The trouble with leadership

Some things just don't improve with time

The Oxford Dictionary defines “leadership” in a circular manner as “the action of leading a group of people or an organization.” When we dig down to “lead,” we find this: “be in charge or command of.” So, the definition is silent on what it TAKES to be a leader, other than the very credential of being put in charge.

Related to this is a perversion of the notion of “accomplishments.” For example, one could ask Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, or Nancy Pelosi what they have accomplished, and they will all answer with a laundry list of the various titles they have accumulated.

It would take considerable prodding, and there would likely be no further response if you attempted to drill down and request a list of achievements that have, you know, done some good for people other than themselves, their immediate families, or those who bribed them.

Contrast this with the actual accomplishments of George Washington, John Adams, or Thomas Jefferson, for example. Likewise, compare the accomplishments of Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours, to whatever corporate drone is leading DuPont these days.

In the simplest terms. DuPont’s founder built a great company, while its current CEO built a career.

Leadership used to mean having the ability to inspire the people you are supposed to lead. Now, it seems to be more related to climbing some sort of ladder. How else can we explain being cursed with such a putrid assortment of “world leaders,” of which Biden is but one example?

Enter the notion of a “career politician.” Martin Van Buren is usually mentioned as the first such individual who became president of our country. Before Van Buren. our leaders were men who had accomplished something in real life, and then decided to “give something back” by entering public service.

These days, the majority of people who enter public service do so in the hopes of taking something out of it.

No matter what you think of Donald Trump, he definitely falls into the original concept of a political leader. And, that, of course, is why he is so roundly hated by the Establishment, Swamp, or whatever you prefer to call it.

When I was in high school, those who held student office were forced to enroll in the “leadership class,” which—on the surface—appeared to be a fairly demanding course involving a number of papers and a major term project. I had friends who were in this class and was to soon discover that all the apparent rigor was essentially a smokescreen.

Indeed, those happy few who were in the leadership class for successive terms were able to template those papers and projects, obtaining an easy “A” grade, and a nicely polished high school résumé. Naturally, such a uniquely polished résumé would prove invaluable for them to gain admission to the Ivies.

It was no accident that “leadership class” can be understood in two ways, and this was surely not lost on my high school friends.

As to how these people turned out so many years later… They all got into good colleges. A small number did enter public service, and some went into academia. Others entered the private sector, and all of them did OK. None of them held high public office, although some of them did run.

How many of them were true leaders in the Founders’ sense? By my reckoning, none.