Posted by
Steve on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 7:08:23 PM
Leadership is something that you have to earn. Just because you call yourself a leader doesn't make you a leader. Many an officer in charge of a group of men in combat learned that they may have been in "charge", but they were not the leader. The leader is someone who everyone looks up to and will follow. A leader leads by example. Old style leaders led from the front. It has become fashionable for leaders to lead from behind.
Leading from behind can work. But, it takes a truly great leader to get the most out of those he/she leads. Leading from the front puts you out in front for all to see. They can see you and your example. It inspires those to put forth maximum effort. As long as they can see you putting forth your maximum effort, they will put forth their maximum effort. The problem with this method is when the leader gets struck down, the group tends to disintegrate.
Leading from the back is more difficult. People cannot see you actually leading. They have to have faith that you are actually leading. This method can be effective. It helps if the group sees you have one success after another. After awhile, they do not need to see you lead, they just need to know you had a hand in the planning to have faith in the plan. This method works until you meet stiff opposition.
In the political arena, leading from the front is a good plan. It is impractical in the long term, but is useful in spurts. It is important for your people to see you fighting the foe and defeating them in combat. It is best to do this without taking too many hits. Once your leadership is established, then you can start leading from the rear. You may still need an occassional foray out in front, but for the most part the group will follow your lead.
Right now, in the Republican party, we do not have anyone that can lead from the front. We do not have anybody who can lead from the rear either. We need someone to step up to the plate and strike down the evil Democrats. The person needs to be articulate and knowledgeable of the facts. They need to be able to state Republican principles clearly and with feeling. He then needs to be able to beat down the predictable Democrat opposition to doing anything important. Democrats are afraid to do anything important. They are only going to tackle and try to solve problems that are already mostly solved. Or they will take on the unsolvable problem that nobody can solve. That is why they take on mundane small issues or big issues like global warming. They refuse to acknowledge that regular issues are really problems. They just like to blame white men for creating the problems.
In the Republican party, we need to identify leaders soon. We have maybe six months until we have to have leaders in place. The leaders have to be able to take on the Democrats and defeat their hate speech with class. In the past, we just caved when the Democrats started calling us names. We cannot do that in the next two years. In the next two years, we have to stand up for principles and ideas. We have to stand and be counted. The principles and ideas are there. Everyone generally agrees on what they are. We just have to find someone with the intestinal fortitude to actually stand up and be counted.