Captain’s List — Jean Luc Picard #1701
Corsair’s Profiles in Leadership Series
The captains of fiction and history have much to teach us. They are leaders who often serve in times of great challenge and turmoil. Articles in this series focus on an individual captain and utilizes their quotes, their writings, and their actions to inspire core leadership elements in all of us.
Captain Jean Luc Picard
The life of a starship captain with the United Federation of Planets is a fictional tale of excitement, technology, and intrigue. Starfleet captains deal with vast diversities of opinion and the broad challenges of the unknown.
Jean Luc Picard is a fictional character in a fictional sci-fi universe, but he is also a profile in leadership and, pardon the drama, humanity. Gene Roddenberry’s franchise employed solid character development as a pillar of their success and Patrick Stewart (the actor who played Picard) is well established in this area as well.
So what can we learn from Picard? Far more than this short article could possibly do justice. Seven seasons and multiple movies provide a wealth of opportunity for teachable moments and role model themes. But let’s focus on two of Picard’s favorite catch-phrases and the characteristics they are emblematic of…
Make It So
The value of delegation is clear to most leaders, other than micro-managers. Delegation is essential in a landscape characterized by vastness (space), diversity (aliens galore), and unknown challenges (boldly going…). No phrase could capture the art of delegation quite so well as Make It So.
The phrase implies action. It implies faith and trust. And it is almost excitingly free of caveat and proviso. Delegation should have all of these. Three syllables that combined with Picard’s iconic accent have a sense of drama, command, and class. If Picard had been cast with a southern accent, would they have substituted Git ‘er done?
A New Leadership Style
Great delegation requires shared goals and shared vision. Star Trek The Next Generation routinely brought the commanding officers to Picard’s Ready Room. It was a new facet for Next Generation, but a necessity for a new style of captain. This room was where consensus was reached, goals were stated, and vision was begun.
Vision starts with a plan. But to achieve a true team vision requires the captain to win others to his cause. His team needs to understand and embrace his vision. This requires a mix of communication, commitment, and passion. In other words…
Engage!
Engagement is a critical attribute of any team, and client group, any audience and no one understood that better than Jean Luc Picard. He was a captain with a flair for the theatre, Shakespeare, and music. He may have laid out his vision in the Ready Room but he developed it everywhere.
Picard was a gifted leader. Whether public decrees from the captain’s chair on the bridge or one on one dialogues in his personal quarters — he avidly built upon his vision and unified his crew. Delegation would not have been so effective if it were not paired with his ability to engage.
As the first installment in this new series, Picard was a fitting profile. As we bring you future members of the Captain’s List, we hope to engage you in the stories of these great leaders and characters. Working on just one or two attributes of your leadership style each day can make all the difference to your success and growth. Go, Make It So. And if you enjoyed this article, encourage other to Engage! ❤
Corsair’s Profiles in Leadership, Captain’s List is an article format created by Corsair’s Publishing in conjunction with our parent company Corsair’s Ventures. This series seeks to focus the reader on core components of leadership by utilizing the larger-than-life and often fictitious stories of the great captains of history.
