, I’m especially grateful to say I’m the dean here at the Graham School at the University of Chicago, and I will welcome you to our gorgeous campus, which is this beautiful today, because it is sunny, it is 70 degrees, and it is further proof that Chicago is the place to be for great weather, at least for a few days of the year. And for those who are not familiar, although I see many friendly faces, we are the School of Lifelong Learning at the University of Chicago. We are now 134 years young, because we are a founding member of this university. When William Rennie Harper was setting up the University of Chicago, he wanted to ensure that the big ideas emanated from here to people across all ages and stages of life. And we have been that extension ever since. If you want to continue your learning beyond today, I’ll just mention that we have a lot of exciting events coming up over the next couple of weeks. We have our first Friday lecture at the end of this week on Free Men and Natural Slaves and Homer’s Iliad and Aristotle’s Politics. We’ll have a book discussion next week with Roy Scranton on his new book, Impass. And then on the 16th, we will have our Case for Liberal Education, which will build on many of the themes that we will discuss today. I will also mention that our course registration is now open for winter, and many are already full, so I encourage you to take a look and pick out where you want your lifelong journey to go from here. But the reason you are with us today is to have a discussion with two truly great authors and thinkers on the topic of leadership, and I’m gonna add them to my screen here so you can see them as well. On the screen, we have Edward Brooks. Edward is the Director of the Program for Global Leadership at DPIR, and the Executive Director of the Oxford Character Project. And Michael Lamb, he is the Kirby Foundation Chair of Leadership and Character, Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities, and Executive Director of the Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University. Edward and Michael, welcome. And let me start by asking you about the leadership programs that each of you have been involved in that are really the basis on which you wrote this really important book. And so, maybe we can start with you, Edward, and we can hear a bit about the Oxford Character Project, and you can talk about the gap that you are trying to fill in leadership development with that project, and then, Michael, we can come to you and hear about your example work with the Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest.

Edward Brooks: Well, thank you, Seth, and such a pleasure to join you. Thank you for your generous introduction and hospitality here, and a fantastic time to be thinking about, an important time to be thinking about questions of leadership. So, as you mentioned, I’m here at the University of Oxford, where I’m an associate professor in our Department of Politics and International Relations. And for the last 10 years, a little bit more, in fact, have been involved in this Oxford character project. In fact, Michael and I were working together here back in 2014, as Michael came over, and this project got underway, with the aim to be focusing on not only what it means to lead effectively, but ethically. So, thinking about the development of character and virtues of character to support good leadership. In different contexts, for individuals, communities, organizations, and society, and thinking about how character can be developed, particularly as we started out in higher education contexts, and the real focus here on both research and then program development, thinking about character and leadership. Michael has taken this to the next level, really, over with his work at Wake Forest. I’ll let him say a little bit more, perhaps, about the program over there.

Michael Lamb: Great. Well, thank you, Ed, and thank you, Seth, so much for having me today. It’s great to be here with all of you. Yeah, as Ed mentioned, you know, we were there together over a decade ago, and I think so much of the Character Project program at Oxford really shaped my own sense of what this might be at Wake Forest. And so, at Oxford, we’re doing a lot of work around how we integrate the humanities and the arts into leadership development, using poetry and theater and other forms of history and literature to really expand our imaginations. And so when I came to Wake Forest, which is a liberal arts university, we really leaned into that tradition and drew on our own, Humanities and arts resources here to really think about a creative way to approach leadership that is based not just on skills, but on character, and really grounding the leadership in character And so it’s been a very important part of our work here. We now have a program that spans the entire university, both our undergraduate college and our professional schools, where we offer courses on leadership and character. We train faculty, we now train about 140 faculty to teach courses on character and leadership across various fields, including In the humanities and liberal arts. We also have a research team, like Ed does, and do a lot of work with Ed and his team to advance this work globally. And we also now, thanks to a grant from the Lilly Endowment, have been, helping create resources for other universities, and so we’ve been able to give out grants to, about 150 institutions across the country in the last two years to help them develop their own programs on character that really fit their own context. And so for us, really drawing on the great traditions of humanities is really important for imagining a wider lens on leadership, and then really centering character as the foundation of what good leadership entails.

Seth Green: Let’s dig in, because your book argues that the liberal arts, as you were just suggesting, Michael, help us to reconceptualize what it means to be a leader, and so can you talk a little bit about how those different liberal arts that you mentioned, poetry, philosophy, how they can help us to think differently about leadership, and maybe we’ll start with you, Michael, and then come to Edward.

