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Leadership in the Twenty-first Century
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19214 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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7 / 1991 |
2,062 Words |
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William B. Allen
William B. Allen is professor of government at Harvey Mudd
College in Claremont, California, and a member of the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights. He edited George Washington: A
Collection (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1988 [2d printing,
1991]). |
Put aside for a few moments questions of impending problems in the distribution of the earth's resources, questions of the relations between states, or within states the relations between people. Do not anticipate the important drama of new political forms emerging and the question of the durability of the nation-state. Think rather that the challenge of leadership in the twenty-first century calls upon our imagination at the most fundamental level, and let us raise the question of the nature of leadership itself. If as I believe, the twenty-first century will be led by the United States, that this will be the American century, how will that leadership be discerned, and to what end will it be directed?
Lincoln spoke in 1838 of leadership in a time of crisis. Few besides himself foresaw at that hour the impending crisis. Was it leadership to have foreseen and said what others did not? Does leadership convey people to their dearest dreams, or does it convey them safely through undreamed shoals? Is leadership--statesmanship in state or society--a mirror of men's best selves, or a making of men better? George Will wrote a few years ago of "statecraft as Soulcraft," but recently he plaintively demanded to know why anyone should expect government to inculcate virtues, decency. In what do leaders lead if not in virtue? Leadership is a problem for people, not because leaders are difficult to recognize but because we seldom seem to know what leaders do.
De Viribus Illustribus spells the customary form of attention to leadership. It announces itself by its fame. From Plutarch to Cotton Mather to Harriet Beecher Stowe to Winston Churchill (Great Contemporaries) to John F. Kennedy (Profiles in Courage), all seek in examples of accomplished men and women the emblems of excellence that shape leadership.
The connection between individual excellence and public leadership was announced by Jonathan Edwards in a 1748 sermon: "Almost all the prosperity of a public society and civil community does, under God, depend on their rulers ... [who] are in the body politic as the vitals in the body natural, and as the pillars and foundations in a building." Edwards elaborated upon the "strong rods" communities require. Such leaders must be wise, able, and well-qualified magistrates. They must have great natural abilities, uncommon strength of reason, and largeness of understanding. In addition, they must show "largeness of heart, and greatness and nobleness of disposition." They must have a peculiar talent for and the spirit of government, a stability and firmness of integrity, fidelity and piety, and the habit of applying their strength to the
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