30 pages • 1 hour read
Solitude and Leadership
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Summary: “Solitude and Leadership”
“Solitude and Leadership” is a speech by William Deresiewicz delivered in October 2009 to the freshman class of the United States Military Academy at West Point. Deresiewicz is an author, essayist, and former professor of English at Yale University. The lecture was published in The American Scholar in spring 2010, and this guide refers to the version hosted on the periodical’s website.
Deresiewicz opens by acknowledging the apparent contradiction in the title of his speech, given that leadership requires the presence of other people and solitude implies their absence. Furthermore, he concedes that the cadets’ regimen of leadership training permits them few opportunities to be alone. Still, Deresiewicz asserts that real leadership requires solitude.
He begins his defense of this thesis by questioning common conceptions of leadership, specifically those espoused in military academies and Ivy League universities. Drawing on his experiences at Yale, he acknowledges his students’ capacity to meet high academic standards but dismisses such aptitude as an indicator of leadership ability. He argues that learning to succeed on academic tests (as the cadets have) makes people “world-class hoop jumpers” and “excellent sheep”—but not leaders (Paragraph 6).
Deresiewicz then introduces the concept of Unlock all 30 pages of this Study Guide Plus, gain access to 8,900+ more expert-written Study Guides. Including features:
