Make the Time: Think, Connect, & Care – Article by Lt. Col. Karri Roman, 375th Health Care Operations Squadron commander / Published July 12, 2021 @ Scott Airforce Base website. “… The Airman is a courageous follower who takes risk. They ask questions and challenge the status quo; after all, a supervisor’s response such as “because that’s the way we’ve always done it” is rarely accepted…”
The acts by members of the Myanmar diplomatic community, and other Myanmar professionals and citizens who are refusing to support a military coup, are examples of the bravery and integrity required of courageous followers as they practice intelligent disobedience and, when required, civil disobedience.
A naval captain is fully responsible for his or her ship. Captain Brett Crozier understood that responsibility and acted with Intelligent Disobedience when his chain of command was dangerously slow to respond to reports of the spreading contagion on his ship.
This week I attended a presentation about the famed “Tuskegee Airmen” – the unit of African American pilots that was established during WW II when many parts of the United States officially practiced segregation of blacks from whites. I learned of an example of Intelligent Disobedience that is acknowledged as […]
I am reflagging this article as it continues to be one of the strongest statements of the appropriate use of Intelligent Disobedience in the military.
The Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst holds as much prestige in England as West Point does in the US. It was a great honor to be the first in their speaker series at the newly established Centre for Army Leadership. I was told to expect about 80 people. 600 enlisted […]
NASA’s Joint Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is managed by Cal Tech University. It is responsible for the non-human (robotic) space flights in our solar system and for advancing the earth sciences. It is an extraordinary collection of highly educated, motivated and diverse professionals. I was invited to conduct workshops […]
Intelligent Disobedience does not imply that the authority figure is acting immorally, though that case certainly occurs. The individual with formal authority may simply be wrong for a variety of reasons. There are many other well- intentioned reasons that a person with authority may ask us to do something that […]
What exactly is Intelligent Disobedience? I had the same question when I first heard the term. These are two words that don’t usually fit together. We know what obedience is: following orders or rules or established ways of doing things. Obeying usually keeps life running smoothly. Disobedience is a contrary […]
In the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, Army Major General (Retired) Antonio Taguba and Marine Lt Colonel (Retired) Scott Cooper review two memoirs about torture that the authors of the memoirs participated in while assigned to the Mid-East in the “war on terror.” These memoirs are relevant reads for […]
Excerpt from the book Intelligent Disobedience: Doing Right When What You´re Told to Do Is Wrong by Ira Chaleff, Chapter Eleven, p.159-161 On the morning of September 11, 2001, Cyril Richard “Rick” Rescorla was on the job as a vice president for security at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, which had […]
In my workshops on Courageous Followership we do an exercise in which participants examine from where they draw courage when they need to speak up about a sensitive subject that risks them losing the support of their senior managers. Some draw on values on which they were raised, others on […]
NASA scientists and engineers made a very tough call. They cancelled the Mars Lander mission that was scheduled for this week because of a persistent leak that would have rendered a key scientific experiment unreliable. Why do I say this was a tough call? Due to the realities of interplanetary […]
This is a very well written, engaging overview of Intelligent Disobedience. I thank James McCusker for the skill he brought in conveying the concept to his readers:
Intelligent Disobedience: Doing Right When What You’re Told To Do Is Wrong:…Chaleff (The Courageous Follower) proposes that individuals find a healthy balance for living in a system with rules and authorities while taking responsibility for their actions. By Deborah Bigelow, September 15, 2015 LIBRARY JOURNAL The author uses examples from […]
When it was revealed that officials of the American Psychological Association may have cooperated with the Bush administration to justify harsh interrogation techniques (which the government now classifies as torture), the APA retained David Hoffman, an attorney in Austin, Texas, to conduct an independent review and determine the facts of […]
A 542-page report concludes that prominent psychologists worked closely with the C.I.A. to blunt dissent inside the agency over an interrogation program that is now known to have included torture. It also finds that officials at the American Psychological Association colluded with the Pentagon to make sure that the association’s […]
I am teaching a class at the Federal Executive Institute this week. A former military officer in the class told this joke: An army general, an air force general, and a navy admiral are waging a bet as to whose personnel have more courage. The army general orders a private […]
Ira Chaleff's Quarterly Newsletter contains stories and usable information for those interested in courageous leading and following and healthy relationships to authority.
By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: Ira Chaleff Publications, PO Box 663, Front Royal, VA 22630, US. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact
