On leadership

Mr. Rossbach's comments in the current issue of the Maplewood Monthly [1.5mb pdf] newsletter illustrate an every day act of leadership. His description of the woodsmoke taskforce ended with this:

If people voice legitimate concerns on an issue my normal reaction is to try to help find a solution. In this case, on a personal level, I considered why I have backyard fires and determined I could do without. So, I removed my fire pit. But that might not be what works for you. The point is that we all have to live here. If we are to do so successfully, we must continually be willing to consider the needs of our neighbors along with our own and be willing to work to find ways that promote the common good. [emphasis added]

Thinking about this reminded me of the November 2005 Richard Rodriguez essay To Lead. Rodriguez distinguishes the exercise of power from the act of leadership.

All of us can name people who are powerful in America. But who can name leaders from among their ranks? Whether in Washington or at the state capitol, whether on Wall Street or in some church hierarchy, there is power, not leadership.
...
The relationship of the powerful to the crowd is stuff of high drama. It was Shakespeare's concern: the lives of kings and princes. We groundlings in the pit are not Prince Hal, but in becoming king, Hal learns to embody the character of his people.

In a democracy, we do not elect leaders exactly. We elect representatives to work the will of the people. But we like to think that we appraise the character of those we elect.

Rodriguez' talk of power brings Machiavelli to mind.

In particular, Machiavelli employs the concept of virtù to refer to the range of personal qualities that the prince will find it necessary to acquire in order to “maintain his state” and to “achieve great things,” the two standard markers of power for him. This makes it brutally clear there can be no equivalence between the conventional virtues and Machiavellian virtù. Machiavelli expects princes of the highest virtù to be capable, as the situation requires, of behaving in a completely evil fashion. For the circumstances of political rule are such that moral viciousness can never be excluded from the realm of possible actions in which the prince may have to engage.

Or, we have the American Heritage Dictionary definition of the Machiavellian use of power: "Suggestive of or characterized by expediency, deceit, and cunning."

Examples abound.

I for one am grateful for Mr. Rossbach's contrasting act of leadership.