Michael Lamb: Great. Well, you know, our society is really obsessed with leadership. If you go to the airport, as there was yesterday, you see all these books about leadership on the shelves, you see podcasts, there are courses on leadership. And it’s now become a multi-billion dollar industry of leadership, coaching, and consultation. And so, it’s been a very important part of our ethos, but much of that work has been really centered on leadership within business and politics, and really drawing on the social sciences, especially to ground it in qualitative methods, to really understand behavior and to analyze behavior, and that’s been extraordinarily important to us at really helping to understand in a scientific way what might have otherwise just been hunches about leadership. We can prove the different ways it might be most effective to analyze systems and see the impact of systems. But the danger is, it often sort of simplifies leadership that is inherently complex, because leaders are all human And so human beings are complex. We not only analyze, we also imagine, we not only sort of advance theories, we also tell stories, and so humanities really opens up different ways of understanding and expressing what leadership might be and who our leaders might be. And so these different fields really give us different modes of knowing and imagining and being in ways that really expand just beyond what the social sciences might be able to offer. Ed, what would you add to that?

Edward Brooks: Yeah, thanks, Michael. I think that’s exactly right. It’s about an expansion of a discourse, which has historically, or for the last 50 years particularly, been focused in the social sciences with a focus on management studies as the way to understand leadership, particularly in commercial organisations. And we loved this book to be part of a movement which is about expanding perceptions of leadership. Perhaps I can give you two points in particular. So, when leadership is thought about, it’s often thought about positionally. You know, you know, so an alien walks into the reception of an office, takes me to your leader, you know, who’s the receptionist thinking of? The CEO, or the senior management, you know, it’s about the position that’s held. Okay, that’s important, but leadership’s not only about holding positions, it’s actually about a practice, the practice of leadership. What is the work that gets done by people in different ways? And that can be linked to formal positions, but it may not be. It can be exercised from the ground up, as Tavolia Glimp, for example, argues in her chapter here. Looking at different sites of leadership in the Civil War. Or it could be practiced, through aspects and thought of as a kind of practice of harmony, as Pegram Harrison argues in a chapter in the book all about the opportunities to develop leadership through choral music. So there’s this opportunity to think beyond positional to the practice of leadership and the arts and humanities open us and expand here. And then secondly, leadership’s often thought about instrumentally. That is to say, it’s all about the effective attainment of goals, and those goals are especially financial goals in this kind of management discourse. But of course, it’s not just about instrumental practice, there’s this ethical component as well. The goals are the goods. How do we explore the goods that leaders can go after, and those goods in different ways? And here, the humanities open us up through discourses in philosophy and literature and history to explore the different human goods that leaders might pursue and how they might go about that. So we can expand beyond this positional view to the practice of leadership, beyond a purely instrumental view, to think about the kind of ethical and broader aims, the common goods that leaders can advance as well.

Seth Green: I think that’s so interesting, Edward, because I actually worry at times that the way that leadership studies has moved to be very functional in nature, in some ways has almost taken us out of the context and the ethics of how that leadership occurs in a way where I think questions that are naturally human to us, meaning, like, innately within us, are questions about, well, is that the right thing to do? Or, you know, this is a leader of, let’s say, a tobacco company, and they’re very effective in this way. In some ways, that study of how leadership can function almost removes you from the, I think, innate ethical questions that we have sometimes, and reduces leadership to this very functional box of whether or not the end was achieved without ever asking was that end a good one or a bad one, right? And so, I mean, there are many, many important contributions of that social science, but in some ways, if unbalanced. Right? You can just become focused on, okay, did it achieve the end? But we’ve not even asked the question of whether that end is a good one, and I think innately within us, we’re born to ask those questions, but in some ways, the focus only, let’s say, on function can actually remove this innate character that we have, because it focuses our mind on a very narrow way of looking at an outcome. So it’s a very, you know, important contribution that you both are making here. I want to talk about how you see this working in practice a bit. So, how have you seen the humanities help current leaders? Who are operating in often complex, challenging, ever-changing environments to actually navigate their work better through the work that you’ve done over the years. And we’ll make this popcorn style, but whoever pops first can answer.

Edward: I’m happy to keep going, unless you want to jump in, Michael, go on.

Michael Lamb: Go ahead, Ed, go ahead, Git, yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

Edward Brooks: So, I think, very practically, leaders at the moment are facing this context of incredible complexity and increasing complexity, and what we’re finding, I think, is, wow, you know, the current frameworks that we’ve got, the approaches that we’ve been relying on. oh, maybe they’re not working so well, or how can they work, or do they work in these new and unusual environments and new challenges we’re facing? You know, how do you navigate off-framework? How do you navigate when you’ve gone beyond the map? And not just beyond the map, but beyond the ways of mapping territory that we’ve been used to and familiar to? I think this is the kind of context we’re in, and so I think humanistic thinking, humanistic understandings are vital for this kind of off-map leadership. And so, where I’ve seen leaders apply effectively, it’s been where they’ve had practices of, deep reading of the humanities in the middle of busy lives, leading organizations, practices of deep reading and reflection, which have enabled them to slow down. focus on what’s important, identify meaning and purpose, and then pursue that. And actually, you know, even though that’s slowing down, it’s kind of against the kind of pattern and practice of much contemporary leadership. Well, actually, that enables you to move more quickly. You know, smooth is fast, and slow is smooth. So I think there’s one kind of important way. Actually, it kind of goes against the grain in somewhat of what leaders are looking for. You know, what’s the quick thing I can do to improve the situation here? But maybe there’s a different kind of practice which can help to orientate us in new and unfamiliar environments.

