Rev Dr Michael Spence

0:00This BBC Podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Fall flavors are waiting for you at Whole Foods Market. Cozy picks all through the store, like maple leaf cookies from 365 brand. Swing by the bakery for pumpkin cheesecake, here for a limited time, and pumpkin turmeric bread freshly baked every single day. Sip the season with 365 brand Cinnamon Spice Coffee and pumpkin spice creamer, while you still can spice up fall at Whole Foods Market. Thumbtack presents tile trouble. Every single time I use my sink, I make eye contact with the uneven ground on my kitchen backsplash. The crooked corners eye me and I'm haunted by more tiling questions than I thought possible. What kind of pro can fix a backsplash? Can I replace one cracked tile or should I replace them all? What? What if I just use Thumbtack? I can hire top rated pros, read reviews, and compare prices with a tap, all on the app. Thumbtack knows homes. Download the app today.

1:05It's time for thought for the day and the speaker this morning is the Reverend Dr. Michael Spence, the president and provost of University College London. Good morning. Good morning. Well, I've recently been in centres of very different kinds of power. I was in New York during United Nations General Assembly week and on the US West Coast to spend time with Silicon Valley folk. My day job involves attending the British political party conferences. In each place, conversations focused on the future on artificial intelligence, on the kind of society that we want to be on climate change, on geopolitical tensions, and on shifts in global economics. Throughout these weeks and in the context of these enormous challenges, I've had repeated calls for two apparently quite contradictory leadership traits. The first has been a call for conviction, for fixed moral values that can guide decision-making, making even in conditions of uncertainty. There's something compelling about a leader who takes an uncompromising stand. But the second trait is quite different. I was at a dinner in New York at

2:09which speaker after speaker heads of state and politicians, business people, sports people, and artists, called for a new capacity in our leaders to listen to those with opposing viewpoints. And to work with others with whom they might fundamentally disagree. We want conviction, but we also seem to want what the philosophers call epistemic humility, the capacity and a leader to listen, to admit that they don't have all the answers, and even that they might be wrong. It's not easy to both hold strong convictions and to admit that you might be wrong. But interestingly, the Bible calls for an attitude to knowledge that balances precisely both conviction and humility. On the one hand, Christians are to be sure of the hope that they have in Jesus. On the other hand, the limits of their capacity to know are constantly stressed. Even Jesus at one point admits that there are things he doesn't know, and the gospel writers don't seem troubled by that fact. Here for me is a clear challenge. I want this balance

3:14of conviction and humility in my leaders, but we get the leaders we deserve. Balanced conviction and humility are not things that the political process, social media, and the 24-hour news cycle reward. If I want my leaders to be people of conviction capable of admitting that they might be wrong, then that is precisely the attitude to knowledge that I must be cultivating in myself, and modeling in my work, in my home, and in the community more generally. If enough people want to see this kind of leadership rewarded, and are willing to put it into practice in their own context, then we may well find it easier to chart a course through the challenges that we face. And that was thought for the day with the Reverend Dr. Michael Spencer, brings us to 9-Minute Stoey. Is Facebook dying? I'm Tristan Redmond, host of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. More than 15 years after the social network, a new movie on the inner workings of Facebook

4:18hits cinemas in October. The journalist who's reporting Inspire the Film tells us why Facebook stopped being cool, and whether meta its parent company can reinvent itself. For more, listen to the Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your pods. At Verbo, we understand that even the best of plans sometimes need a little support, so we plan for the plot twists. Every booking is automatically backed by our Verbo care guarantee, giving you confidence from the very start. Whenever you need help, it's ready. Before you're stay through the moments in between and after your trip, because a great trip starts with peace of mind, and maybe a good playlist. But we've got the piece of mine part covered.