“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common; it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.” – John Kenneth Galbraith
John K. Galbraith’s statement about leadership, that all great leaders essentially address the concern of their group’s greatest anxiety, is very reflective of his belief in Keynesian economics. The idea behind Keynesian economics can be extrapolated into an understanding of an effective leadership model.
Keynesian economics advocates a “mixed economy”: it recognizes that the private sector response to a situation may not be the most optimally efficient, but that neither is a authoritative command structure on average. Essentially it is the realization that the private sector operates on a short-term profit, while public institutions are the only ones capable of recognizing and acting upon long-term profit. Thus, respectively the private economy wants free-market while the public sector needs some form of hierarchical control.
This reflects upon the notion of ideal leadership. No one advocates a dictator as the best type of leader. In fact, we commonly view this model as an outcome of selfcenteredness without regard for the group. However, the entire idea of leadership is designed to prevent anarchic gridlock—to make a group more effective at reaching its goals.
I happen to agree with John Galbraith and Keynesian economics. Anxiety is inherently a personal state, a personal feeling. Although a specific anxiety may be shared, it is an intensely individual thing. It leads to an “every man for himself” attitude that leads to inefficiency in the whole. So you can see anxiety as leading to the sort of “private sector” self-protection response discussed in economics that is selfish rather than rightfully taking into account the group. Because of the natural diversity of humanity, there is guaranteed to be at least some in every group—this inevitably leads to a understanding-gap between members, and on average a lower-than-necessary ability to gauge each others wants and needs.
Leadership is a value because it is a trait that in a very human way allows you to improve humanity, in a very natural and environmentally-adaptable way. It is universal.
Leadership is about putting aside natural egoism. It’s about serving as somewhat of an extra-than-ordinary citizen and can be boiled down to assuming a natural command that allows one person to balance the group’s needs with the group’s natural inclination to break down.
I believe scholarship can serve a similar role. Sociologically humans tend to operate in a very statistically backwards way—although each and every one of us professes to be more than instincts, we still operate on a very animalistic way. Irrational territoriality, war, greed, hate abound even though we “know better”. True scholarship is humanism—it is learning for the sake of betting yourself and humanity, so that humans can rise to the potential they have. Every person, all of humanity, share something in common: we all can make choices. Leadership is the attempt to make efficient group decision by utilizing command structures, to prevent natural selfish reactions like anxiety. Citizenship is the feeling of being a part of something more, being self-aware of one’s place. And scholarship is to attempt to achieve the highest purpose of a human: to be fully aware, to pay full attention to life and experience it as best as possible.
