SOLITUDE, LEADERSHIP, AND LAWYERS.

• Author: Thapar, Amul R.
• Position: Book review

LEAD YOURSELF FIRST: INSPIRING LEADERSHIP THROUGH SOLITUDE. By Raymond M. Kethledge and Michael S. Erwin. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing 2017. Pp. xxi, 188. Cloth, $27; paper, $17.

INTRODUCTION

Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude bears all the hallmarks of a well-crafted legal argument. That makes good sense, because it was coauthored by a great lawyer. Lawyers, however, do not play a large role in the book. We were curious to know whether the book's core argument--that solitude is indispensable to leadership--applies to law.

To do so, we test the book's argument on its own terms. The book develops its argument in two ways: by reviewing historical examples and by interviewing contemporary leaders from all walks of life. Following the book's lead, we apply its hypothesis to a historical example with which we are familiar, and we discuss solitude with modern-day lawyers. We conclude that the book's lessons about solitude and leadership apply just as squarely to lawyers as they do to other leaders.

1. The Book's Argument

   Lead Yourself First concludes with a radical, countercultural prescription: make yourself less available, let emails sit for hours, and put away your phone (pp. 182-83). The rest of the book demonstrates what we risk unless we do so: our ability to engage in deliberate solitude, and, therefore, our ability to do the clear thinking that ought to precede leadership. The book's argument is serious business. All leaders--famous ones and everyday ones, across cultures and in different contexts--depend on solitude to be better at what they do, and you should too. (1)

   At bottom, this is a book about how solitude facilitates leadership. The book's central claim is that solitude is indispensable to clear thinking and that clear thinking is a prerequisite to leadership. (2) Only through a deliberate regime of solitude, the authors say, can leaders develop the clarity of purpose, conviction, and moral courage required to identify and achieve their goals (Introduction).

   The version of "solitude" that the book calls for "is not merely physical separation" from other people (p. xviii). Instead, "leadership solitude" is "a state of mind" in which the leader is "isolated from input from other minds" (p. xviii; emphases omitted). People can find this kind of solitude in many different ways. One could go for a walk in the woods or a long-distance run, or one could simply "pause [] occasionally" while reading a book "to think through a passage's meaning" (Introduction).

   Although it may come in many forms, what the authors aptly call "productive solitude" is "hard work" (p. xix). It requires "working your mind-not passively, but actively, as you would a large muscle--as you break down and sort and synthesize what is already there" (p. xix). When done properly, "the result is an insight, or even a broader vision, that brings mind and soul together in clear-eyed, inspired conviction" (p. xix). "[T]hat kind of conviction," the book argues, "is the foundation of leadership" (p. xix).

   The book then illustrates how solitude enhances four traits of effective leaders: "clarity, creativity, emotional balance, and moral courage" (pp. xii-xiii). It does so by examining how famous leaders used different kinds of productive solitude to cultivate each trait. Readers will learn how Dwight Eisenhower, while planning the largest amphibious invasion in history, carved out time alone to write memos to himself (pp. 36-40). Why did he do so? Because he believed it allowed him to think clearly about whether to order the D-day landings. (3) Readers will see how Jane Goodall cultivated her intuitions, and revolutionized the way humans relate to animals, by trusting her instincts and abandoning the company of her escorts in Tanzania (pp. 4546). And readers will observe how Martin Luther King Jr. summoned incredible courage by reflecting on his faith while sitting alone at the dining room table late at night during the Montgomery bus boycott (pp. 161-63). These gripping accounts make for fascinating reading, and the authors trace the role of solitude through each one, as well as several other high-profile historical examples.

   The historical examples, however, are only half the story. The other half comes from conversations with contemporary leaders who use solitude in an everyday way to which we can more readily relate. Readers will meet characters like Dena Braeger, the West Point graduate who resisted the expectation that she would be constantly available to her subordinates as a company commander in Iraq, and who continues to carve out time alone for activities like hiking, during which she reflects on how to lead her six children (pp. 57-58). Or Doug Conant, the former CEO of the Campbell Soup Company, who blocks off thirty minutes every morning to focus on his "first principles": "my family, my work, my community, my faith, and my person al well-being." (4) And Dan Brostek, the former corporate executive who does his deepest thinking during trail runs, which "reboot[]" his mind and helped him find the moral courage to leave his high-paying job for a nonprofit organization. (5) These characters, and dozens of others, drive home the book's key insight: whether you lead armies, a corporation, a small team, or your family, solitude will make you a better thinker, and therefore a better leader.