Seth Green: And let me ask you, Edwin, what is it about deep reading? What do you think is happening for those leaders that is enabling Outperformance and better decision-making.

Edward Brooks: But I think, to… in order to read deeply, we need to immerse ourselves and so de… disengage from, you know, our, kind of, mental engagement and all these other kinds of things, and leaders have got persistently, questions, decisions being pushed, pushed at them. Well, in order to read deeply, we need to kind of stop that, okay? We’re going to focus now on what’s the deep argument here of this, of this text. What’s the opportunity to learn? What’s being shown about, you know, different facets of reality? What am I learning from this historical figure, or this philosophical thought and framework to make new connections, to think a bit differently, and then to re-engage in the reality and find, okay, there’s a different understanding and opportunity to perhaps see differently, or explain differently, or act differently here. So I think it’s about a productive kind of withdrawal, immersion, and re-engagement that’s unlocked by deep reading.

Seth Green: Well, I’ll come to Michael. I’ll just mention, to your point, Edward, we had a conversation about a year ago with Mike Maples Jr, who wrote the book Pattern Breakers, and is one of the best investors in Silicon Valley.

Edward Brooks: And he reads for about 15 to 20 hours a week, and he was describing that as.

Seth Green: his way of constantly disciplining his ideas, because he finds that getting out of context into other worlds helps him to come back into this one with greater ability to kind of see the forest from the trees. So, an interesting example of your broader theory. Michael, can we hear from you?

Michael Lamb: Yeah, I think, you know, if leadership is really, based on, or should be based on character, how can these disciplines help us develop certain traits of character, these virtues that might help us imagine and inhabit our roles more effectively? So I think, for example, what Ed’s talking about is deep empathy. If you’re reading literature from a different context, or history, and understanding the ways in which people from different backgrounds acted, they led, they changed. That can help us develop empathy. It also helps develop humility and perspective on time, about un-centering ourselves and recognizing people beyond ourselves, be that in a course of history, or perhaps even art. There’s a great essay from Iris Murdoch about how art is a practice of unselfing us, drawing us out of ourselves into the world. And showed the limits of her own imagination. Or also, wisdom. You know, I’m a philosopher by training, and much of my own leadership is informed by the wisdom of the ancients, be that Aristotle or Cicero or Confucius, on how leadership might be understood in different contexts, and really shaped toward the flourishing of a community. And so I do think these different disciplines offer different ways to shape the character we need to move beyond just mere function, beyond just efficiency and efficacy, toward real ethical discernment and imagination.

Seth Green: Well, so let’s build on that, because in your introduction to this collection, you argue for a broader, more inclusive understanding of the humanities. And you say that we should consider more sources of leadership wisdom. And so, the ancients are certainly one, Michael, but can you talk a little bit about what voices or traditions have been excluded from traditional leadership discourse that your books seek to include, and that you think are valuable for people that are seeking both knowledge and some of these leadership tools?

Michael Lamb: Actually, I’m happy to. I mean, there’s some really beautiful chapters in this volume, and we have such great contributors who really illuminate very interesting and often unique ways of understanding what leadership is. So, let me give you a couple examples from the book itself. One is about who is seen as a leader in our context. As Ed mentioned, we often elevate these positional leaders.

As the heroes, but often, most of the work’s happening to people, often, that are invisible and perhaps behind the scenes. Let me give you two examples from the book. One is from Marla Frederick, who analyzes First Baptist Missionary Church in Sumter, South Carolina, which is actually her home church. She’s a Dean of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School. And in doing work for the history of this church, you actually discovered in the archives that it wasn’t just these very famous male leaders who led the church. Actually, these three women. Mary Mitchell, Tilda Bush, and Minnie Blair, who, quote, organized the church based on the archives that she actually did. So deep historical, archival work exposed new ways of understanding who the leaders were, and how leadership was shaped early on in that church. It wasn’t just those on the walls and their portraits, but actually these deep archives that illuminated this leadership that’s often invisible and not usually celebrated. In the same sort of way, Thvelia Glimp, a professor at Duke University, is a scholar of the Civil War. And we often read in various journals or articles about Abraham Lincoln as a great leader of the Civil War, you know, leading our country through this tumultuous time. But actually, she talks about the enslaved people and refugees, including many women who were enacting resistance in other ways on plantations and battlefields and raids that really helped to expand the effort to win the war. And so, she asked, you know, why do we only do staff rides on battlefields, not actually on plantations, where this resistance was happening every day? in ways that really enable these people to be agents of their own freedom and liberation. So, seeing a much wider context, I think it’s very important for understanding how humanities can really open us up to different ways of being human and eliminating different kinds of leaders in our view.

