Taylor Swift for president 2024!<\/p>\n
Hear me out.<\/p>\n
T-Swift is a RARE leader.<\/p>\n
And, as the mother of a twelve-year-old daughter who is hungry for women role models, I endorse my daughter’s obsession with Taylor Swift.<\/p>\n
According to authors, Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder, a RARE leader has \u201cemotional intelligence\u201d or EQ. Their thesis in their book, Rare Leadership; 4 Uncommon Habits for Increasing Trust, Joy, and Engagement in the People You Lead<\/em>, is that the fruit of four uncommon habits related to emotional intelligence is a dramatic increase in trust, joy, and engagement in the people you lead.[1]<\/a> These four habits all relate to the fast-track system of the brain, where our identity is formed and out of which we live relationally. The fast-track system controls how we regulate our emotions, how we remember who we are, who our people are, and how it is like us to act.[2]<\/a> In other words, it is the emotional intelligence part of the brain. The four uncommon habits are to be able to Remain Relational, Act Like Yourself, Return to Joy and Endure Hardship Well. In their following book, Rare Leadership in the Workplace : Four Habits That Improve Focus, Engagement, and Productivity,<\/em> they claim that a RARE leader leads with maturity and has learned to live their lives on the \u201chigh powered fuel of joy.\u201d[3]<\/a> Maturity, they claim, is the ability to remain relational (joyful even) when faced with conflict or hardship.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Swiftie for a few years now and was once again impressed with my girl, T-Swift, when seeing her, exuding joy while cheering on and dancing to the music of other musicians at the Grammy\u2019s. When she won Album of the Year, (not her first rodeo winning this award), she took the stage bringing along another musician who was up for the award and thanking her for her friendship. She continued gushing about how grateful she is that she gets to do the work of making music and performing. She was classy, relational with her fans as well as other musicians, she acted like herself, and she was joyful. As far as enduring hardship well, she uses her sufferings as fodder for songs\u2026which isn\u2019t the worst way to endure. Fans on social media discuss how personable Taylor is when they meet her and how she focuses on them as a person, holding her boundaries (I mean, she does have some fanatic fans!), yet, acknowledging and valuing their humanity. And dang, she has so much fun performing. She exudes joy in her concerts. Just watch the Eras movie for confirmation of exuding joy.<\/p>\n In the book, Rare Leadership in the Workplace, Warner and Wilder, write, \u201ca definition of leadership needs to reflect both the work of the fast track and the slow track. The slow track excels at focus and problem solving, getting tasks done. The fast track specializes in relational connection. It tracks the world around it, and lets the slow track know where to put its focus. Part of what sets great leaders apart is their ability to \u201cread\u201d the lay of the land and recognize where the spotlight needs to be focused. Combining these activities leads us to define leadership as \u2018creating engagement in what matters.\u2019\u201d[5]<\/a> With fourteen albums, several Grammys, a continual sold-out tour during which she plays, sings and dances for three straight hours to packed stadiums, Taylor Swift has proven her ability to use her fast track to connect with her audience while using her slow track to get so many tasks done! A recent meme pokes fun at her ability to \u201cdo it all\u201d by saying,<\/p>\n \u201cA televangelist from Arkansas claims Satan is engineering Taylor Swift\u2019s marriage to Travis Kelce so she can give birth to the antichrist and launch the apocalyptic thousand-year war against Christ. <\/em><\/p>\n Must she do everything? And during a world tour?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n All that to say, I think Taylor Swift should run for president in 2024. I mean, if Trump, a former celebrity who I consider to be a \u201csandbox\u201d leader gets to run again, I have no doubt that Taylor Swift could sweep the election and we\u2019d all be better for it![6]<\/a><\/p>\n Note: These books connected quite a bit with Kahneman\u2019s Thinking Fast and Slow<\/em>, \u00a0Simon Walker\u2019s Leading Out of Who You Are<\/em>, as well as Edwin Friedman\u2019s book, A Failure of Nerve<\/em>. I\u2019ve run out of word count (and time) to expand much on how these books connected but one can easily see the thread between Kahneman\u2019s System 1 and System 2 thinking with Warner and Wilder\u2019s fast-track and slow-track thinking. For Kahneman, our System 1 thinking effortlessly creates impressions and feelings that serve as the main sources for the deliberate choices of our System 2 thinking. For Wilder and Warner, our fast-track thinking is constantly scanning and figuring out how to be in relationship with the world around us, which informs our slow track as to what needs to be accomplished. Walker talks about how we should \u201clead out of who we are\u201d while Wilder and Warner talk about \u201cacting like yourself.\u201d In other words, knowing who we are and how we might best act as a beloved child of God, helps us to be effective leaders. And finally, Friedman\u2019s leader who is a non-anxious presence reminds me Wilder and Warner\u2019s \u201cmature\u201d leader.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder, Rare Leadership : 4 Uncommon Habits for Increasing Trust, Joy, and Engagement in the People You Lead<\/em>, Moody Publishers, 2016, 12.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Ibid, 21.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder, Rare Leadership in the Worksplace: Four Habits That Improve Focus, Engagement, and Productivity,<\/em> Moody Publishers, 2021, 11.<\/p>\n