Leadership Legion

001 - Captain Jean-Luc Picard

• Leadership Legion

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“Make it so.”

Adam and Travis introduce a new podcast series about leadership lessons from icons of nerd and geek culture. To kick it off: Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Universally (pun intended) considered a great leader, Picard’s adventures provide multiple opportunities for learning about leadership by example.

In our first episode, we dig into 4 scenarios in the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation "Encounter at Farpoint Station". Each of these scenarios depicts the initial leadership style we encounter from Captain Picard as we begin our journey with him and the crew of the Enterprise into the unknown. Here's some things we learned from those scenarios:

1: When encountering the unexpected, a good leader keeps his      equilibrium and trusts himself and his people; in a pinch, find an exit strategy for your whole team instead of just saving yourself.

2: It’s important to trust your people to make the right decisions; sometimes you need to be willing to break the rules in order to do the right thing.

3: There’s rarely a good reason to yell at someone on your team; it may have benefits in the short term, but in the long term it lowers morale.

4: "My way or the highway” people are frustrating to deal with; pulling rank is rarely an effective way to manage your team or build trust.

The Takeaway:

Over and over, Captain Picard demonstrates primarily good leadership choices and provides Star Trek viewers with the opportunity to reflect on how they would handle leadership in the scenarios Picard deals with. He works to build trust with his team, and then demonstrates his trust in them as experts.

Give it a listen and find out how we learn these lessons and how you can apply them to your life!

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