Boldly Going Where No Leader Has Gone Before

Leadership styles vary and different situations demand different things from leaders. The very premis of Situational Leadership is that “it depends”.

I am currently travelling a lot to run workshops and speak at conferences. When there aren’t any specific work tasks for me to tackle, my down-time in planes and hotels is being filled up with podcasts. My usual short-list of podcast subscriptions gets consumed very quickly so I’ve taken to a few new ones. I’d love to convince you all that I’m fully into self-help and high quality personal development content, and I do listen to some of those sometimes, but mostly it’s my party and I’ll podcast what I want to. It’s comedy, basketball and movie stuff. Based on these and others, the app I use recommended another one. It is this one that I’ll be addressing in this article to hopefully learn something about leadership. It’s called ‘Star Trek Discovery Pod’.

I’m no Trekkie. I’ve never dressed up as a character. I’ve never attended a convention. I’ve never had a sad slap fight with a Star Wars fan. My mum was really into the original series in the late 60s.? I did enjoy the? show via reruns as a child in the 70s. I can do the Vulcan finger thing. I did once buy as a gift for someone else a DVD set of the original series in a plastic box shaped like a tricorder, and kept it for myself. So, when it comes to Star Trek, I am more familiar than fanatical. The podcast however is four fanatics hyper-analysing each episode of the new series, the first new Star Trek TV content for twelve years. Their fanaticism is what I find entertaining. Except for Grant. Grant’s on the show because he knows nothing and is watching from an initially unbiased perspective. He can annoy the fanatics because he mixes up Vulcans and Klingons. I suspect he’s doing it deliberately. He called Spock Spike. Classic Grant!

The podcasters did make some very logical analogies between the Captains over the various series across the decades and what most people amongst the viewing audience might consider to be effective leadership behaviour.? While the action is set in the future, the shows were produced in the 60s, 90s, 00s, and 10s. (I’m not sure what star-dates apply here?) ?The politics, ideologies and glass ceilings of each era got reflected in the changing characters and drama. It’s hard not to cringe when you find out that Kirk’s original 2nd-in-command in the pilot was a woman but, after testing, the execs decided that the viewing public would be more accepting of an alien in a leadership role ahead of a woman. In the pilot all crew wore trousers. By episode 1, all the women wore mini-skirts. It’s very likely that if Kirk fell through a time wormhole to today, he would not be a leader for long in the age of #MeToo.

Star Trek: The Next Generation had Jean Luc Picard for their leader. Everything was peace, inclusion, diversity and hugs, although obviously no hugs without express written consent. Everyone dressed less sexistly, although there were more cloaks than would have been practical. Basically, they were a bunch of social workers flying through space. They had an engineer with a visual disability. The doctor was a working solo mum. There was one role on the bridge with the actual job title of ‘Empath’ without whom the leader would not make a significant decision. That show was made in the late 90s. I guess a bunch of the usual people threatened by progress might have been yelling about political correctness gone mad but, without social media, they may as well have opened a window on their starship and yelled into the silent vacuum of space where no one can hear you scream. (Please do not open a window if you are ever on a starship, except perhaps Jefferson Starship).

Later series had a woman leader and a person of colour. Regardless of gender, planetary origin or the extent to which you are augmented with robotic components, anyone can learn lessons of leadership from the varied Captains and senior officers. Even when you suffer setbacks or defeats, show confidence that your team will persevere and live to fight another day. Think like a chess champion—always several moves ahead. Embrace your earlier mistakes, don't run from them. They show how far you've come, and they can help people relate to you and your journey in ways that can build stronger bonds of trust. You have to take risks to make big moves and fulfil your mission. Become a great calculator of risk if you want to be a great leader.

So, if as a leader you’d like to live long and prosper, and engage your teams, there are worse lateral-thinking leadership activities than looking for parallels between Star Trek leadership and the real thing. My advice is not to admit it to anyone though. If they ask what podcast you’re listening to, tell them it’s Tim Ferriss or Malcolm Gladwell. It’s just easier. Besides, both those two are clearly from another planet.