Solitude and Leadership

“Solitude and Leadership” is a speech by William Deresiewicz delivered in October 2009 to the freshman class of the United States Military Academy at West Point. Deresiewicz is an author, essayist, and former professor of English at Yale University. The lecture was published in The American Scholar in spring 2010, and this guide refers to the version hosted on the periodical’s website.

Deresiewicz opens by acknowledging the apparent contradiction in the title of his speech, given that leadership requires the presence of other people and solitude implies their absence. Furthermore, he concedes that the cadets’ regimen of leadership training permits them few opportunities to be alone. Still, Deresiewicz asserts that real leadership requires solitude.

He begins his defense of this thesis by questioning common conceptions of leadership, specifically those espoused in military academies and Ivy League universities. Drawing on his experiences at Yale, he acknowledges his students’ capacity to meet high academic standards but dismisses such aptitude as an indicator of leadership ability. He argues that learning to succeed on academic tests (as the cadets have) makes people “world-class hoop jumpers” and “excellent sheep”—but not leaders (Paragraph 6).

Deresiewicz then introduces the concept of bureaucracy. He informs the cadets that their future employer, the US Army, is a bureaucratic organization, and he proposes that the cadets must learn how such systems operate. Deresiewicz reads from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to illustrate how advancement occurs in a bureaucracy. In the novel, the protagonist, Marlow, describes his boss, the manager, as very ordinary, with no particular talent beyond an ability to maintain the established routine. Deresiewicz states that he saw the same characteristics in the chairperson of his academic department at Yale and that bureaucracies tend to reward such a lack of innovation and individuality. He argues that conformity—jumping through hoops and doing what is expected—is what leads to advancement, meaning people often attain leadership roles without possessing leadership skills.

Deresiewicz announces that this pattern has led to a crisis: The nation lacks true leaders who question and challenge established practices rather than simply maintain them. He sees this phenomenon compounded by overly narrow fields of expertise. He states that the nation needs thinkers, people with vision. He then seeks to refute the potential criticism that the service academy’s regimentation makes it impossible to teach independent thinking, arguing that US military officers have always been expected to think critically.

General David Petraeus, appointed commander of the US forces in Afghanistan and then director of the CIA during the Obama administration, represents Deresiewicz’s idea of a thinker and intellectual. He argues that Petraeus can think independently and has the moral courage to voice unpopular ideas to his superiors. To illustrate, Deresiewicz recounts that the general was initially penalized for criticizing war strategies in Iraq before his critiques were proved correct and rewarded. Petraeus’s story introduces Deresiewicz’s definition of leadership: forming independent beliefs and having the courage to act on them.

Before discussing how a person can become an independent thinker, Deresiewicz explains what prevents it. He describes a 2009 Stanford study in which multitasking was shown to cause difficulty in evaluating, categorizing, and retrieving information. Contrasting multitasking and thinking, he emphasizes that the latter requires sustained attention and adequate time to formulate an independent idea. He adds that this process cannot occur in brief moments between interruptions like electronic messaging and social media posts.

Explaining how to develop original thoughts, Deresiewicz describes his process of dismissing conventional wisdom and letting his mind make new associations. He explains that he inevitably identifies mistakes in early ideas and must resolve to see the exercise to completion. This discipline requires time and patience. Likewise, he argues that the best writers are often the slowest writers and uses James Joyce and T. S. Eliot as proof.

Deresiewicz emphasizes concentration, defining it as “gathering yourself together in a single point,” which he contrasts with “letting yourself be dispersed everywhere into a cloud of electronic and social input” (Paragraph 31). He names Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube specifically but says TV, radio, and newspapers can also be distractions used to avoid concentrating on the difficult questions in life. Deresiewicz then declares that one needs solitude to face life’s tough questions.

He again references Heart of Darkness, this time to illustrate that fruitful solitude is not always a matter of pure introspection. He equates one supporting character in the novel, the assistant, to the Internet, which Deresiewicz describes as “the ever-present social buzz, chattering away at you 24/7” (Paragraph 35). Escaping this noise, Marlow finds himself by returning to his solitary steamboat repairs. In this example, discovery comes through concentration on a task. Deresiewicz argues that being constantly bombarded by electronic media is “marinating yourself in the conventional wisdom” and existing in “a stream of other people’s thoughts” (Paragraph 39). A person’s internal voice, on the other hand, can be found in “focused work.”

In addition to introspection and focused work, Deresiewicz offers a third form of solitude: reading books. As opposed to tweets and posts, books are written more slowly and carefully by people in their own moments of solitude. Moreover, older books offer either conventional wisdom from an earlier time or revolutionary thinking that has stood the test of time. They challenge habitual thought patterns and help readers form new ideas.

In a seemingly counterintuitive claim, Deresiewicz lists friendship as a fourth form of solitude. He refers specifically to intimate conversation. A trusted friend can provide the safety to address questions, doubts, or feelings that may otherwise be taboo. Thinking aloud can lead to the discovery of one’s beliefs, but this type of solitude requires patience and time. This kind of communication contrasts sharply with tweeting, texting, and chatting, and Deresiewicz emphasizes that cursory exchanges on social media are not friendships but distractions. 

Acknowledging again that the cadets will have little solitude at West Point, Deresiewicz argues that they need it precisely because they are training to be military officers. He asks the cadets to consider what they will do in various difficult scenarios, such as challenging a superior or addressing a dead soldier’s family. He warns that they need to know themselves in advance. Having opened with the apparent tension between leadership and solitude, Deresiewicz concludes by saying that solitude is essential to leadership because, even with the input of others, a leader must make tough decisions alone.