Jordan Peterson and leadership PDF

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Jordan Peterson have an influancial impact on the news ways of leadership and innovation ...

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Jordan Peterson Author of “Maps of meaning: The Architecture of Belief” and “12 rules for life: An Antidote to Chaos”, Mr Jordan Peterson is a Canadian Clinical Psychologist and professor at the University of Toronto. With a strong political ideology, he is known for his very specific and researched views on issues such as postmodernism, postmodern feminism, white privileges, cultural appropriation and environmentalism. Going against the tide regarding all mainstream opinions, he caught my attention, with his video lectures and books regarding themes related to personality and abnormal psychology, religious and ideological beliefs and finally the improvement of oneself. Throughout this paper, I will highlight how Jordan Peterson is becoming a modern leader, the way he is deeply influencing the views of many young people (in particular men’s). First, I will introduce why this professor can be defined as a modern leader and then I will explain how his ideas have an impact on the way people look at and analyse western society.

In the era of the Internet, we are confronted daily to different kinds of information. Most of this information is pure propaganda, trying to shape our lives, from the way we act to the way we think. The so-called "American way of life" and "Democracy" has defined most of our actual opinions, solely creating a very cloudy and dark space for different opinions people are left to deal with. Furthermore, as most people are raised in this environment it is very difficult to find someone with legitimacy, someone who does not follow trends, and with whom one can have an honest talk about deep issues regarding life. When I first heard Mr Peterson speaking, I was caught by the way he argued and structured his ideas in every debate. Being an academic and having professional expertise in the field of psychologies (having worked at Harvard and at Toronto University), he has the knowledge and experience necessary to be taken seriously. Doing lectures, worldwide, and being a "best seller" writer, he has inspired many young people (and others too) to question many common positions, challenging trendy ideas. Personally, he had a very deep impact on my actual views, and on different aspects of my life, being nowadays a symbol of "truth" for many. In an era of fake news and propaganda, he has become a leader, in a modern line of thoughts, he is not scared to share his different opinions. In order to understand the character better, we need to understand how a simple professor went from being unknown to having great influence and importance. Like me, most people heard about Jordan Peterson on YouTube, where he uploads lectures and communicates with his followers. He was quite unknown to the general public, as very few people have interests in psychological themes. A scandal regarding "gender pronouns" raised a lot of interests from the media in Canada, and since then, his views on the matter are shared: on TV, on the Radio and of course through different channels of communication on the internet. Since then he had the intelligence to well manage his image and "brand", increasing his popularity. Every lecture, every talk, every comment, any phrase, anything where he defends his convictions or views is awaited by the community with great expectations. "Traditional media" brought him out of the shadow, but the Internet was a powerful tool, it allowed him to be close to the people who admire him. Some of his books are read with great care and some sort of a life guide for his "people", like "12 rules for life" a new international bestseller book. Jordan Peterson has the figure of a father for some young males. A Paternalist leadership style is quite appropriate to define him, this style is composed of Autocratic leadership, Benevolent leadership and Moral leadership. By definition, the core characteristics of this leadership style are "compassion, good organizational skills, decisiveness, empowerment, and influence". Obviously "good organization skills" is not really accurate, he didn’t had the opportunity to show this skill, however in the future maybe, as one of his colleague from Toronto University, Bernard Schiff said “He wanted to establish a church” in which he would “deliver sermons every Sunday”. If this statement turns out to be true, then, he will have to showcase all of these qualities to guide his community as a father and a leader. Bernard Schiff was actually making fun of Jordan with this statement, he was very critical about him, implying that Jordan could be religious guru was meant to destroy his credibility. By doing so, Mr Sciff was also denigrating Peterson’s fanbase, portraying them as faithful sheeps. But I found interesting the fact that someone could even think of Jordan as a cult leader.

