Political Leadership—Principles or Positions on Issues?

We have politicians promising all kinds of government solutions, programs, and controls of almost everything imaginable: our health, our income, our education, our travel, our security, our energy usage, our consumption of all kinds of things. The presidential candidates’ Christmas message is to portray themselves as Santa Claus, the source of gifts to citizens—health care, etc. And yet some still lament the lack of creative leadership, lack of fresh new proposals, lack of new ideas from our presidential candidates as if all the things government is already trying to do and in addition those now promised by politicians were still not enough to attract their vote. But this is not leadership.

Promising all kinds of solution and programs is not leadership but about promising the many almost anything as if government is the source of the common good, the solution to any problem, and the origin of benefits to ordinary citizens. Leadership is not about offering a supermarket of promises and programs to voters. Leadership is not about having definite views on everything, having a ready solution to anything, having certitude and taking charge of every situation. So many convictions overwhelm each other; they suggest the politician is a mile wide and an inch deep in the politicians understanding of leadership. Leadership is about something deeper than “the issues;” it is about principles.

Paul Johnson, the eminent historian, points out that great leaders anchor their actions in a few, perhaps 3 or 4, fundamental and clear principles. Principles are not issues; they are basic organizers for human activity such as upholding the rule of law at home and abroad, keeping government activities and taxes to a minimum, and encouraging individuals to do as much and achieve as much as they can. We do not all agree on these particular principles but to be a great leader means to understand and anchor actions in something much deeper than issues.

In contrast to true leadership, consider the main message of most current presidential candidates; it is the reverse of empowering and encouraging citizens in their activities. They, in effect, advocate a great proliferation of government programs and controls to do things for and to citizens. They are removing citizen’s role. They are not leading people; they are removing citizen activity by subordinating citizens to government. Government programs necessarily depend on obedience, not intelligence from citizens.

Great leaders have a kind of will power that gives them a defining role and centered purpose. Will power subordinates the immediate demands and political expediencies to a long range sense of direction. It is not a stubbornness but is an organization into a coherent vision of the future which guides action often in spite of the immediate and changing opinion of the day. Will power gives leaders the ability to persevere in the face of adversity, as George Washington spectacularly did, that comes with a deeper, more integrated understanding of the human condition.

Leaders can also, of course, communicate such as to inspire and create commitment from others. They are also somehow magnanimous in ignoring the mean sprited such that they seem to have a virtuous quality not born of political expediency. Politicans promise programs to solve problems but even presidents cannot deliver on their campaign promises. Presidents don’t pass legislation or control the national budget or manage the economy but by promising such things they lead voters to think voting is about voting for such things. So voters are given to voting for politicians based on their stand on the issues or even on a single issue. But great leaders are not selling programs and cures; they are leading by helping us to participate in a vision, to sense how we might achieve the great.

Political leadership is not the salesmanship so currently on display from most of the presidential candidates. If we take the lessons of great leaders we might learn from history, we might seek candidates who have far less to say about issues and much more to say about a deeper understanding of the source of societal good, its sources in human activity, and the relationship of government to that human activity that is constructing the good of society.