Seth Green: Well, before we come to you on this, Edward, I’ll just mention that David Brooks, who’s a faculty member of our school and also a New York Times columnist, has been involved with a project called Weave. which is at our partners, the Aspen Institute. And it’s a great example, I think, of this view, Michael. And what they look at is they go to different communities. Who are the people that everyone in this community connects to? Who are the people they rely on? Who are the people they gain information from? And often it’s not the official leaders who are in authority, but it’s a common set of individuals who are relationship-rich, and who the name weave comes from, they’re weavers of community, and so they’ve worked really hard to try to strengthen those bonds because of the fraying of a lot of relationships in society. But interestingly, it’s a different way of looking at leadership than the positional way that you were describing earlier. Edward, can we come to you?

Edward Brooks: Yes, absolutely, and so in terms of the… excuse me… the voices and traditions that are excluded from traditional leadership discourse, while in the chapter, Pegram Harrison, who’s an amazing professor with a humanities background and a PhD from Yale. He teaches here at Oxford in the Said Business School, draws on, like, a rich tradition of early modern choral music. Now, here’s a tradition which isn’t often referenced in leadership studies or in leadership development, and he shows how this living tradition, amazingly can illuminate, what leadership is, how leadership can be experienced, and used really productively, even today in, in leadership development. So, there’s a range of sources, not only for how we understand what leadership is, but how we think about how leadership can be developed, not only the seminar room and the case study. But also, you know, that experience of deep engagement with the choir. Visual art is another amazing example in the book, and there are some super chapters here. I mentioned a chapter by David Lubin, who looks at the Shaw Memorial, this, freeze by, Augustus St. Gordon’s of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, who commanded, a regiment, the first black regiment, in the, In the Civil War, and if you imagine how, you know, you’d commemorate a general on his horse, well, you’d think it would be the isolated figure, elevated feet off the… off the ground. That’s the kind of traditional picture of the singular military leader and hero, and yet St. Gordon’s doesn’t… doesn’t do that in this incredible breeze. There, you have the Yes, you have the, the leader on the horse, but, being led, actually, along by his men. Each of the faces is portrayed with great detail and individuality. the nature of agency, and who is doing the work, and the leadership is contextualized in really interesting ways, which is kind of quite revolutionary, and just disturbs our, perhaps, natural assumptions. It makes me think, oh, quite what’s going on, and how leadership really operates when you’re there in the… In the midst of things. I think this is one of the ways that the arts can… can surprise us. Can show us things that perhaps, if we’re open to think about it, oh, well, what would I expect to have seen here? Oh, what am I seeing? If we look… if we look closely and allow ourselves to be then taken along and brought into a different story, a different way of seeing, a different way of perceiving quite how leadership is pictured, imagine what it might mean, then, even for… for us and in our time.

Seth Green: Well, so, I want to come to some of the questions that are populating our chat for both of you, and I’ll start with a question from Len Rothman, which is about the billions of dollars that have been spent for decades, as you referenced earlier, Michael, on leadership development, and his observation that it’s not necessarily

moving the needle or making an impact, at least as he looks up, maybe, to leaders politically or otherwise. Can you talk a little bit, in your view, about why? I mean, in some ways, your book is an antidote to that, because you’re trying to complement the field, but where do you see, you know, specific gaps as you think about what you’re building and where the field has been to date?

Michael Lamb: It’s a great question, so thank you, Lynn, for that. I think one thing we often think about in this book, and it’s one of our aims, is to really expand the view of what leadership education might look like as well. Right now, leadership is seen as a separate field, leadership studies, and you might study it in business school or in maybe policy school. But it’s separate from everything else in our world. But we actually want to say, no, when you study literature well. When you read history well, when you practice poetry, or listen to music, or analyze art, or think about big ideas through philosophy or religion, you’re actually gaining insight that can really help us think about leadership in that way. So really, try not to separate it out into this separate field, but really bring leadership into other fields. And recognizing the ways in which these historic disciplines and arts can help shape our view of that. So I do think that, one, it’s expanding what leadership sources we might look to. But secondly, I think recognizing that just reading books in our current world is not going to be the only way we imagine what leadership is. AI is creating very complex challenges of that sort of process now, but I think thinking about these more embodied ways of being is really helpful for us. So what Ed mentioned about Pegram Harrison’s workshop, it’s a very embodied, interactive workshop. That’s not just reading and gaining knowledge, but actually shaping how we feel, our emotions, our character, our responses, our embodied, sort of ways of being that really help us sort of train ourselves to be more attuned but also to respond in ways that really can regulate that. I think there’s a danger of thinking that knowledge alone will give us good leadership. We have to have to shape our character, which is about motivation, about emotion, about action in a much more embodied way. I think humanities themselves really open up that more embodied way of being, I think, for our consideration.

