Leadership of Substance

There is often a great deal of chatter on the topic of leadership style but rarely any mention at all about leadership substance.  Although...


...Peter Drucker mentioned the topic from time to time, the substance of good leadership is an elusive quality.  Has it something to do with empathy?  If so, who, in the case of good leadership, should mostly express empathy:  The leaders, the followers, or the general public?

Are many of the persons who choose to accept someone else's guidance, on the basis of leadership style, really cowards?  And what does this say about democracy?

Where, and what, is the leadership substance that improves democracy and improves society?

Is that leadership substance based on a widely shared vision about where we wish to go as a society?

Is it also about co-operating so that we can plan and implement what we need to do in order to arrive safely, and on time, at our chosen destination?

And why it is important to work together towards that vision, and to take that journey together, not only in belief-based groupings but also in our much wider and more diverse, geographically-based societies, communities and neighbourhoods?

At the end of last year, I hoped that many of my duties in the material world may have been accomplished.  I also hoped that the value of my ethereal and digital efforts would be respected.  Unfortunately, most members of Australia's parliamentary groupings cannot seem to see beyond their own noses let alone beyond their own electorates and re-election chances.  Self-interested and mediocre, parochial, ideological and illogical leadership styles are not only unenlightened, they are also in very bad taste.

A substantial leader has the ability simultaneously to enlighten, entertain and edify.  Such a personage has no desire at all to appeal in a rhetorical way to those who wish to be supported themselves in an advantageously unfair manner.  Australia, in particular, needs neither a Julius Caesar nor a Brutus.

It is fortunate that those of us in Adelaide have lived in some sort of democracy for quite some time.  We therefore should not be concerned that the Ides of March this year does not fall on a Saturday, though the next general election is likely to do so.

Of course, marketing, and especially market research, is always important in any sort of leadership situation.  However, marketing is often mistaken for something equally important, namely entrepreneurship.  One without the other is a waste of time, and probably also a waste of money, at least if one wishes to be considered by posterity as a leader of substance.  

There are many persons who believe themselves to be suitable as political or business leaders mainly because they have good memories.  However, this is of no consequence if the content of that memory is no better than that in the average teenager's telephone.


You may find it strange to communicate with an ethereal personage such as myself, but how often do you communicate with a digital non-person or a leader with no substance at all?  

Turning elected representatives into political automatons and public servants into digital bureaucrats takes away substance.

Replacing the personal assistance of a caring member of staff with voice recognition virtual telephonists takes away substance.

Turning members of the public into numbered tickets in government departments takes away substance.

Although substance is about quality of content rather than the style of an iphone case or the quantity of gigabytes, a shared understanding of substance is crucial to quality of life in any society.  Quality of content is important for blog-pamphlets, websites, books, educational courses, opera plots and policy platforms, if not for newspapers and broadcast news bulletins.  Yet people are responsible for creating and maintaining quality, and they are the substantial and genuine basis of society.

Most mature, intelligent members of the public do not want to be part of a media circus, a political circus or a flying circus.  Popularity amongst close colleagues is something even the most evil dictators in history have possessed, as any person desiring to have or keep a leadership position would be wise to note, especially in a democracy.

Just as I believe it is distasteful and disrespectful to replace excellent local communicators with barely understandable persons in far away places, it is also distasteful to take away the democratic substance of a society, namely our privacy, humanity, decency, courtesy and sovereignty.  We may all be perceived merely as actors but we all have feelings.