The Star Trek School of Management…

A few nights ago I was watching one of the original Star Trek episodes – but don’t stop reading, you don’t need to have a sci-fi background to get this blog. However, I do need to set the stage. In this particular episode, the transporter beam malfunctioned and instead of one Captain Kirk arriving from the planet’s surface to the ship, he was split into two people; think Jekyll and Hyde. One person contained all of the passion and aggression of Capt. Kirk and the other all of the reason and philosophy.  The philosohpic one was portrayed as weak, indecisive and crumbling.

Now here is where the management lesson and tie in becomes apparent. The Captain wanted to tell the crew exactly what happened so they would understand and help him solve the problem; his first officer, Mr. Spock told him not to. Spock explained to the philosophic Capt. Kirk that the ships crew must not know what happened. He said that the ship’s crew could not see the Captain as weak or compromised in any way; that to allow them to see him as anything less than perfect or infallible would be devastating to morale and confidence. Essentially that it would undermine his ability to lead the people. Spock told Kirk to lie so that the ship’s crew would be protected.

There are two main points this makes me think about – first is the issue of leadership persona and the second is the question of transparency and honesty in leadership. (I’ll only discuss the first in this blog for brevity’s sake)

The issue of persona is tied very much to timeless ideals like the ones we’ve discussed in Good to Great, but also to sociological ideas of basic interactions. The “man” of today looks staunchly different than the “man” of 1965. Just as the leader of today cannot be the patriarchal authoritarian that may have functioned in 1965. Another great example of pop-culture showing these distinctions is the television show, “Mad Men.” This dramatic series chronicles the days of Madison Ave, NY advertising executives in the early 1960s. The writers went to great lengths to ensure historic accuracy in the characters’ scripts and behavior. Those men and women were socially stifled and regimented, were dictated to by administration above them and lead, not through any power given freely because of worth and efforts but through manipulation, and socially granted status.

To return to the science-fiction, there are Star Trek episodes with more current captains. Jean-Luc Piccard is the modern incarnation of the Enterprise’s Captain and these shows were written/seen in the last 10 years. This Captain, while remaining strong, clear and authoritative was much more vulnerable and open to his ship’s crew. He himself was more of a poet/philosopher as well as a tactician. His leadership style was more like the Good to Great leaders embodying the role of one who needs to create a group of strong and capable crew members who can manage on their own if necessary and who are dedicated to a common goal. The early shows of Kirk were basically about, well, Kirk and how great he was and what good decisions he made despite the constant bickering and disagreement he got from his crew. His character was a maverick and there weren’t many scenes where the crew rallied around him; they basically followed him. Piccard though, would generally work for the buy-in and rarely invoked his mantle of authority.  

 Leadership is about the timeless traits and understanding your current world and society.

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