The Diamond of Psi Upsilon Win 1966
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(P'^l!!| OF PS! MM THE DIAMOND O F P S I UPSILON OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF PSI UPSILON FRATERNITY Number 2 Volume LII WINTER, 1966 TABLE OF CONTENTS The Anti-Leadership Vaccine by John W. Gardner Secretani of Health, Education and Welfare The Future and the Fraternity hi/ Robert W. Parsons, Xi '22 About the Cover: This issue of The Diamond Education, Business and Government contains noteworthy articles by hi Frederick R. Kappel each of the four men pictured on I Chairman the American and the cover. John W. Gardner of Board, Telephone Telegraph (upper left) is Secretary of Education and Welfare. Health, 10 Politics Is For You Brother Robert W. Parsons, Xi Why George Zeta '26 '22 (upper right) is President of bij Champion, Chairman the Chase Manhattan Bank the Psi Upsilon Executive Coun of Board, cil. Frederick R. Kappel (lower is Chairman of the BDard left) 12 Psi U's Named Silver Anniversary�All Americans of The American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Brother George Champion, Zeta '26 (low 14 The Education Act of 1965 er right), is Chairman of the Board of The Chase Manhattan Bank. 16 Letters to the Editor 17 Initiation and Rushing Report 24 Chapter Reports 43 Alumni News Notes Editor Emeritus PETER A. GaBAUER, Pi '25 Co-Editors HUBERT C. CROWLEY, Gamma ',59, EARL J. FRETZ, Tau '64 Associate Editor GEORGE T. SEWALL, Kappa '32 Advisory Editor JOHN F. BUSH, JR., Upsilon '22 Executive and Editorial Offices: Room 417, 4 W. 43rd St., New York 10036, N.Y. Telephone: 212-524-1664. Publication Office: Curtis Reed Plaza, Menasha, Wis. Life subscription. $20; by subscriptifjn, $1.00 per year; Single Copies, 50 cents. Published in Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer by the Psi Upsilon Fraternity. Second class postage paid at Menasha, Wisconsin. The Anti-Leadership Vaccine By John W. Gardner It is generally believed that we need enlightened and leaders�at responsible every level and in every phase of our national hfe. Everyone says so. But the nature of leadership in our society is very imperfectly understood, and of many the public statements about it are utter non sense. This is unfortunate because there are serious issues of leadership facing this society, and we had better un derstand them. The Dispersion of Power The most fundamental thing to be said about leader ship in the United States is also the most obvious. We have gone as far as any known society in creating a leadership system that is not based on caste or class, nor even on wealth. There is not yet equal access to leadership (witness the remaining barriers facing women and Negroes) but we have come a long, long way from the family-based or class-based leadership group. Even with its present de fects, ours is a relatively open system. The next important thing to be said is that leadership is dispersed among a great many groups in our society. This is inevitable; our society is not only pluralistic by nature but highly developed. Any such society produces� and in fact is a number of lead produced by� specialized John W. Gardner is Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare This idea is at odds with the no ership groups. directly and was President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. tion .. that the society is run by a coherent power group� the Power as or Elite, C. Wright Mills called it, the the world of art and in many other special fields. As a rule, Estabhshment, as later writers have named it. It is hard leaders in any one of those fields do not recognize the not to believe that such a group exists. Foreigners find it authority of leaders from a neighboring field. Often they particularly difficult to believe in the reality of the fluid, don't even know one another, nor do they particularly scattered, shifting leadership that is visible to the naked want to. Mutual suspicion is just about as common as eye. The real leadership, they imagine, must be behind mutual respect�and a lot more common than mutual co the scenes. But at a national level it simply doesn't exist. operation in manipulating society's levers. In many local communities and even in some states Most of the significant issues in our society are settled there is a coherent power group, sometimes behind the by a balancing of forces. A lot of people and groups are scenes, sometimes out in the open. involved and the most powerful do not always win. Some Where such an "establishment," i.e., a coherent ruling times a coalition of the less powerful wins. Sometimes group, exists� as it does in some local communities�the an individual of very limited power gets himself into the leading citizen can be thought of as having power in a position of casting the deciding ballot. generalized sense: he can bring about a change in zoning Not only are there apt to be many groups involved ordinances, influence the location of a new factory, and in any critical issue, but their relative strength varies with determine whether the local museum will buy contem each issue that comes up. A group that is powerful today porary paintings. But in the dispersed and fragmented may not be powerful next year. A group that can cast a power system that prevails in the nation as a whole one decisive vote on question A may not even be listened to cannot say "So-and-so is powerful" without further elab when question B comes up. oration. Those who know how our system works always The Nature of want to know, "Powerful in what way? Powerful to ac Leadership complish what?" We have leaders in business and leaders People who have never exercised power have all kinds in government, military leaders and educational leaders, of curious ideas about it. The popular notion of top lead leaders in labor and in agriculture, leaders in science, in ership is a fantasy of capricious power. The top man presses a button and something remarkable happens. He an order as the whim strikes and it is Reprinted from the 1965 Annual Report, Carnegie Corporation gives him, obeved. the use of Neto York. Actually, capricious of power is relatively rare 2 THE DIAMOND OF PSI UPSILON except in some large dictatorships and small family firms. of modem life introduce new compHcations into the task Most leaders are hedged around by constraints�tradition, of leadership? Are we failing to prepare leaders for constitutional limitations, the realities of the external situ tomorrow? ation, rights and privileges of followers, the requirements Here are some of our salient difficulties. of teamwork, and most of all the inexorable demands of large-scale organization, which does not operate on ca- Failure to Cope with the Big Questions priciousness. In short, most is wielded circumspectly. power Nothing should be allowed to impair the effectiveness And as there is a variety of fields in which leadership and independence of our specialized leadership groups. occurs, so too there are different of leading, many ways But such fragmented leadership does create certain prob many kinds of leader. Consider, for example, the marked lems. One of them is that it isn't anybody's business to contrasts between the politician and the intellectual leader, think about the big questions that cut across specialties� the large-scale manager and the spiritual leader. the largest questions facing our society. Where are we One sees solemn descriptions of the qualities needed for headed? Where do we want to head? What are the major leadership without any reference at all to the fact that trends determining our future? Should we do anything the necessary attributes depend on the kind of leadership about them? Our fragmented leadership fails to deal ef under discussion. Even in a single field there may be differ fectively with these transcendent questions. ent kinds of leadership with different required attributes. Very few of our most prominent people take a really Think of the difference between the military hero and the large view of the leadership assignment. Most of them are military manager. tending the machinery of that part of society to If social action is to occur, certain functions must be simply which they belong. The machinery may be a great cor performed. The problems facing the group (or organiza poration or a great government agency or a great law tion) must be clarified, and ideas necessary to their solu practice or a great university. And they may tend it very tion must be formulated. Objectives must be defined. well indeed. But they are not pursuing a vision of what There must be widespread awareness of those objectives, the total needs; have not a and a determination to achieve them. Often those on whom society they developed strategy as to how it can be achieved; and they are not moving action depends must develop new attitudes and habits. to accomplish it. Social machinery must be set in motion. The consequences One cannot blame them, of course. do not see of social effort must be evaluated and criticized, and new They themselves as leaders of the at and goals set. society large, they have plenty to do handling their own specialized role. A particular leader may contribute at only one point to But it is doubtful that we can any longer afford such this process. He may be gifted in analysis of the problem, inattention to the us. but limited widespread largest questions facing in his capacity to communicate. He may be We achieved greatness in an era when changes came more superb in communicating but incapable of managing.