ANATOMY OF LEADERSHIP

Among the PRIME QUALIFICATIONS OF LEADERSHIP should be: effectiveness, supremacy, skill, initiative, foresight, energy, influence, authority and power.  All of those qualities help describe, but do not necessarily adequately distinguish, the difference between a leader and a politician.

Ah, there’s the rub!  To add another difficult hurdle to becoming a leader, one quite often would be required to endure the political process in order to be enabled.  Exceptions, of course, would encompass individuals, while during fierce battle, lead (or attempt to lead) their group out of harrowing, sticky situations by showing the way as to what needs to be done to achieve victory or, in a less threatening environment such as a court room, finding a way to convince the judge and/or jury the way for them to think in order for them to reach a just decision.

The type of leadership that I want to discuss concerns itself with basics, likening the concept to parents setting examples for their children to do the right thing.  Also similar is the concept of the clergy reciting various disciplines which in all cases serve mankind and try to guide us all to behave properly — setting a high standard which we should all like to follow!

When discussing the leadership necessary to run an organization, that organization is the focal point, and there is NO OTHER CONSIDERATION! 

Leadership 101 (if there were such a course in college) would demand that the one in charge employs the following guidelines:

(1) Never think what would be the best for an individual, or a group of individuals, or a subset of any other considerations;

(2) Always consider what will best serve that organization in the long run, continually being extremely careful to only set positive examples!   Quite often this involves the deprivation of others along the lines of  convenience and material advantages, but  the one in charge should never lose sight of the only goal  —

BEING FAIR TO THE ORGANIZATION, ITS PURPOSES AND OBJECTIVES AND THE REALIZATION THAT IF EVER IT WAS THOUGHT BY ANYONE THAT THOSE GOALS WERE BEING COMPROMISED — WHATEVER WOULD RESULT WOULD BE A SERIOUS CHALLENGE TO THE MAIN OBJECTIVE OF THE GROUP.

It now is probably time to discuss some specifics!  An organization which features competition must avow that after the Conditions of Contest HAVE BEEN WRITTEN AND APPROVED, THEY MUST BE FOLLOWED EXACTLY AS WRITTEN.  The caveats involved revolve around competency by the individual or group doing the writing.   IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT ADEQUATE proofreading BE GIVEN TO THE DOCUMENT BEFORE APPROVAL, AND ONCE APPROVED, CAN NEVER BE CHANGED OR EVEN MODIFIED — OR ELSE IT WILL BE SEEN (BY AT LEAST SOME) AS A POLITICAL MOVE IN ORDER TO SERVE A LESSER GOD AND BE IN CONTRAVENTION TO THE GOALS OF THE ORGANIZATION.

FOR ANYONE SERIOUSLY ASPIRING TO BE A LEADER THIS MUST BE HIS OR HER CREED, RELIGION AND REASON FOR BEING; OTHERWISE, WE WILL HAVE NO LEADERSHIP AT ALL — A CONDITION WHICH IS NOW EXISTENT AMONG THE ONES WHO CONTROL US — our international bridge organization, THE UNITED STATES BRIDGE FEDERATION (USBF).