Five Leadership Lessons From James T. Kirk

Forbes ^ | 03/12/20152 | Alex Knapp

[presidio9]

Captain James T. Kirk is one of the most famous Captains in the history of Starfleet. There’s a good reason for that. He saved the planet Earth several times, stopped the Doomsday Machine, helped negotiate peace with the Klingon Empire, kept the balance of power between the Federation and the Romulan Empire, and even managed to fight Nazis. On his five-year mission commanding the U.S.S. Enterprise, as well as subsequent commands, James T. Kirk was a quintessential leader, who led his crew into the unknown and continued to succeed time and time again.

(Image via Wikipedia) Kirk’s success was no fluke, either. His style of command demonstrates a keen understanding of leadership and how to maintain a team that succeeds time and time again, regardless of the dangers faced. Here are five of the key leadership lessons that you can take away from Captain Kirk as you pilot your own organization into unknown futures.

1. Never Stop Learning

“You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. But there’s no such thing as the unknown– only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood.”

Captain Kirk may have a reputation as a suave ladies man, but don’t let that exterior cool fool you. Kirk’s reputation at the Academy was that of a “walking stack of books,” in the words of his former first officer, Gary Mitchell. And a passion for learning helped him through several missions. Perhaps the best demonstration of this is in the episode “Arena,”

-SNIP-

2. Have Advisors With Different Worldviews

3. Be Part Of The Away Team

4. Play Poker, Not Chess

5. Blow up the Enterprise

[Impy]

I only saw that 5 minutes, I came in the middle, a McCoy who looked younger than he should have been snuck Kirk on the ship for some reason, homo Spock and Uhura sniped at each other cause they wanted to screw, I guess, and then Kirk was running around with swollen hands and my mind conjured images of people who had seen it in the theater looking around the audience to see if they were supposed to be laughing. I wasn’t inspired to keep watching it, something has to impress me if I’m gonna watch it from the middle.

Someday I’ll probably watch the whole thing and let you know what I think.

I’m not a huge trek fan so I’m unlikely to find it as offensive as DJ did.

I do wish they’d hurry up and, invent warp drive, transporters, replicators (how I loathe cooking), and especially holodecks, the future of porn, I’d probably go in one and never come out.

[GOPsterinMA]

Thank you!

[GOPsterinMA]

“I’m not a huge trek fan so I’m unlikely to find it as offensive as DJ did.”

Me too.

Apparently, our comrade FMDJ needed electro-shock therapy after seeing ST. Would an honorary membership in the “EARTH PIMPS” Society make FMDJ feel better?

“I do wish they’d hurry up and, invent warp drive, transporters, replicators (how I loathe cooking), and especially holodecks, the future of porn, I’d probably go in one and never come out.”

Oh yeah! One more reason that Dicky Santorum equals epic suck: he wants to crack down on porn. No Dicky, we need to celebrate porn, you daft buffoon.

[Impy]

The President that tried to take away porn would the President for whom the Secret Service would play the part of the Roman Praetorian Guard.