LEADERSHIP

The dichotomy of leadership is how you lead successfully without embracing autocracy in the process. It seems to be almost impossible for human beings to achieve a balance between effective leadership and creeping megalomania. It doesn’t matter whether you are the president of your country, the president of your knitting circle, or the leader of anything in between, the task of maintaining focus on the people you serve, while avoiding a slow change to focus on your own ego, rarely occurs. And, the longer you have a leadership role, the more likely even the best-intentioned people are to succumb to this “disease”. I have even smelt creeping megalomania on myself, on occasions.

     We seem to be entering an era where the slippery slope towards autocracy is becoming

more prevalent in public figures every day: The more powerful the official, the worse the “disease”, and the quicker it takes hold of an individual. Admittedly, some individuals seem to be born with autocratic tendencies, but most learn them in office.

     There is another factor at play here as well. Most people don’t want the responsibility of making decisions. They would far rather abdicate that task to someone else, and then sit back and criticize. As an aside here, I have always believed that if you decide not to participate in a decision, and that includes not voting if you are able to do so, then you have no right to believe anyone should take any notice of your comments afterwards.

     That abdication of responsibility inevitably throws up people who want to be leaders, and therein lies a problem. Leadership inevitably requires some form of egotism and that trait always contains the seeds of autocracy. Successful societies have always tried to create a balance between leadership and responsibility but the problem is how to maintain that balance over time. Basically, how to manage autocratic trends in leadership before it becomes too late.

     Democracy, at least in principle, seems to be a political design that addresses this problem. As Winston Churchill said, “Democracy is worst form of government ever invented……except for every other”.

     Today, we seem to be moving away from the balance that democracy, in theory, permits. As I write, Spain is about to elect a far-right government, autocratic governments, both left and right, in Latin America are on the rise and the Donald Trump movement in the United States is becoming more frightening by the minute. Most African nations are the epitome of the old axiom of “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The movement in the U.S. to re-elect Donald Trump shows striking similarities to these autocratic regimes.

     This current rant of mine on the inherent problems of leadership was inspired by the revelations surrounding the U.S. Republican Party’s concerted efforts to define the future power of Donald Trump if he regains the White House in 2024.

     These writers of Trump’s power definition are openly advocating a total consolidation of American political power in the occupant of the White House. Leaked statements would give the President power to fire any government official who does not completely endorse whatever Trump wants to do. Apparently gives him control over any election results, allows him to usurp the decisions of any judge, and makes the U.S. Department of Justice an arm of his whims and biases. In short, it is a blueprint for the establishment of Donald Trump’s autocratic regime, leading directly to the establishment of his dictatorship. The only consolations in this are that he may not win and/or he will die or, in the good old American tradition, get shot. However, aside from Trump himself, the concept that leadership of a major U.S. political party is actively, and openly, planning autocracy has to be a very frightening prospect for the future of the country, long after Trump has disappeared. It begs the question of how any democracy can protect itself against autocracy if the U.S. can’t do it. Does it show up a fundamental flaw in democracy, or at least the U.S. version of democracy? Does it mean that the democratic experiment established by the U.S. Founding Fathers has within it the seeds of its downfall? Does the abdication of responsibility amongst the vast majority of the world’s population inexorably lead to dictatorship?

     One would hope not, but it sure as hell looks that way.