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Leadership and Disruption I’ve been thinking even more about leadership than I usually do. And I’ve always done it a lot given the fact that I started out as a political scientist. It’s been on the top of mind since the 2016 election, but it has become even more important to me in the last weeks for four new reasons. First, I read Nik Gowing and Chris Langdon’s new book, Think the Unthinkable, whose red cover depicting blindfolded leaders seemingly aimlessly wandering around. Second, my friend Fred Krawchuk has spurred to think about the related field of design thinking. Third, AfP’s CEO, Melanie Greenberg, took a new job and we have to think about the kind of leader we would like to replace her. Finally, my colleagues at AfP did an intriguing report on using adaptive management in concrete peacebuilding programs which touched upon leadership issues especially as raised by thought leaders like Ron Heifetz and Lant Pritchett. After decades of reading about leadership, occasionally practicing it (not always all that well) myself, and taking these recent nudges into account, I ended up focusing on four leadership traits. None will be all that surprising to people who have read the literature on organizational behavior over the last thirty years. All, however, are practices that are in short supply these days because our leaders have not done all that good a job of fostering organizational cultures based on them. All apply, too, to the challenges of the last few [...]