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UKRAINE

Greetings! I and my family traveled to Ukraine in 2019. We were in Lviv when Zelensky was elected president. We found Lviv to be a wonderful city, full of youth, art, music, and a sense of freedom. Ukrainian history was harsh to our ancestors. They emigrated in the early 20th century to escape antisemitic pogroms. Others who remained were systematically eliminated by Hitler’s genocidal tyranny when he invaded Russia and Ukraine. While visiting the sites where our ancestors once lived, we witnessed the revival of Jewish culture alongside liberal democracy. That Zelensky came from Jewish lineage was evidence of a page of history turning. These factors give me an extra sense of connection to the painful events we are all witnessing or experiencing. May these same events arouse our resolve to defend hard won freedoms and dissuade other proto-tyrants from attempts to eradicate them.

SOLDIERS OBEY YOUR MOTHERS

At our best, humans value honor even above life itself. We wish to be remembered as an honorable person. Let us honor acts of Intelligent Disobedience. Let us create a wall of honor on which the names of all soldiers who resist orders to participate in wars of aggression are forever remembered. Learn to resist and resist when it is moral to do so.

Posted in my social networks on March 3rd, 2022. Read full post and comments.

COURAGEOUS FOLLOWERSHIP IN THE MILITARY

This month I conducted an online seminar for the British Army on courageous followership. To prepare for the seminar, I was given access to the British Army Leadership Doctrine manual. It is very impressive. I am heartened to report how explicitly it covers followership as the indispensable complementary role to leadership. Descriptors of followership strike all the important notes such as: “A follower is a role”, it is “not a lesser role”, “leadership and followership are inextricably linked”, “followers think independently within the given intent”, they act with “integrity to do what is right”, to “not blindly follow immoral or illegal orders”, and more. This is yet another more piece of social evidence that the concepts of healthy followership are finding their way into many cultures.

Ira Chaleff at the Royal Military Acedemy, 2017

FOLLOWERSHIP AND TYRANTS

In February of this year I was interviewed about the research for my forthcoming book on Followers and Tyrants. The interview aired on March 6th, made all the more relevant by the unconscionable invasion of Ukraine by the Russian military on orders from Vladimir Putin.

Listen to podcast Ira Chaleff with Scott Allen at FOLLOWERSHIP AND TYRANTS March 06, 2022 © Phronesis: Practical Wisdom fo Leaders

FOLLOWERSHIP NEWS

Received today. A massive volume titled, “A Celebration of Followership: The Story in Documents of Courageous Followership and the Followership Community” curated by my friend Ira Chaleff from his personal papers. I have used his research in courses i have taught at the USAF Air War College and the US Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration. Thank you, Ira. I will certainly use this body of work in my own Followership research.  Lew Steinhoff, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor at San Diego Christian College Clovis, California, Estados Unidos Dr. Barbara Kellerman, world-renowned expert on leadership and followership has joined Christopher Newport University. Students will have opportunities to meet in small groups with Kellerman for conversations and mentoring, and she will give a series of lectures on leadership and followership grounded in current events. Kellerman will be available to consult with faculty across disciplines on their research, writing and teaching and will offer her insight on the university’s leadership studies curriculum. Read more

THE RECURRING SPECTER

I wrote this poem when I was doing work in The Czech Republic after the fall of the Berlin wall. Though it was written about a different Eastern European country than Ukraine, it carries the specter of history that cannot be trusted, as it periodically repeats itself with grave consequences to the people of the region. Let us work to break the cycle for the future.