Edward Brooks: So I think I might add a question about what we’re looking for, and we’re looking for sources of leadership learning, and what this money, which is, you know, this billions of dollars, are being invested in. And perhaps we would need to unlock from the, you know, the kinds of ways we’re thinking about return on investment in leadership learning to think at a deeper level. So, yes, leaders are busy, what do they need? Well, the kind of current solution is to reduce the content, to summarize, to use AI, produce bullet points, give things quickly, these kinds of things. It’s about techniques, ultimately. But maybe what we need, actually, when we’re most busy, is the ability to think about the longer term, inner calm, and clear thinking. Perception of what’s important, building curiosity, building creativity, the humility to look to others. I mean, these kinds of things, they just operate on a different kind of timeline, they’re a different kind of order than the way much of the field of leadership development seems to have gone. And many of these insights in the current literature, leadership development literature, can be good and helpful, but I just think, you know, arguing with the book is that they need to be expanded. We need to operate on this, this, in this different way, deeper way. Perhaps, as well. Actually, if we’re going to be effective, not just ethical, but actually this underlies our efficacy as well in the world.

Seth Green: So can I ask for a follow-up? And I’m thinking about my own education. I was very much a liberal arts, you know, background. I took art and art history. I loved taking classes in philosophy, and… and yet, I don’t know when I was doing it if I connected it to leadership. Like, I went on later in my career, I worked at McKinsey & Company, and then came into, kind of, leadership from that vantage point. And they’re almost alternate worlds, in a certain sense. And so the question for you both is, I see the connection, I see how the arts, how philosophy, how all of these things can help us to become better leaders, to become calmer thinkers do we need, in education, to have more connectivity between these things that’s intentional, or is it good to leave them alone? Like, I don’t think about my art classes or art history… I don’t think I ever talked about leadership or business or any of these things directly, even though the concepts might have felt relevant in backward motion. Like, if I look at, you know, leadership experience I have now, I say, oh yeah, that helped me prepare. What’s your thought on how we think about how this conversation between the humanities and leadership and society, how that takes place. Is it important to integrate in the classroom? Is it best to leave it alone and have people just think about reading these texts for their own sake and enjoying them, and then that, you know, that experience changes us in ways that makes us better? I don’t know how you thought about that question, but I’m curious for your insights. I think I would say…

Michael Lamb: Not either-or. Not either-or, I think. I think there are ways you can read these really classic texts and enjoy them, benefit from them for their own sake, and also draw out important lessons for your own character, or for your own life. I think, in many ways, what we found at Wake Forest, and I know at Oxford as well, is that when you have that frame of really engaging them for personal reasons, it makes the text come alive in a different way. As a teacher, I often find students not just trying to see these texts as artifacts from history, or as abstract sort of objects, but actually as sources of wisdom. They might actually adapt, critique, analyze, reject, and give them kind of a stake in their own growth, in their own education. So I do think that there… for us, using those texts as a way, as a source of wisdom, not just knowledge. I think it’s really vital, and I think too often we sort of make education about just acquiring knowledge. Not about acquiring wisdom. and about acquiring skills, but not acquiring the character we need to use those skills toward morally good purposes. So, I do think that you can do both, and our view is not to displace the traditional Deep, intrinsic value of knowledge, but to recognize that even then, knowledge is a human good that has other goods around it that must be used in the right ways.

Seth Green: I’m gonna come to… Edward, anything to add before I come to the next question in the chat?

Edward Brooks: Well, I think we say in the instruction, one thing we’re keen not to do in the book is to instrumentalize the humanities. We don’t want to go down that route and say, well, here’s another way we can use the humanities, and you know, it’s not about enjoyment, it’s just about the use, and that’s not the case. But we’re all well aware that there is a need to make some of these connections in the context we find ourselves in. You know, the case for the humanities and the importance of the humanities in society is a really pressing and urgent one, and sensitively building some of these bridges back into education practice, it’s needed now in a way perhaps it wouldn’t have been needed intentionally in previous times. When those connections and the purpose of the liberal arts were, I guess, better known and better Understood. So, yeah, there’s an art to doing this well, I think, and Michael’s expert at doing that.

Seth Green: So Jerry in the chassis asked a very intriguing question. It is a common observation, he writes, that people don’t like it when others exhibit leadership, especially when what we really want are followers, at least true for many, if not all. Moreover, one problem of late has been that when we exhibit leadership, it could place us in danger, such as what is happening to former leaders of governmental administrations. How does leadership discourse prepare us for such conditions? How does character exhibit courage? Yeah, can you talk about that? I mean, and obviously, I can think about many cases in philosophy where, you know, people in the context of their advocacy and their wisdom have three… face great danger, maybe for, you know, at the time, being too provocative for where the society was ready, or, you know, the other contexts. What are your thoughts on that question of how these humanities can kind of prepare us.

