Last week, Nathan Giede commented on the lack of leadership in the West and the need for our leaders to remember that the most important attribute of leadership is courage.
It sounds okay. I mean, if I am looking for someone to lead me into battle, I want my leaders up front, courageously leading the way. If I am looking for someone to lead a cause, I would certainly hope that they had the courage of their convictions.
However, there is much more to leadership than courage. And, in many ways, courage is the least important attribute for an effective leader. Often, the courageous are also leaders that are willing to charge into situations better left alone.
An example of this was former U.S. president George W. Bush's insistence on a war in Iraq. This has often been held up as an example of a courageous action. After all, Bush committed the United States to a war in a foreign land without the support of the United Nations or many of the United States' tradition allies, including Canada.
It was "we will go it alone" and "you are either with us or against us" blustering that seemed to make the president stand out as a solitary, courageous leader striking a blow for freedom and democracy.
"Yes," cried the American public, "lead on, oh courageous president."
Except, of course, they didn't cry anything of the sort. Most of the world understood the war in Afghanistan and the effort to hunt Osama bin Laden. But Iraq?
That was just the invasion of another sovereign nation on the flimsiest of excuses - none of which were valid in the end.
Bush's courageous actions mired America in a multi-trillion dollar war that solved nothing at the cost of over 3,400 American lives and which will cost much more in the years. Ask an Iraqi if he or she is better off today and the answers will range across the spectrum of responses.
There is more to leadership than raw courage. Indeed, there are many types of courage as well.
For example, U.S. President Barrack Obama has stated that the United States is not going to invade any more countries in search of terrorists. If there is one lesson that the war in Afghanistan has taught the West, it is that such wars are futile. Traditional warfare does not work against terrorism. Other methods of resolution are necessary.
This does not mean that one needs to talk terrorists to death nor sit down and discuss their feelings. Or even practice systems of engagement.
It simply means that bringing in tanks and blowing everything to kingdom come is not a useful or profitable strategy.
Obama has the courage to stand up to the hawks in his society and say that there is a different way. And, in many ways, that is a true sign of leadership.
Good leaders are people with the courage of their convictions. They stand up for what is right in the face of sometimes overwhelming odds. They hold on to a belief in the basic dignity of the human being. They stand for the rights of all.
To me, that is what a good leader should do. Good leaders follow many different paths - from civil disobedience, such as that displayed by Gandhi or Greenpeace, to organizing civil unrest as occurred in Tiananmen or Tahrir Squares to full revolutions stretching from the French and American revolutions to modern times.
The one thing that I think all good leaders have in common is the ability to both listen to what people are saying and to act upon what has been said for the betterment of all.
In this regard, Giede could be right about a lack of leadership.
Certainly in the Canadian political system, there are few willing to both listen to people and act in a manner that is in the public's best interest. Part of this is a fault in our system of government which allows people who are not leaders to be elected under a party banner.
But part of the issue is that too often our politicians think that they are the only ones with an answer. Consultation is often for little more than a show. It does not give rise to substantive changes.
Witness the political party conventions where motion after motion is passed and policies proclaimed but no real changes emerge.
My view of leadership is perhaps best summed up in a quote from Benjamin Disraeli, "I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?"
Yes, it takes courage to lead the people by following. But it also takes paying attention to what they have to say and why.
Last Friday, UNBC graduated a class of future leaders for the north. I hope that they will listen as they change the world.
