Word count this issue: 450

Estimated reading time:  3.0 minutes

Good morning, I trust this edition of Leadership Notes finds you hale and hearty. 

I was saddened to hear of the death of Leonard Nimoy last week. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends as they go on the long journey of grief together. I was also intrigued by the response on social media. As a young friend said, it was a cross generational outpouring. Meme’s started almost immediately, including one of my favorites with a comic book Batman slapping Robin who has just mentioned the blue or gold dress with the words “Spock is Dead!” Or the image of the remnants of a ‘transporter’ signal after a transport with the dates 1931 - 2015 underneath.

I was thinking that Nimoy’s death struck us on one level because of his role as Spock. The TV series Star Trek and it’s descendants presented a world of future possibility. A world that was to some degree utopian; disease was largely eradicated, economic disparity and even ethnic divisions had been put to rest in the world of Spock and his fellow crew members. Spock, even more than Captain Kirk held our love because he was an outsider, he was different, and he was included. Like Ohura , or Checkov or Sulu, he was visibly different, but he was also different at a deeper level, and he was still included. 

The technology on Star Trek was at worst benign and largely helpful. (Here’s a fun 4.5 minute video on the 10 techs we use now that showed up first on Star Trek and its descendants). Contrast Star Trek with say “The Terminator” series of films to see how we imagine a contrasting possible future world. Through Nimoy’s Spock, we imagined a world of time and space travel, of great leaps that solve the seemingly intractable problems of today, and an ethic that included “The Prime Directive”. And through him we saw our own wrestling with the balance between the logical and the emotional worlds we each inhabit. The world was indeed “fascinating” when explored through his eyes.

As leaders and others, we do have a choice. We can choose to build a future world of peace, justice and collaboration, using technology to further humans and the planet. Or we can choose to fight it out with the machines. The choice comes down to very human ethical choices; are we simply autonomous beings out for our own ends, or are we at our most authentic selves, collaborators, colleagues and friends of each other. As Spock said, “I am and always have been your friend.”: Perhaps in the end that is the ethic of leadership.