Michael Lamb: Go ahead, Ed.

Edward Brooks: So I think this is about the way in which The, engagement with the arts and humanities is part of a cultivation, not simply of skills, but of virtues, of these deep dispositions that shape how we think, how we feel how we act, and virtues are positive, dispositions of character, and vices, negative ones. And there are important virtues that need to be cultivated in order to engage in leadership, and courage is emphasized, and that is going to be really important, because why? Leaders engage in contexts where there’s, there’s opposition, there’s much to be anxious about. About, if you take a stand, if you drive forward in a certain direction. As well as the internal anxieties that people face, and they’re inevitable, and you’ll need to overcome those, and so that’s why courage is needed. Hope’s essential and really important, both Michael and I have done plenty of work here on this particular virtue, which enables us to face difficulty really well. Not stepping back from, difficult situations, despairing of the possibility of future goods, but neither minimizing difficulties in order to move forwards, but actually looking at difficulties squarely in the face, and be able to identify, goods to go after positive, possible, possible goods, which are there, which can be, achieved collectively and enable leaders to navigate towards them. So there’ll be these virtues of character which are really important to be, to be developed, and engaging with the humanities can help us to do that really well.

Seth Green: Great, thank you, Edward. Well, so let me come to the next question from Mark Braun. Jeffrey Pfeffer from Stanford talks about this concept of power, and how power is garnered. It appears that there are significant correlations between how the formation of power seems to position leaders. What are your thoughts on this? It appears to contrast with the humanities, Aristotle and others who discuss a certain value and ethical system. Can you talk a little bit about that? I mean, you know, in current, you know, U.S, it is, you know, questionable whether or not mastery of deep ethical philosophy is your key to the highest levels of leadership, and so, you know, just building on Mark’s question, how do we think about that?

Michael Lamb: Well, I think it’s a great question. I do think power’s at the center, and I think one thing that the discourse around leadership and business and politics makes really clear is that power matters a lot. The danger is, I think if you only use those fields to analyze what power is, you get a very narrow view of what power might be. So those fields are often focused on positional power, the CEO, the governor, the president, the executive, the representatives in some way. But I think humanity’s really focused on another kind of power called relational power. Where power’s built on, not just on gaining power through an election or an appointment, but actually through relationship building around trust and by common projects. And you see through this work, actually, you build authority by earning the trust of others around you, and then using that trust in ways that advance the common good. I think humanity’s really opened up those more relational aspects of power that are often ignored in our discourse in business and politics. And so, I think several chapters in the book, for example, talk about the relational power that comes from actually doing the work together, in collaboration often in ways that are invisible to those in positional power. So I do think that humanities really opens up different ways of thinking about power beyond just authority through position. And so I think in that context, if we’re trying to resist or hold power accountable. then relationships are going to be vital to that work. In my own research in graduate school, I worked on community organizers who use relational power in various contexts to actually challenge those who had positional power to really bring about positive change, and it often is those kinds of one-on-one meetings, relationships of real trust-building that make that power possible.

Seth Green: So let me come to some of the other questions that are populating our chat. Sue Padula writes, I sometimes worry about an overemphasis on leaders to the exclusion of the development of the majority, who are followers, and their character development. Would you say that the humanities are important for those who are not the leaders, but the followers, because they are necessary to determine and evaluate the character of those who are their leaders, and the character and courage to take action or step up when necessary or appropriate.Ed, can we start with you?

Edward Brooks: Absolutely, that’s beautifully put, and the cultivation of character for followership or citizenship, however it’s positioned and understood, is absolutely essential for these very reasons. I would say, in addition, that these two aren’t necessarily opposite to each other. The idea of leading and following, in fact. Almost all the time, people are doing both, so we can think about these beyond simply the idea of positional leadership, of holding particular positions in hierarchies, and the idea of there being very few leaders, thinking about the practice of leadership. You know, most of those who lead in different ways will also then be following others, and I think developing both of these aspects of leadership and followership and doing that together can be really helpful. When is it that I should take responsibility to use influence to lead a group forward? How do I follow in groups where there are other leaders? How do I discern? the right ways to do that, and which moments to, to take, and so on. So I think both of these can come very helpfully into view.

Seth Green: We have a question from Tina Laurie, who’s in Chicago. What role does gender, race, and ethnicity play in leadership qualities? How can current scholarship help remove inequities in the humanities? And then we have what I believe is an add-on to that question around, can you layer in perception? So there may be, you know, real, distinctions, but then there also may be perceptions that lead to ways in which that impacts people.

