The Politics of Leadership

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Successful leaders can persuade individuals about the need and advantages of authoritative change. The change cycle can, consequently, be easily completed. Maintain Discipline: This article takes an approach to the concept of leadership which is both heuristic and theoretic. The attempt is to identify the fundamental, generic qualities of leadership as a political process embedded within social processes. I take the elementary question of what is leadership to be a necessary predicate to any effective answer to derivative questions such as how to lead or what forms of leadership are most valuable and thus choose to concentrate on the former. Great care must be taken in this enterprise, to be sure, since attempts to comprehend leadership often run afoul of subjective biases, confused thinking, and inaccurate assumptions.

Being the leader means you hold Over time, that type of leadership was questioned, and a more rational—and, in some parts of the world, more democratic—leadership was sought, although we still see personalist and populist charismatic leaders persist today. We also see leaders who are deified and who did not have this characteristic but who, after their death, are taken to the cult of personality, distancing them from their human condition. This is a subject that knows no age, gender, or physical condition limits. We all have a body, and it needs to be at its best to be effective in leadership. Emotional intelligence (EI) is one of the top leadership qualities needed for growing positive influence. As scholar and leadership expert Dr. Robert K. Cooper explains, “Emotional intelligence is the ability to sense, understand, and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions as a source of human energy, information, connection, and influence.”This conception of leadership also has another very complex side effect: it scares many people away from the possibility of becoming leaders. If you think that to be a leader you must be a chosen one, somebody superior from the rest, then it’s probable you will exclude yourself from that category. Understanding that the heroes, the founding fathers, and the great leaders of humanity were and are as human as everyone else is key. Timewise, both history and the future broaden our horizon and give us perspective. History, because it connects us with human nature, the challenges of power that transcend the ages, the repetition of phenomena, and the overcoming of problems. The future, because it determines the horizon. It shows us those phenomena that are to come, those that are transforming society and life, and the problems we will face that have not yet been solved.

The citizen chooses among people who are willing to enter politics and who combine virtues and abilities, but who will never be able to embody all of them. In addition, each citizen prioritizes different criteria when choosing. For some, the most important thing is that a political leader be a person of integrity; for others, that they have management skills; for others, that they be a person sensitive to their problems; or perhaps, simply, that they channel a citizen’s anger or resentment. Social networks and digital newspapers are our main source of information, and there are no curators to help us define criteria for use. Thinking about the human dimension of political leadership changes the perspective on what it means to be a leader today. It requires new insight on how this new leadership is built, how it is sustained, and how it is supported. It leads us to analyze the opportunities our democracies have to overcome their crises.

Course overview

In general, the formation of a politician is rational, and he tends to omit his personhood as his career progresses. The case of political leaders is more dramatic, as Pepe Sánchez—former NBA basketball player and Olympic medalist, who is today dedicated to thinking about well-being and high performance—says, “The human body is not prepared to make so many decisions and be in a context of persistent stress.” 1 There was little point in asking them to think strategically, to design a more horizontal and empathetic leadership, to allow for team building, or to think long term, because they were basically trying to survive from day to day.