There are numerous leadership theories that could apply to Jordan Peterson, as the “Trait Theories of Leadership” where qualities such as intelligence, enthusiasm, charisma, integrity, self-confidence are crucial. During interviews, these traits give him a great advantage for persuading his audience. Which is also one of the “10 traits of innovative leaders”. The “Relationship Theories” also define pretty well the style of Jordan with regards to his admirers. This theory highlight that this kind of leadership is about leaders who “motivates and inspires others by helping group members to see the importance and higher good of the task” and who are often found to have “high ethical and moral standards. Jordan Peterson is obviously driven by Christian moral standards and fear of authoritarian ideology. Therefore, even if, Jordan Peterson is not part of an organisation or a company, he still has a relative impact on innovation. He is an inspirational leader, he detects where exactly the problems are, explains the reasons and gives solutions. He is not afraid of responsibilities and he is able to defend his vision of success on his own. His leadership style also implies that he gets “trust and respect” from others and that is another reason why he is admired. He is an example of how to create a movement against an ideology. Jordan Peterson is not really a champion by definition, but he still influences innovation by giving a different path to follow, especially for young males who feel like they have no value in the current society. In his book “ 12 rules for life” he gives great advice about managing one’s life in a way that leads to success. For example, some quotes of his book such as “Treat yourself like you are someone you are responsible for helping” or “Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't” are very meaningful. He tells people to take responsibilities in order to find meaning and fulfilment in their life. He does the opposite of the current “leftist society” by giving clear “rules” that reduce liberties, but that, on the other hand, appears, at least to me, as something that the new generation can apply. Youth need rules and principals to be successful at school, at university, at work and even in the family environment. Moreover, it is obvious that young males need rules, especially nowadays. They are increasingly dropping out of school, and the numbers are humongous. On average, they are twice as addicted to alcohol and drugs than women, males represent 90% of incarcerations, after an increase of 43% from 1997 to 2014, they now represent 77% of suicides in the USA. The postmodernism movements do not emphasize on men problems because they believe we are living in a “patriarchy”. Therefore, young males feel their masculinity rejected, this creates a real frustration for males who are desperately seeking someone’s understanding, Jordan Peterson perfectly understands the position of this new generation of males, through his teaching he gives comfort and motivation to this kind of people. He also gives "35 principals to be productive" in order to have a successful life, principals such as "make sure your goals at work line up with your goals in life" or "don't sacrifice medium and long-term progress to expediency". Concrete goals are crucial to keep on doing the right thing and Jordan Peterson as a spiritual father became a reference of success for his admirers. Indeed, the French Bourdieu with his work on psychology showed that children who have a high-status father will aim for the same success. They are likely to try to be at least the equal of their father. Jordan Peterson is becoming the new reference in terms of guidance for a lot of people. He gives to his fellow followers the necessary motivation to be successful, to become more productive, more creative and more innovative.

However, Jordan Peterson is also very criticised by other intellectuals. As mentioned before Bernard Schiff a colleague from the University of Toronto and ex-close friend, radically changed his views towards him after the intense mediatisation around Jordan in the past two years. Bernard Schiff believes that Jordan Peterson became dangerous for the western society. He “was once his strongest supporter”. Bernard spends 20 years of his life in touch with Jordan, and he explains well how Jordan became the "the most influential public intellectual in the Western world". Now he describes him as an eccentric guy, "more than what he was used to", Jordan is the kind of person who believes he is holding the only truth and he is “willing to lose everything, my home, my job etc.” to defend it. For Bernard, he is not, a scientific anymore but a believer, guided by his own understanding of history, experiences and the Bible. Peterson studied so much the Cold War to understand "why some people would destroy everything — their past, their present and their future — because of strong beliefs", that he himself became a "preacher of order", perhaps without even noticing that he was creating the same kind of beliefs around him by spreading the fear of chaos. Some academics even fear to argue against him and to be part of a polemic that involves Jordan. Some people state that they “would not attach their names to opinions or data which were critical of Jordan". Jordan Peterson sometimes had difficulties to control himself on social networks, making abusive comments on Mishra, a writer for The New York Review of Books, who wrote an informed and thoughtful critique of "12 Rules for life: an antidote of chaos". Furthermore, his leadership style combines with the “Trait Theories of Leadership” is oldfashioned for new organisations, the complexity of modern managerial problems does not always fit with this leadership style. Sometimes it can even be overwhelming and counterproductive to act this way it is not adapted to the right environment. The controversial Jordan Peterson, thanks to his charisma, intelligence, impressive persuasion skills and great communication management became “the most influential public intellectual in the western world”. His leadership style and traits give him approbation in the modern media. Thus, he had the opportunity to spread a non-conformist point of view, he gave rules and principals in order to fulfil the desperate need of meaning and success in life. He made people rethink the political correctness given them more liberty and creativity which potentially lead to innovation. However, his leadership style reflects only is own personality and he does not have a clear purpose in an organisational context. The polemics about his position against post-modern feminism made him very unpopular to certain groups. But from another perspective, young males felt understood about the pressure they felt towards this postmodernism, which tends to reduce the importance of masculinity. Da Costa Timothé 1804491/1

Reference: https://hbr.org/2014/12/research-10-traits-of-innovative-leaders

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_F3zv-hAYs https://lewishowes.com/podcast/jordan-peterson-on-responsibility-and-meaning/ https://highexistence.com/jordan-peterson-develop-strong-work-ethic/ https://www.verywellmind.com/leadership-theories-2795323 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL_f53ZEJxp8TtlOkHwMV9Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZYQpge1W5s...