Michael Lamb: It’s a great question, I think very important. I think, one thing we talk about in the book is that often leadership has been conceptualized, at least in the West, as… as primarily Male and white in various contexts, and so we’re really trying to lift up different views of what leadership might be by drawing on scholars from different communities who might represent their own disciplines in different ways, but also by drawing on historical examples of people who are often not recognized as leaders because of these perceptions, to really try to challenge and unsettle those perceptions to really expand our view. So, for example, we mentioned for the Civil War, enslaved people being leaders, not just Lincoln or these very famous generals. Thinking about, for example, as well, you know, the ways in which, in Shakespeare’s plays even, it’s not just the male leaders, but these women characters who actually sort of rise up in various ways and challenge, often in subtle, somewhat complex ways, those dominant male characters. And so I saw a comment about Shakespeare. We actually have two chapters in the book on Shakespeare. They take different accounts of ways of reading Shakespeare to really open up how both actors and also readers were agents in the interpretation of these plays. So really, sort of democratizing, in many ways, the work beyond just those represented in the text themselves.

Seth Green: Well, so we have a question here from Ken Schneider Malik. How might we better cultivate recognition and acceptance of this type of leadership in families, especially enterprising families who have many, many influencers, spousings, siblings, in-laws, who bring virtues of character from the humanities versus business, finance, or law. But, you know, one board chair, one CEO, and just a few other traditional perceived leadership positions. And yeah, I mean, that’s a broader question of, you know, we’re having a discussion about how there are leaders everywhere. Kids are growing up, though, with a lot of influences telling them, you know, there is one form of leader. How do you think about overcoming that? I mean, I imagine the humanities themselves are aimed to be an answer, and it’s also how we teach the humanities, right, and getting beyond just the singular model of leadership, but let’s put it to you in terms of how to approach that, and It’s something that certainly we see as we look at many young people who are raised in an environment where they almost feel like there are, you know, three opportunities that they can pursue, rather than all of them because of a certain Mindset of what leadership or excellence looks like.

Edward Brooks: I think helping children with exposure to literature which stretches their imagination of leadership and what leadership is, is really, really important, and reading to our children, reading with them, helping them to engage from the earliest ages into ideas of leadership, which, perhaps more expansive than the stereotypes is, I think, certainly really important. And then in conversation, celebrating leadership that we see in different ways. Identifying and actively celebrating where leadership is, is exercised. I think both of these are ways to move beyond this kind of singular idea, instrumental idea, individualistic idea, perhaps, and to start to, yeah, expand conversationally the imagination that we’re able to help our children to foster. Michael.

Michael Lamb: I’ll just add, one of my favorite chapters in the book is by Melissa Jones-Briggs, who teaches at Stanford, the Stanford School of Business. And she has a great chapter on how she, as an actor, teaches courses on acting for leadership, acting with power, and how acting techniques can help us play different roles. And we’re actually both covering and uncovering our identity all the time when we’re acting, and responding to people around us, context, characters, and so there are ways that theater can actually open up new ways of having roles for us that can help people in traditional roles, but also those who aren’t in, you know, positional roles. Think about how to actually respond to these very unique contexts. So I do think there are ways in which the humanities understood broadly might open up different ways of being. Even Peace. Harrison’s example in his chapter talks about how the conductor, if they don’t know what they’re doing, actually, the people can’t follow at all. They’re just, they’re seeing these useless, random notes. So how does the actual ensemble themselves actually respond to leaders and then shape the leadership of the person up at the front? So I think there are ways that leaders and followers can always work together to expand our imagination of these different roles that people might play in the family, or perhaps even beyond that.

Seth Green: Well, I’ll just mention, as a parent, I just read a book, Never Enough, about, kind of toxic achievement culture by Jennifer Wallace. And what’s fascinating about that book is that the main point, as I took it away. It was about how you want to expose your kids to lots of examples, because what can be overwhelming for them if they think there’s only one or two definitions of success or a meaningful life. And then that’s not where their true north, or their skills, or their, you know, gravitating. And your example, Ed, about using literature as a vehicle to expose young people to all of these different possibilities as I remember the book, I don’t think something like that ever came up as a possibility and a pathway, and so I think it’s just interesting to think about how the humanities can really be this escape valve back to kind of the core of being human, which is to have lots of aspirations, lots of dreams, lots of possibilities, lots of imagination, and expanding worlds, right, in a way that is freeing and liberating, and that now I can see all of these different possibilities that may be a right fit for me. We have a couple minutes and a couple questions, so I want to get to them. Matthew Cooke writes, it seems like most humanities training in universities occurs in general education courses, so historically, this means 18 to 22 year olds. I wonder what strategies you have seen to expand opportunities for this study after graduation and incorporate its study into one life beyond university. And I promise, even though I lead a school of lifelong learning, I did not plant this question. Well, I’ll put it to both.

