I Am the Captain - The Third Wheel from the West Coast Midnight Run publication

West Coast Midnight Run™ is a copyrighted publication of Citadel Consulting Group LLC

August 2005

These are the authoritative words you would expect to hear from the Captain of the Starship Enterprise as he steps on the deck of the bridge.

Most of us have at one time or another caught a glimpse of Star Trek, and the Captain of the Enterprise. Some of us have seen him as Captain Kirk, others as Jean Luc Picard and most recently in the latest reincarnation as Captain Archer.

Many would also argue that Captain Janeway made a fabulous entry for women in ship shape form as the leader of the Intrepid Voyager and in thus doing, broke the ceiling for women, at least in Hollywood lore,

as head of an expedition vessel and crew in the finest of maritime and military traditions.

However this article is not about leadership on a science-fiction show crafted in Hollywood on a stage set in the future and CGI generated on a laptop.

It is amazing how engrained the idea in Corporate America and in our State of Mind that leadership, any form of leadership, especially executive business leadership resides

in one person at the top and is a prerequisite for an enterprise to function smoothly, to react quickly, and to successfully engage a changing environment.

This venerable model has been handed to us from ages of survival lessons and from military experience.

From field of dreams to the silent deep to the deep big blue, we look up to baseball coaches, captains of the boat to heroes of the