Sub Terra Vita Chronicle #41: Questing for Leadership—Learning Toward Community Leadership

Sub Terra Vita

By Tim Krenz

March 28, 2016

Chronicle #41: Questing for Leadership—Learning Toward Community Leadership

Leaders lead, by definition. And as the phrase goes, “Managers will do things the right way, but leaders have a way of doing the right thing.” Leaders do, and they do not do nothing when situations require decision and action. Leaders make all the difference, in most things, large and small. Nothing can work without a capital stock of sorts. True enough. Yet, much more than money to fund a private enterprise or a public agenda, successful action depends on leadership, to do it correctly, and for the right reasons.

By these terms, one can measure a function of “normalcy” dominant in American history, one that ensured the transaction of leadership in every period: That of ordinary people rising to great challenges in extraordinary times.

The country needs leadership, and requires everyone to assume it in their lives, at home, in the neighborhood, and in their community. This does not mean electing legislators or chief magistrates, like the president, a governor, or even a mayor or village president. Legislators, presidents, and governors sit too far from the village square to make any real difference. Local officials sit too close.

People do not necessarily elect leaders. Voters elect overseers of the public business, mere custodians of the public trusts and monies. All of these have their place, and importance to the system that both created them and the one that they uphold. What the country, and what communities like Osceola need, come from the informal leadership opportunities: Here, now, close, and very personable.

People choose leaders, and they choose to follow them. Between leaders and followers exists some “contract of understanding,” if not a formal and lawful obligation in some aspect of personal or commercial affairs. Instead of putting people into office or regulating the means and terms of their public service, our world all-around needs leaders in the informal, active, and positive role of helping others, and young adults especially, toward their own roles of leadership and living responsible lives. Individual actions can truly make a difference for the betterment of the world.

Better for who? For everyone , beginning with self, and carrying it forward to others. It arrives at the common denominator for good. Everyone working to improve things, or fix wrongs in their nearby-society, makes all things rise with the tide. This does imply a circular argument of sorts, but it works by the virtuous cycle of leadership empowering other leaders.

Without details, I have learned a lot about leadership, by doing and by a careful study of those who led. I offer the summation of these lessons.

Lesson #1: Take care of your people. By either the formal arrangement or the informal “contract of understanding,” leaders have responsibility for the roles they assume. Those who refuse to take care of the just needs of those who follow forfeit their right to leadership.

Lesson #2: Work with what you have, and do not worry about what you wish you had. Put your team on the field. Good things WILL happen with leadership and plain old hard work.

Lesson #3: Have clarity and focus; and communicate that up and down, so that the leader knows what he can expect and what others have expected of them. Keep that clarity and focus at all times, with everyone working together toward the goal.

Lesson #4: Empower others, to act for themselves independently and confidently, and toward the defined goal(s); give the initiative to others where appropriate; and empower someone's enthusiasm if a clear and reasonable action towards the desired goal.

In my varied experience, these leadership ideas work, and work very well. Take them as I offer them, for leading in the areas of life that demand ordinary people to do extraordinary things in the places they live. You might change the world, staring with yourself and those you lead.