Unselfish leadership is the highest form of community loyalty and is
essential for permanent community progress. There are obvious
satisfactions in leadership, but the true leader must have a clear
vision, a strong purpose, and intense faith in his people, if he is not
to become discouraged by the lack of loyalty in others and their slow
response to his ideals. For the true leader must always be thinking in
advance of his community. It is his function to see what is needed for
the common good and then to gradually convince the group, and he must be
willing to withstand the criticism and rebuffs of those who are as yet
unwilling to sacrifice temporary personal advantage for the common good.
The real leader will not attempt to do everything himself but will
constantly seek to discover leadership in others and to inspire them
with his own enthusiasm and faith in their ability. Not infrequently
this involves the supreme test of leadership, for the leader must be
responsible for the failure of his helpers, and although he may feel
that a given undertaking would be more certain of success were he to
assume direct responsibility for it or place it in the hands of some one
who has demonstrated his ability, yet because of his belief in the
distribution of responsibility as essential for a strong community and
because of his faith in the individual and in the undertaking, he takes
the risk and lends his influence to the success of the other. The
discovery and training of leadership is one of the chief concerns of the
true leader. Witness the devotion of the Master to the chosen Twelve and
his willingness to leave his whole cause in their hands.
The willingness to assume leadership is the acid test of community
loyalty, for only through the development of a maximum of leadership can
the best life of the community be achieved. Every citizen has some
ability which qualifies him to lead some group, however small it may be,
or however humble the cause. Indeed the highest type of community is one
in which there is a conscious direction of community purposes through a
body of leadership which is divided among all its members, so that each
feels responsible to the whole community for the success of his share of
the common enterprise and has satisfaction in his contribution to the
common achievement. In last analysis the success of the community rests
upon the loyalty of its people as measured by their willingness to
assume leadership in whatsoever capacity may best serve its interests.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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