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Apparently, I can find a leadership lesson anywhere. This time, it happened in a World War I trench. I have been listening to Angel Down as part of my somewhat ambitious journey to read every winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, including the years when it was still called the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel. If you are equally intrigued by slightly unreasonable literary goals, join me. I could use the company. Somewhere in the listening, one phrase lodged itself in my brai

As a child, I rarely took things at face value. I asked questions. I looked for the exception. I tried to examine an idea from several sides before accepting it. My sentences often began with some version of, “What about this?” or “What if that happened?” or “Okay, but then what happens when...?” The response was not always enthusiastic. I was told more than once that I would be “great on the debate team.” Other times, the question was more pointed: Why did I always have to b