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Solitude and Leadership by William Deresiewicz

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Solitude and Leadership was delivered by William Deresiewicz to the plebe class at the United States Military Academy at West Point in October 2009 and originally published in The American Scholar. My title must seem like a contradiction. What can solitude have to do with leadership? Solitude means being alone, and leadership necessitates the presence of others—the people you’re leading. When we think about leadership in American history we are likely to think of Washington, at the head of an army, or Lincoln, at the head of a nation, or King, at the head of a movement—people with multitudes behind them, looking to them for direction. And when we think of solitude, we are apt to think of Thoreau, a man alone in the woods, keeping a journal and communing with nature in silence. Leadership is what you are here to learn—the qualities of character and mind that will make you fit to command a platoon, and beyond that, perhaps, a company, a battalion, or, if you leave the military, a corpora

Solitude and Leadership by William Deresiewicz “If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts.” Solitude and Leadership was delivered by William Deresiewicz to the plebe class at the United States Military Academy at West Point in October 2009 and originally published in The American Scholar. Speech Transcript : My title must seem like a contradiction. What can solitude have to do with leadership? Solitude means being alone, and leadership necessitates the presence of others—the people you’re leading. When we think about leadership in American history we are likely to thin

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