   The book concludes with suggestions for how leaders today can embrace solitude despite the challenges of the digital age and the deluge of readily available information that has overwhelmed many of the ways leaders might naturally have found solitude in the past (pp. 181-88). As the book recognizes, some of its recommendations are difficult. Not everyone will be able to "mark off sixty or ninety minutes on his calendar each day for time to think" (p. 182). And, depending on one's rank, it may be unwise to check email "only intermittently," so that some messages "go unanswered for hours rather than minutes" (p. 182). But the book wisely identifies other forms of solitude that most people should be able to take advantage of--if they are willing to put in the work. "For analytical thinking or intuition, any activity that does not itself require focused attention will do: walking, running, early-morning rituals" (p. 184). The book's recommendations run the gamut from regimes that are physically taxing (like night runs) to time-consuming (journaling or writing memos to one's self) to something one could do every day without radically revising one's schedule at all (reflecting "in bed in the minutes after awakening") (p. 184). One of the book's great insights is that productive solitude "need not be an elaborate or drawn-out affair" (p. 184). It can be "found as easily in the interstices of life as in its wide-open spaces" (p. 184). "Driving on a highway, sitting in a waiting room, and dressing for work are all opportune times to think" (p. 184).

   What we enjoyed most about the book, however, was not the historical accounts, the relatable interviews, or the thoughtful suggestions. What resonated for us was how clearly the book reflects the disciplined thinking that it seeks to help others cultivate. The book develops its argument across dozens of characters and contexts without ever losing sight of the target. None of the interviews or historical accounts is merely interesting garnish, for they each illustrate a particular way in which solitude is crucial to leadership.

   For example, the chapter on emotional balance begins with the story of General Joseph Hooker and the Battle of Chancellorsville (p. 79). In April 1863, Hooker led the Union Army of the Potomac into Virginia to confront General Lee and his confederate forces (p. 79). Hooker's army was much larger than Lee's, but "Lee took the initiative" and successfully attacked one of Hooker's flanks (p. 79). Hooker "went to pieces" emotionally and had to be carried from the field on a stretcher (p. 79). Even after the Confederate attack, Hooker outnumbered Lee by more than two to one, but "Hooker had lost his emotional balance, and with it all the overwhelming advantages that lay before him" (pp. 79-80). He ordered his forces to retreat to Washington (pp. 79-80).

   The book does not leave one to imagine how Hooker might have borne the strains of the battle without breaking. Instead, it gives the example of General Grant, who led his army over the same ground Hooker had almost exactly one year later (pp. 110-11). In the midst of the ensuing battle, Grant faced a series of crises that threatened his entire army. At one point, the army was at risk of "disintegrating," as Grant suffered heavier losses than Hooker had and faced more serious tactical problems (pp. 114-15). Yet Grant did not break as Hooker had. He fielded reports of the battle's events stoically, sitting alone whittling a piece of wood on a stump (p. 112). Only after the most serious danger had passed did he permit himself--alone, out of his troops' sight--to deal with the emotional agony he had faced throughout the battle (pp. 115-16). The book then culls from the historical sources a moment that makes a potentially confusing historical episode personal and relatable: "When all proper measures had been taken ... Grant went into his tent, threw himself face downward on his cot, and gave way to the greatest emotion." (6) The next day, having regained his emotional balance, Grant ordered his men to continue their advance south, rather than retreating as Hooker had (p. 117). The army, which had fought fiercely for the last two days and suffered nearly 18,000 casualties, cheered (pp. 115, 117).

   It takes keen eyes like the authors' to discern the role that solitude played in Grant's decision to stay the course during the Wilderness campaign. The contrast with Hooker is particularly effective, as the leaders were in remarkably similar positions. The authors deploy just enough historical background so that readers...