职业与工作方法theamericanscholar.org编辑精选
孤独与领导力：若想让他人追随，先学会独处
Solitude and Leadership: If you want others to follow, learn to be alone
2010 — 2019，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这是威廉·德雷谢维奇2010年在西点军校的演讲《孤独与领导》，后刊于《美国学者》。文章批评精英教育培养出的“优秀绵羊”——擅长完成任何目标却缺乏独立思考，并论证真正的领导力需要独处、专注和直面内心的勇气。
为什么经久不衰：它对精英体制与独立思考的批判历久弥新，三次登上 HN 首页说明其关于独处与领导力的洞见至今仍能击中读者。
HN 评论精选
印证了文章对精英教育把学生训练成“优秀绵羊”的批评
我几年前在耶鲁本科招生委员会任职。招生官向委员会介绍案例时，第一件事就是念学生的课外活动清单。有六七项课外活动的学生已经麻烦了，因为被录取的学生——除了满分成绩和顶尖分数——通常有十到十二项。文章说：我身边这些优秀的孩子被训练成了世界级的跨栏选手。你给他们定任何目标，他们都能达成；任何考试，他们都能漂亮通过。正如其中一个学生自己说的，他们是“优秀的绵羊”。说得好！世界需要很多优秀的绵羊，但我不想成为其中一员。
gvb查看英文原文
The article has the most perfectly placed advertisement box. I read... I sat on the Yale College admissions committee a couple of years ago. The first thing the admissions officer would do when presenting a case to the rest of the committee was read what they call the "brag" in admissions lingo, the list of the student’s extracurriculars. Well, it turned out that a student who had six or seven extracurriculars was already in trouble. Because the students who got in—in addition to perfect grades and top scores—usually had 10 or 12. ...and then there was the advertisement box. My blood was starting to boil because I have a serious philosophical problem with having to do the "right" kinds of extracurricular things to impress an admissions board to get into college. OK, it's sour grapes, but that is a college I'm not interested in attending (ditto for Google). Then the kicker: So what I saw around me were great kids who had been trained to be world-class hoop jumpers. Any goal you set them, they could achieve. Any test you gave them, they could pass with flying colors. They were, as one of them put it herself, "excellent sheep." Amen! The world needs plenty of excellent sheep, but I'm not interested in being one of them.
将文中领导者的特质与抑郁症的进化意义类比
作者对领导力的描述听起来很像临床抑郁症。这并不奇怪，我不断看到一些研究或哲学观点认为抑郁有进化上的意义。我认为关键特质在于：抑郁者无法像正常、正常运转的人那样忽视重要问题，尤其是长期问题。难点在于能否应对这些问题，而不是被它们压垮。
lmkg查看英文原文
The author's characterization of leadership sounds to me a lot like clinical depression. This isn't altogether surprising to me, as I keep stumbling upon pieces of research or philosophy suggesting that depression has an evolutionary purpose. I think the essential property is that a depressive isn't able to ignore important problems the way a normal, functional person is able to, especially long-term problems. The hitch is being able to address those problems, rather than being overwhelmed by them.
提醒领导力本身并非善，还需道德维度
这是一篇非常好的文章。但有件事让我不安：这种对领导者的描述，不正好完全适用于《黑暗之心》里的库尔茨吗？我总觉得这只是故事的一半；除了领导力之外，我们还需要别的东西。
zb查看英文原文
This is a seriously great article. One thing bothers me, though. This description of what a leader is, doesn't it fit Kurtz exactly? I can't help feeling that this is only part of the story; that we need something more than leadership alone.
独处与内省也可以通过深度交谈实现
我很喜欢作者把“亲密交谈中的深厚友谊”也视为一种独处与内省的讨论。人生中有几次这样的交谈让我更认识了自己，我永远无法忘记其中任何一次。
bobf查看英文原文
I loved the author's discussion of "the deep friendship of intimate conversation" as a form of solitude and introspection. I've experienced increased self-acquaintance through such conversation a few times in life, and can't imagine ever forgetting a single one.
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