Nerdvana

Lot’s of Trek news flying around and some Trek articles. Thought I might chime in myself.

When thinking about the ultimate leader there’s certainly a split between who’s better, Kirk or Picard. Kirk, the suave young, passionate get your hands dirty take no prisoners leader, or Picard, the older, wiser, more calculated one.

This isn’t about which show was better but more about leadership styles. I work in the development world and you can see this kind of thing every day.

Kirk, who promoted the hero complex. Led his team by pushing everything to the red line. “GIVE IT ALL SHE’S GOT!” faster, harder, more power. Always pushing driving the team to madness. It was any wonder that the ship came back in one piece. Kirk was the first to push things to the line but the last to offer any real suggestions or solutions. So many times you’d hear Scotty bellow “SHE CAN’T TAKE IT CAPTAIN!” only to be met with a “IT’S GOT TO SCOTTY….IT’S JUST…….GOT…TO!”. And Scotty would make a miracle happen and who would get the credit? James T. Kirk. Never once was it “Spock, give him a hand” or “Let’s find another solution” or, hell how about “Maybe we shouldn’t pick a fight with that entire fleet of Romulan Warbirds”. It made for great T.V. but the really amazing part was that his crew didn’t jump aboard a shuttle craft and leave him to his own devices or worse, stage a mutiny.

Now consider Picard. Calm, cool, collected. More directed towards finding a diplomatic solution to confrontations. Things seemed more controlled because the leadership was more solid. If there were problems that couldn’t be worked out the crew helped each other, unlike on Kirk’s Enterprise where each crew member was so busy just maintaining the amount of things they had to do they didn’t have time to help any of the other overstressed crew members.

When someone had a problem the Picard would talk them through it, encouraging them and ultimately crediting them when the job got done. Not the whole “I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT! FIGURE IT OUT!” mentality that Kirk instituted. Overall the Enterprise was a calmer and more peaceful ship without the Kirk on it and I really feel that they accomplished more.

Kirk really wasn’t cut out for leadership. It’s probably why he either got stripped of his rank or declined it. He didn’t want to deal with the “administrivia” of being a starship captain. He was in it for the chicks man and it ultimately showed when it came to the wire, his team carried him. It would be easy for him to blame Bones, Spock, or Scotty when something went wrong. Ultimately though it was a red shirt that would bite it as result. If every situation wasn’t life threatening perhaps we would have seen failure and we would have seen Kirk the first in line to blame or admonish whoever was at fault. But they didn’t fail because if they did people would die.

Picard however was a leader. Very seldom was he on away missions. Not because he was a “wimp” or a “coward” but because he was where it made sense for him to be, in the command chair leading the team, managing the expectations, working through the solutions, making sure everyone had everything they needed to get their job done. Usually when things were at their worst was because Picard tried to get involved where he didn’t belong and it made things a million times more difficult. Usually because Riker was sitting in the chair. Another Kirk.

Perhaps you have a Kirk leading your team. Maybe you have a Picard. Who would you prefer?