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An Analysis of Eleanor Roosevelt's Leadership Quote




     Roosevelt achieves multiple things with her quote, such as highlighting the duality of man (as in emotional and logical), establishing the necessity of a balance between logic and emotion in treatment of people, and serving a requiem for human experience/nature. Roosevelt’s quote resonates with me as it’s easily observable in the open world. More often than not, I’ve seen people force-feed logic down others' throats when it’s the wrong quality to use in the situation. For instance, how often has the following scenario played before you: An angry person vents to his friend, and his friend responds by telling him what they’ve done wrong. The result is an even angrier person. What that person needs at that moment isn’t scolding, constructive criticism, or whatever you may call it. They want compassion, sympathy, and reassurance. Similarly, in certain situations, emotions (and especially empathy) are a horrible quality to show. If you can differentiate between when to prescribe logic and when to prescribe emotion, then you’re a great leader. A great leader uses logic to pave their own path, whereas their ‘job’ with others is to act with kindness and sympathy a good ninety per cent of the time. These values are what I've always believed in. If I were to draw a Venn diagram comparing the leadership values described in the quote and my own values, I’d really just draw a circle. 


Comments

  1. Spot on! However, the term "handle" in the quote might connote a notion of control or undesirability. You said prescribing emotion or prescribing logic is contextual and temporal. I would add that it would better be to acknowledge someone's emotions would help and the bringing out a logical reasoning emanating from that person with your scaffolding would also reap an inter-intellectual benefit.

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