Last week, I read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Leadership. It’s a remarkable study into the lives of Lyndon Johnson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The book focuses on leadership traits these men developed early on and how they developed them, then analyses their leadership in times of crisis. I highly recommend it. I’ve been pondering this quote:
“Good leadership requires you to surround yourself with people of diverse perspectives who can disagree with you without fear of retaliation.” ― Doris Kearns Goodwin
So today’s question is this:
In the last month/year, have you gone out of your way to have a real conversation in which you listened to someone you disagreed with speak their mind? If so, what was the result?
By accident, I did! I was meeting this woman at LunchClub and she's an artist and painter and the conversation was going amazing, she gave me lots of tips on how to start making art again, etc. It was my best meeting at LC, until, 20 minutes in, we ended up talking about Covid (as it happens with every single conversation from the lat year and a half) and I found out she was a trump suporter, anti-vax, hyper religious who thought the virus was just a flu.
I have liked her a lot so far, so I decided to just keep the conversation going by not shouting my opposing view and just listening and answering with broad statements. I remember a very interesting moment after we shittalked our presidents (me, Bolsonaro, her, Biden) that I said 'the world is so fucked up', to which she excitedly replied 'I knoowww, this shitty government trying to manipulate the people and spread lies', and I strongly agreed. We were using the same words and feeling the same frustation towards totally opposite things, and it felt so fun to have that conversation, event though she wasn't aware I didn't actually agree with her.
Oh wow, that sounds like a powerful interaction! It sounds like I've got to get involved with lunch club... I'm happy that you were able to Kickstart some of your own art again! It is so important to indulge as an artist :-)
I love that realization. We do feel the same frustrations. We know on some fundamental level that we are all human, let me stop seeing it and people who disagree with us. Thank you for sharing your experience with that conversation, and thank you for not contributing to the cycle of anger!
By accident, I did! I was meeting this woman at LunchClub and she's an artist and painter and the conversation was going amazing, she gave me lots of tips on how to start making art again, etc. It was my best meeting at LC, until, 20 minutes in, we ended up talking about Covid (as it happens with every single conversation from the lat year and a half) and I found out she was a trump suporter, anti-vax, hyper religious who thought the virus was just a flu.
I have liked her a lot so far, so I decided to just keep the conversation going by not shouting my opposing view and just listening and answering with broad statements. I remember a very interesting moment after we shittalked our presidents (me, Bolsonaro, her, Biden) that I said 'the world is so fucked up', to which she excitedly replied 'I knoowww, this shitty government trying to manipulate the people and spread lies', and I strongly agreed. We were using the same words and feeling the same frustation towards totally opposite things, and it felt so fun to have that conversation, event though she wasn't aware I didn't actually agree with her.
Oh wow, that sounds like a powerful interaction! It sounds like I've got to get involved with lunch club... I'm happy that you were able to Kickstart some of your own art again! It is so important to indulge as an artist :-)
I love that realization. We do feel the same frustrations. We know on some fundamental level that we are all human, let me stop seeing it and people who disagree with us. Thank you for sharing your experience with that conversation, and thank you for not contributing to the cycle of anger!
Hahahaha yes it can be hard, especially in the digital world. I hope you're able to do it more!