Our American Discourse, Ep. 5: The Art of Leadership in Precarious Times

The great leadership gurus usually tell a story of virtue rising to the top. They advise us to think positive, treat everyone with respect, and follow our moral compass. But we don’t have to look far to see leaders who turn this wisdom on its head. Negativity, disrespect, and divisiveness seem to be the order of the day. Were the experts wrong? Is good leadership dead? Surely there must be a more realistic way to understand the whims of the masses -- and make straight their path once more. In this episode, we get a more realistic take on leadership from the contrarian guru Rob Asghar.[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/317203306" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /]Mr. Asghar is a special advisor to the president of the University of Southern California, a University Fellow at USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy, and a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy. He is the author, most recently, of the book USC: A Transformation, 2010-2015, and before that, he authored the book Leadership Is Hell: How to Manage Well and Escape with Your Soul.To listen to this episode of Our American Discourse, click the orange arrow in the Soundcloud player at the top of this post. Or you can download it and subscribe through iTunes, Soundcloud, or Google Play.==========“Our American Discourse” is produced by Aubrey Hicks, Jonathan Schwartz, and myself, and mixed by Corey Hedden.