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Strong Leaders Need Heart
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Strong
Leaders Need Heart
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by
Robert Shetterly
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There is a theory that difficult times produce leaders of substance, even leaders
of greatness. One thinks of how Winston Churchill stiffened the backbone of England,
and Franklin D. Roosevelt clarified the energy and spirit of America. Many people
were quick to trumpet that George Bush had risen to the historical moment after
Sept. 11, become a man and leader beyond what anyone could have hoped or predicted.
Here was a man decisive, they said, and stalwart — a man Americans could trust
to summon the general will and the political might to confront a great challenge.
As Americans we all like to believe in our unique proclivity to reinvention. In
fact, Bush, as a born-again Christian, must certainly hold such a belief. But
most of us know that by the time one is in middle age, the vicissitudes of one’s
life, one’s habits and passions have coalesced into a character that is unlikely
to alter significantly. And, sadly, we are learning now that Bush is indeed the
same “W” that he was before, that his brief Lincolnesque (or should we say Napoleonic?
) moment was a mirage.
It makes me uneasy to hear a person’s intelligence denigrated or mocked, as though
intelligence should be the measure of the person. Smart people can be monstrous
and foolish in equal measure. Though why the most powerful country in the world
wouldn’t see the necessity of choosing a good and supremely intelligent person
as leader is curious.
Surely solutions to the world’s complex issues require a perspicacity and creativity
of which few people can boast. But President Bush’s IQ is not really the issue.
Rather, what we need most in a leader, should demand of a leader, is a great heart.
This heart should be wise, be courageous, determined and empathetic. Because of
the enormous political, financial, military and cultural power of the United States,
this heart must consider the welfare of all peoples of the world. Venezuelans,
Afghans, Iraqis, Somalis, Koreans and Canadians did not vote for Bush (nor did
a majority of Americans) but all have fates concerned with his character. For
that matter, so do parula warblers, orb spiders, right whales, the ozone and the
Penobscot River.
This heart must be reflective, a place that can be spoken from, that despises
slogans, sound bites and rhetoric. This heart must be honest, must not be a pinball
of lobbyists nor a shill of corporations.
Bush is fond of saying we live in the world’s greatest democracy. The heart of
the leader of such a place should strive to be the world’s most democratic heart.
And this heart must not be secretive. Secrets breed distrust in the people and
demonstrate a profound lack of respect for the people. If a democratic leader
does not feel comfortable sharing the truth with the people who elected him or
her, that person should resign. The people are ultimately responsible for the
government and the actions it takes, the future it envisions, the history it writes.
They cannot fulfill their duty if they don’t know the truth.
Great hearts know that no person can be written off, all are equally valuable,
there is no such thing as collateral damage. Great hearts love children and endlessly
scheme to protect the future from the greediness of the present.
Especially, though, hearts must have peace at their core: violence must be the
moral burden of last resort.
People said frequently about Bill Clinton that he had a startling ability to compartmentalize,
that he could segregate issues and problems —
personal and political — into discrete packages so that he could focus his attention
on them one at a time. Obviously, this is both a strength and a weakness. I’m
not sure why anyone was surprised or impressed. Compartmentalization is part of
the American character. We attack failings in other cultures while ignoring our
own. Condemn revolutions by oppressed peoples, aiding the oppressors because popular
revolutions cut into corporate profits. Get teary-eyed singing “America the Beautiful”
while poisoning the land and desecrating the aesthetics. The myth of ourselves
is so strong and dear to us that we refuse to allow it into the same part of our
consciousness that enables our behavior.
James Baldwin, one of America’s greatest writers on race and culture, once said,
“People who shut their eyes to reality invite their own destruction, and anyone
who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is
dead turns himself into a monster.” True leadership emerges from the constant
effort to bridge the gap between the ideal and the practice. The strength to resist
the pressure to give lip service to the ideal while committing the atrocious must
come from deep in the heart. Most of us know in that heart’s depth that America’s
lopsided exploitation of the world’s resources is egregious and immoral. But we
repress this knowledge either with a sense of entitlement or with an unwillingness
to contemplate lessening our privileged lifestyle.
Maintaining the dichotomy between our ideals and our greediness leads to a kind
of national insanity, a self-hatred that we try to consume our way out of and
that may destroy us and everyone else. Metaphorically, I think it is a cruel irony
that the obscure and secretive heart that seems to control most of what our government
does, Dick Cheney’s, requires a pacemaker.
Robert Shetterly is an artist who lives in Brooksville, Maine.
©2002 Bangor Daily News
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