A leader springs up in every group, under almost all kinds of
circumstances. Let ten men start out for a walk, and in ten
minutes one of them, for some reason or another, is giving the
orders, is choosing and commanding. Often enough the leadership
falls to social rank and standing rather than to leadership
qualities. In fact, that is the chief defect in a society which
builds up rank and social station; leadership falls then to men
by virtue of birth, financial status or some non-relevant
distinction. All one has to do is to read of the misfit leaders
England's "best" turned out to be in the early part of the late
war to realize how inefficient and untrustworthy such leadership
may be. One meaning of democracy is that no man is a leader by
virtue of anything but his virtues, and that opportunity must be
given to the real leader to come into his own.
Leadership means neither selfishness nor altruism, nor does it
connote wisdom. A leader may be rankly egoistic and careless of
the welfare of his people--Alexander, Napoleon--or he may be
imbued with a mission which is altruistic but unwise. Such, in my
opinion, was Peter the Hermit who started the Crusades. The wise
men of the world lead only indirectly,--by a permeation of their
thoughts, slowly, into the thought of the leaders of the race and
from them downwards. Adam Smith exerted a great influence. But
how many read his books? The leaders of thought did, and they
extended his teachings into the community, but certainly not as
Adam Smith taught. Christ made an upheaval in Jerusalem and its
vicinity; a few leaders taught revisions of His doctrines, and as
the doctrines passed along, they became institutionalized and
dogmatized into a total, made up as much of paganism as of
Christ's teachings. It is the tragedy of those whose names
exercise authority in the world that their teachings are often
without great influence. For all of Christ's teachings, the
Christian nations plunge into great wars and repudiate His
doctrines as applicable neither to industry nor international
relations.
If the leader needs certain qualities, the follower needs others.
He must be capable of attachment to the leader or his
institution; he must possess that quality called loyalty. Loyalty
is the transference of the ego-feeling to the group, an
institution or an individual. It has in it perhaps the
self-abasement principle of McDougall, but perhaps it is just as
well to say that admiration, respect and confidence are basic in
it. Loyalty differs from love only in that there is a sort of
inferiority denoted in the first. If you feel yourself superior
to the person or institution claiming your loyalty, you are not
loyal in feeling, though you may be in act; you are bound by
honor or love and not by loyalty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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