At first glance it appears that “strategic leadership” and “rhetorical civic discourse,” have very little in common. Further evaluation proves that statement to be false. George C. Marshall said it best when he stated that he would “have to put my training in rapping out orders and making snap decisions on the back burner and have to learn the arts of persuasion and guile.” (Gerras) Strategic leaders imply skills such as exigence, framing and avoid things such as primary certitude, everyday in order to succeed in their missions. The only difference is that theses skills go by different, broader names such as alignment, visioning, and change.

According to Col Stephen J, Gerras, “ a compelling vision is the most important task of strategic leadership.” This statement carries an extraordinary amount of truth. In order for people to embrace your “vision” and want to work towards it, you need to convince them that it is worth their time and effort. This is the same as when a rhetorician sets their exigence. Put simply, and exigence is the “setting of the agenda.” Lazere says that you should provide convincing support for why your agenda is the most important, thus sharing your “vision” with your audience. I will discuss this is more detail later on in the essay in my paragraph regarding framing.

At the leadership conference we attended last week I saw three different styles when it came to creating exigence. The one I found to be most effective was the shocking presentation of Dr. Sebastian Gorka. He began his presentation with small jokes and lighthearted pictures. He mentioned things such as Iron Man and the Cubs. Dr. Gorka was discussing how our society views not only modern warfare, but also the future of war. The next slide of his presentation could not have been predicted. When he hit the next button on his presentation we were faced with a dozen of images of violent terrorist acts. With a bold declarations of “This is what war is!” Dr. Gorka solidified is exigence and had captured the attention of the entire audience.

While exigence is one of the key concepts to being a strategic leader, it is also extremely important that a leader is able to avoid primary certitude. Primary certitude is the mindset of someone who is so “fixed in absolute beliefs so dogmatically without recognizing their own bias, that they cannot bear to have their beliefs questioned or doubted.” (Lazere 126) Any leader who is so stubbornly set in their own beliefs and ways is bound to lead their followers astray. A strategic leader must “have an open mind.” (Nelson)

Naturally the goal of any leader is to gather their troops or subordinates behind one common goal. What tends to go unsaid or recognized is that it is also important that said leader surrounds themselves with people whom they can discuss problems with and run ideas by. “Effective strategic decision making and leadership cannot reside merely in on leader.” (Gerras) Because of the ever-changing environment surrounding out problems, it is nearly impossible to keep track of the effects on our prior plans.

I saw a small bit of this demonstrated in Dr. Cori Dauber’s presentation. Not only did she present her exigence to us in a semi interactive way, she showed us solid proof that she took her students thoughts into consideration and had discussed the particular topic with them. The end result was the audience being able to view a video her students had put together. We notice here that while her students were given credit for their work and she did reference them occasionally in discussion, she maintained her role as the strategic leader and figurehead. She was still the head of the project and class and made sure that that was clear

The third and most significant connection, in my opinion, is how the leader or rhetorician frames their argument. According to Nelson, a strategic leader is able to shapes the values of his organization. This means, not only does the leader need to present their argument (Set the exigence) but they also need to be able to frame it and its significance. For example, Dr. Gorka used vivid images and specific language choice to frame and support his exigence. It would have been one thing to just talk about the violence that was being inflicted by the Islamic state but it was entirely different to show us the images. While there are other ways that a leader or rhetorician can frame their work, I found that method to be particularly effective.

At the beginning of this assignment I was not sure if I would be able to draw any connections between skills used by strategic leaders and those used in civic discourse. I was not aware of the complexities of language and their effects in the general world. All three articles believe that in order to be an effective strategic leader you need to be able to clearly state your cause (exigence) and get your followers to fully commit to it. In order to fully convince them that your idea or method is the best option you need to properly frame your claim. Lastly in order to be objective you need to make sure to not demonstrate primary certitude and be blinded by your own bias. These are three key concepts that connect both civic discourse and strategic leadership.