Creating the next generation of leaders requires conscious effort guided by definitive and highly specific principles. Shaping young minds to meet the challenges of our world is itself a challenging endeavor.
All successful leaders share a group of clear necessary and sufficient characteristics according to which they function at peak level.
For one, a leader displays organizational ability in the most basic sense. He meets deadlines, keeps appointments, returns phone calls promptly, is consistently reliable. He has the solution to get the job done.
Second, but no less importantly, an effective leader has the ability to speak fluently, articulately and confidently in front of an audience or the public. This value of this last trait should never be underestimated. Confidence is an ineffable, seemingly effortless feature of the personality that is linked to charisma. It’s lack of fear of direct and sustained eye contact. It cannot be taught outright; rather, it must be cultivated and acquired, by an individual who understands that it is possibly in some cases teachable.
Third, every leader demonstrates forward thinking vision. He can focus on an idea and translate it to its fullest completion for a group project. He finds the positive contribution that can be made by nearly everyone in his community. As such he is an inclusive visionary, working to build the worthiness and productivity of others and, in so doing, aims to engender the creation of new generation of younger leaders.
Further, the self - actualized leader has checked his ego at the door. In the big picture he acknowledges himself not as a professional career politician but rather as a public servant on whose mind is the improvement of society at large.
Of course, since social betterment is the higher goal, human conduct must be guided first and foremost by personal ethics. Leaders whose lives reflect exemplary morals, and they are in fact scarse and unnamable, ought to know right from wrong, good from bad, and live by those principles. Ethics in one’s personal life are exhibited by compassion for others, sympathy, empathy and understanding. In the wider sense, the extension of one’s own personal ethical code to social interaction gives us a moral code. Good leaders know how to treat others fairly.
Not unexpectedly, this moral jargon, not having definitional constants, must be studied by political and corporate types. This happens to be a serious core problem. How do we approach the study of moral terms? What is good? What is acceptable human conduct? Can or should and must there be a universal standard of goodness, truth and beauty? Who knows the answer to these questions? The leader must develop a firm, tutored opionion of his moral code
In a more tangible sense, effective leadership demands decisiveness. Often decisions must be made under time constraints. Judgements or conclusions sometimes must be made independently, without the benefit of input by one’s colleagues and appointed committee members.
Leaders can recognize talent. In a selfless manner, they stand eager to cultivate that talent in others, nurturing it and enabling it to flourish. In Maslow’s terminology, once a leader is himself self - actualized at the top of the pyramid, he in turn helps others to self - actualize.
With all of this in mind, little gets achieved unless the leader is likable. In order for people to take postive direction and effect progress , they have to find the leader personable and effortlessly appealing. Charm and charisma are not necessarily teachable – they are part of the complete personality package required for the ability to lead.
A leader sees ideas and concepts openmindedly. Leaders favor inclusionary rather than singular policies and know the benefits that derive from the input of a diverse, traditionally underrepresented constituency. In the academic arena, colleges and high schools now have extended generous enrollment and scholarship offers to non - traditional enrolees.
Most particularly though, this platform of pluralism applies to the policies of higher education and to the policies that shape current college admission guidelines. Universities are seeking to diversify their student body by accepting what have been considered non- traditional matriculants. Many are culled from urban, poor areas and would be normally not have access to higher education. Greater ethnic and socio-economic diversity in the student body leads to an open exchange of fresh ideas, builds trust and communication, and facilitates religious tolerance.
Leaders of tomorrow actively participate not only in their own continuing education but in the training of future leaders and educators as well. They actively continue to educate themselves and encourage others to do so. They remain proactive in the tradition in which they were raised and they want others to benefit from the accumulation of their life long experiences. Devolving to the next generation the conclusions from our accumulated experiences would make a difference, provided our students heed the word.
Implementation and development of leadership mentoring programs is a step in the right direction to foster social cohesivness and cameraderie for the next generation.
Perhaps one day through medical advance and especially neurological study we can learn more about moral sensibilities and the condition of the body. I have in mind not a reductivist but more of a correspondence theory to approach a complex metaphysical discussion.
