Sunday, September 07, 2008

Characteristics, Limitations, and Heritage in the Political Leader

I've been thinking some about how might a person become a political leader. This has been on my mind due in large part to trying to further understand my tendency towards holding a dynamic that balances strong leadership and strong deep relationships. These two, in my mind, tend to be at odds with one another. If one is to be a political leader, it seems by necessity that their relationships must be less deep than that of a person who desires not political leadership. This is justified by the fact that a leader really must understand the people they are leading. If the person is leading millions, such as with a senator or president, then they need to know what the people are thinking. This task is impossible without using representatives that give the leader insight into what the people think.

Now, one could say that deep relationships could then exist with the representatives, but that seems unlikely if the representatives main role is to relay accurate information. Sure, this could be done in a manner respective to one's humanity in that it would be more than simply information relay, but the relationship between the leader and the representative would not be of the form of what could be between a non-leader citizen and his fellow non-leader citizen friends, where the relationship would be defined by sharing what is more individually-personal with one another. The representative and the leader would have a relationship based on talking about and understanding the populace they are representing; individually-personal information would be rarely spoken of.

And so, I seem to define "deep relationships" as being those in which two people share their individually-personal thoughts with one another; thoughts that do not hinge on others, but entirely on themselves.

Many balk towards leading politically if it necessitates an absence of such "deep relationships," but that topic, which involves the origins of emotions, is for another time.

Now that a basic understanding of the relational dynamics of political leaders has been set in place, I will go back to the original question: how might a person become a political leader? Well, in my thoughts, I believe that it takes at least a couple of things. The first, is one's mindset. Leaders tend to have mindsets in the following ways: strong awareness towards systems, unemotional (in the pop-culture sense of the word), analytical leanings toward broadly-arching patterns. The second seems to be from one's heritage. It is very difficult for one to differ from the way one was brought up. Children tend to reflect their parents, and so if they are of political leaders, then they are prone to have qualities that predispose them also towards political leadership in the future.

I've thought a lot about mindsets in the past, so it is little news to me about what my mindsets are. Considering heritage, I decided to come back to what could be seen as strengths for future pursuits.

Ancestral Traits / Dynamics:

  • Dynamic: Reason and Emotion
    • Strong in depth of reason
    • Weak in depth of emotion
  • Strong System Awareness
    • Strong general understanding of groups of at least ~100 people\
    • Strong analytical ability of organizational matters / issues
  • Political Intelligence
    • Ability to represent groups of at least ~100 people
    • Ability to track political dynamics of small groups
  • Dynamic: Above the People (impersonal) and With the People (personal)
    • Strong in being above the people
    • Moderate in being with the people

After considering these, I came to realize that what inhibits me from being able to lead greater numbers of people, is likely the desire to maintain the dynamic of being above the people I am leading, while with them at the same time. Human brain capacity can only hold so much. Time is also not eternal. Increasing the number of people one is personal with will only lead to noticing generalities, and time will limit the number of people one can get to know on a personal level. This will all be very important in understanding potentials for future pursuits.

1 comment:

  1. I don't know if I agree with your assertion that strong leadership is at odds with strong emotion. I think that some leaders lead from a very emotional standpoint, while others lead from a very logical approach. But, there are those leaders that are able to lead in a way that is both emotional and logical/wise.

    It will trigger a leader's emotions to see people being hurt by a governmental system, but it will also take wisdom and logic to work towards a way of fixing the system of government.

    I don't think that a leader can know everyone who he or she leads, especially when considering elected officials. But, the leader must keep an emotional connection to his constituency. Yes, representatives under him can help him know what his people want. I do think that a presdent can have good meaningful relationships with his representatives under him.

    I think that the greatest of leaders are those that are able to maintain a healthy balance of emotion, wisdom, and logic. These healthy leaders keep in touch with the world that the common person lives in. They must! Otherwise they are out of touch. And it's not necessairly bad for two leaders to work together. One who is more connected with the people, and one who is more connected with other leaders. Hmmm....

    Interesting,
    Jeremy

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