The leadership qualities will always be determined by the
character of the group that is to be led and the task to be
performed. Obviously he who is to lead a warrior group of small
numbers in a fray needs be agile, quick of mind, strong and
fearless, whereas a general who sits in a chair at a desk ten
miles from the fighting front and controls a million men fighting
with airships, guns and bayonets must be a technical engineer of
executive ability and experience. The leader whose task is to
exhort a group into some plan of action--the politician, the
popular speaker--needs mainly to appeal to the sympathies and
stir the emotions of his group; his desire to please must be
efficiently yoked with qualities that please his group, and those
qualities will not be the same for a group of East Side
immigrants as for a select Fifth Avenue assemblage. In the one
instance an uncouth, unrestrained passion, fiercely emphasized,
and a bold declaration of ideals of an altruistic type will be
necessary; in the second all that will be ridiculous, but passion
hinted at with suave polished speech and a careful outline of
practical plans are essential. The labor leader, the leader of a
capitalist group, will be different in many qualities, but they
will be alike in their vigor and energy of purpose, in their
aggressive fighting spirit, their proneness to anger at
opposition but controlled when necessary by tact and diplomacy.
They will impress the group they lead as being sincere, honest,
able, knowing how to plan, choose and fight. These last three
qualities are those which the members of the group demand; the
leader must know how to plan, choose and fight for them. Nor, if
he is to succeed easily, must he be too idealistic; he must not
seek too distant purposes; the group must understand him, and
though he must keep them in some awe and fear of him, yet must
they feel that he represents an understandable ideal. The leader
who preaches things out of comprehension arouses the kind of
opposition which finally crucifies him.
The leader must feel superiority to his group, and whether he
proclaims it or not, he usually does. Now and then he is a cold,
careful planner, an actor of emotions he does not feel, a cynic
playing on passions and ideals he does not share. Usually he is
deeply emotional, sometimes deeply intellectual, but not often;
generally he has his ears to the ground and listens for the stir
that tells the way men wish to be led. Then he mounts his horse,
literally or figuratively, brandishes his sword and shouts his
commands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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