Leadership
When Wesley Clark announced his presidential candidacy in Sept. 2003 and was doing a town hall meeting Henniker, NH, I became a New American Patriot that day. I rather consider myself a New American Clarkista tho because I liked Clark's "higher standard of leadership."
While I'm not into having a military to blow people to bits or reduce their cities or their country to rubble, I do like its organizational structure and lines of communication. However, as with all organizations it is only as good as the people in it and the kind of discipline and motivation they have.
There are two kinds of leadership.
One is the authoritarian kind that uses coercive power to get people to do things. This is known as hard power. Unfortunately, it is this kind of power that attracts corrupt people.
The other kind of leadership is about team-building and has two phases of operation. The first phase is the project phase where the team comes together to plan whatever needs planning. Everyone is equal and decisions are made democratically. The second phase is the execution phase where the plan is implemented. This is where the team leader becomes the central point of communications and makes on the ground decisions to ensure smooth coordination with the other team members. It also about getting people to do what they already want to do rather than what they don't want to do. This is done by having a noble heart, genuine concern for others, and seeking the talents that each person has. This is called soft power.
As an organization grows there comes a need to split groups into more manageable sizes and hence the hierarchy was born. While it was often in terms of authority and command, mainly military, that this hierarchy was needed, it works pretty well for any kind of organization. The leadership in any organization can use either of the above two types whether hard or soft power.
It is obvious to me that between the Dems and the GOP, the GOP is a hard power organization. The Dems, unfortunately, lack any kind of leadership at all, but I will give Howard Dean some leeway since he's still at the beginning of his chairmanship.
Unfortunately, the point I began with has evaporated from my mind except to say that should Clark run in '08 I'll be part of Clark's Army. If not, I'm still operating on his vision of a higher standard leadership for America.
I'll get back to this later.
While I'm not into having a military to blow people to bits or reduce their cities or their country to rubble, I do like its organizational structure and lines of communication. However, as with all organizations it is only as good as the people in it and the kind of discipline and motivation they have.
There are two kinds of leadership.
One is the authoritarian kind that uses coercive power to get people to do things. This is known as hard power. Unfortunately, it is this kind of power that attracts corrupt people.
The other kind of leadership is about team-building and has two phases of operation. The first phase is the project phase where the team comes together to plan whatever needs planning. Everyone is equal and decisions are made democratically. The second phase is the execution phase where the plan is implemented. This is where the team leader becomes the central point of communications and makes on the ground decisions to ensure smooth coordination with the other team members. It also about getting people to do what they already want to do rather than what they don't want to do. This is done by having a noble heart, genuine concern for others, and seeking the talents that each person has. This is called soft power.
As an organization grows there comes a need to split groups into more manageable sizes and hence the hierarchy was born. While it was often in terms of authority and command, mainly military, that this hierarchy was needed, it works pretty well for any kind of organization. The leadership in any organization can use either of the above two types whether hard or soft power.
It is obvious to me that between the Dems and the GOP, the GOP is a hard power organization. The Dems, unfortunately, lack any kind of leadership at all, but I will give Howard Dean some leeway since he's still at the beginning of his chairmanship.
Unfortunately, the point I began with has evaporated from my mind except to say that should Clark run in '08 I'll be part of Clark's Army. If not, I'm still operating on his vision of a higher standard leadership for America.
I'll get back to this later.
posted by NeoLotus at 1:34 AM
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