Edward Brooks: Well, maybe this is the time for the advertisement for the School of Lifelong Learning set. It sounds, like, tremendous. Sounds tremendous, the range of activities and opportunities that you have, and of course, there are so many of these opportunities there, but it’s the practices, I think, to keep engaging with them that we need to keep fostering in the middle of busy lives of, of all kinds. Broadly, on strategies, Michael and I have been working together on a project around strategies for character development, which are bare and powerful in a higher education context, and valuable and effective throughout adult life. And, there are important aspects here, but one of the strategies is friendship. Actually, and cultivating, cultivating friendships and mutual accountability where, you know, we can learn together, read together, challenge each other together to, to grow and expand our moral imaginations, grow our character virtues over time, and so I think this could be important as well, not to make it simply a kind of, oh, I must do another thing on my to-do list, but…To come together with others, and I imagine that’s part of the work you’re doing at the, the school as well.

Seth Green: Well, so, final question. They ask, what are 3 classic must-reads you’d recommend for a very busy leader looking to strengthen their leadership skills? So give us your, you know, your reading list, if you can limit it to 3 each. Michael, can we start with you? What three bucks?

Michael Lamb: Well, I think, for me, as a philosopher, I think Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is a must-read for thinking about what virtue is, and how to think about how to develop the virtues of character. I also, really, love a book called, Letters to a Young Poet by Rolke, a German poet, understanding what it means to sort of live questions and be patient with solitude and let things unfold in various ways. And then, I think third, you know, we… we… Ed and I led a group in Oxford on ethics through fiction and film, and we read different novels and watched the film version of those novels, and one of my favorite books is, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Again, we’re coming up to Halloween in a month, you know, this, this really, this beautiful text, it’s a gothic novel that really is grappling with what it means to be human, how to think about empathy and sympathy, about responsibility, and I think in the age of AI, as our creations become monsters, potentially. The kind of real ethical discernment there about responsibility and empathy is going to be very important for that, for that moment.

Seth Green: Ed, any to add?

Edward Brooks: Yes, and I might give, kind of, categories of books with examples, if that’s… if that’s okay, because, of course.

Seth Green: I love it.

Edward Brooks: All have their different, different approaches, but I think reading biography is something I’ve massively enjoyed. I think it could be really helpful for leaders. Why? Because as we read biography, we can engage more deeply than the superficial with the lives of leaders, the range and complexity of motivation and emotion and response to, to difficulty, ways and parts of growing mistakes that have been made, how they’ve been engaged and dealt with and so on, and so pushing into biographies. I’ve actually just started, I’m 100 pages into the famous Hamilton biography, just at the moment. That’s the one, next, next to me, and I’m thoroughly enjoying that. A second category, and I find this hard, actually, is the great works of literature. I naturally would much rather pick up a, or find it easier to pick up a kind of the latest book of political theory or some sexual philosophy, but reading books by Tolstoy actually helps you, or makes you embed in a different world, which moves at a much slower pace, which wrestles deeply, which has rich description and narrative, which does, I find, if I give myself time to do that, unlocks aspects of who I am that aren’t unlocked by, I guess, the more instrumental kinds of literature that I engage in. And then, can we recommend our own book? I don’t know, we only wrote the introduction, so we’ve been delighted to be involved in this project. Well, I certainly haven’t been speaking myself here to work with Michael, but to bring them together… so the book is an edited volume, that’s to say, we wrote the introduction and edited these chapters together, and we found these amazing academics from across the arts and humanities whose work is field-leading. But yeah, hadn’t put their mind to thinking about, okay, well, what does my work in history, for example, say about leadership? And this was the kind of art of the book, bringing these wonderful people together for exchange, for discussions, for dialogue, and then helping them to put this together into chapters which we could put between covers. And I think the results there are rich introductions to leadership from across the arts and humanities, so… Thank you for the chance to discuss it, and I hope it’s okay to recommend some of these final.

Seth Green: I wholeheartedly agree with the recommendation. Having read it, it is a phenomenal book. It expands your horizons. Each of the, you know, volumes within is just a really fascinating way to look at this concept in depth, and you both have been incredibly thoughtful discussants today, so thank you both. I hope the rest of your day there, Michael, in North Carolina goes well. Have a good evening, Edward, out in England, and thank you all for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this discussion as much as we certainly did. Hope everyone has a great rest of your day.

Michael Lamb: Great, thank you all.

Edward Brooks: Thanks. Bye-bye.

Michael Lamb: Bye-bye.

Watch: The Arts of Leading: A Conversation with Edward Brooks and Michael Lamb

The University of Chicago Leadership and Society Initiative

Video Transcript:

Related Blog

Re-Educated on Midlife Transition: A Conversation with Lucy Kellaway

Watch: Envisioning Your Social Legacy: A Conversation with Emily Chang

Watch: The 5 Types of Wealth: A Conversation with Sahil Bloom