Gotta Be A Leader

In Alex Knapp’s essay, “Five Leadership Lessons from James T. Kirk,” he gives five valuable lessons to business people that he feels will make them better leaders.  This article appears in Read, Write, Reason, the textbook I use for ENGL1302.  When I first saw the essay, I thought it was weird to have it in a Freshmen Composition textbook, but after reading it, I discovered that the lessons were applicable to college students.

The advice he gives will help college students do better in college and will prepare them for life after college.

Lesson 1: Never Stop Learning.  This is and always will be an important key to being successful in life.  If we are always learning, it will help our brains continue to grow and flourish.

Lesson 2: Have Advisors with Different Worldviews.  This is one is a good lesson for college students.  I encourage my students to be open to meeting new people, especially ones who don not look like them.  Developing Interpersonal Relationships is key in college.  He is right when he says, “We all need a McCoy and a Spock in our lives and organizations” (30).

Lesson 3: Be a Part of the Away Team.  This one is interesting for college students.  In the essay, Knapp refers to leaders not always sitting in their office and watching their staff.  But, it can apply to college students as well.  It reminds then to be a part of what is going on at their college.  I encourage my students to be active in the college activities.  That is important to making new friends.

Lesson 4: Play Poker, Not Chess.  I do like this lesson.  As Knapp says, “Life is a game of probabilities, not defined rules. And often understanding your opponent is a much greater advantage than the cards you have in your hand” (31).  Remember, people do not always follow the rules, so knowing how to read people will help you a lot in life.

Lesson 5: Blow Up the Enterprise.  This one can be hard because Knapp reminders readers that things change, and that you need to be okay with change.  And as we know, most of us struggle with change.  Knapp says it like this, “change what isn’t working and embark on a new path, even if that means having to live in a Klingon ship for a while” (32).

All these lessons are certainly familiar to my students because they learn them in the first week of the semester when I lecture on “Growth Mindset” (the belief that intelligence is pliable and can be developed with effort and hard work) and “Creating Success in College” (focusing on you being the creator and controller of your success in college).  Both lectures teach students the same lessons that Knapp discusses in his essay, but in a different way.

As I told my students last week when discussing reading… “I taught you something that you needed to learn, but I gave you three ways to look it.”

Works Cited

“Developing a Growth Mindset.”  Handout, Freshmen Composition II: ENGL1302, (Professor Deartra D. Boone,) Richland College, Jan. 2018, e-file.

Down, Skip.  “On Course.” On Course, “Creating Success in College - On Course,” Handout, Freshmen Composition II: ENGL1302, (Professor Deartra D. Boone,) Richland College, Jan. 2018, e-file.

Knapp, Alex. "Five Leadership Lessons from James T. Kirk." Read, Write, Reason, Edited by Dorothy U. Selyler, McGraw-Hill Education, 2015. 28-32. e-file.