Lack of Leadership?

After 19 elementary students and two teachers were shot and killed at a school in Uvalde, TX, a committee of the Texas House of Representatives investigated and reported on the tragedy. I am impressed by how thorough the 82-page report is and with the sympathetic tone it takes in response to the massacre.

Several news stories attempted to summarize the report: the problem was a lack of leadership. Leadership was only one of the problems cited, but it was significant.

Leadership was a problem, but I'm not sure the lack of it was primary. More critical was a dependence on it.

A mother at the site didn't worry about leadership. Angeli Gomez was more concerned about lack of action. When US Marshals told her to stop, she said, "Well you’re going to have to arrest me because I’m going in there, and I’m telling you right now, I don’t see none of y’all in there. Y’all are standing with snipers and y’all are far away. If y’all don’t go in there then I’m going in there." They handcuffed her.

Uvalde police told the Marshals to let her go. She immediately jumped the fence, ran into the school, and came out with her sons (helping evacuate one of the classrooms while she was at it). Other parents were more than willing to do the same, but were prevented from doing so. One, who later learned his fourth-grade daughter was killed, wanted to charge into the school with other bystanders.

We've heard a lot lately about government wanting to control us. Much of this criticism comes from people committed to uncritically supporting a would-be autocrat who believes only he can fix our worst problems. Strong-arm politics have come to America, politics dedicated to a hard-line leader.

I suppose many believe a fearless John Wayne character should have been at Robb Elementary School on May 24 to play the hero. He would have made no mistakes in barking out orders, everyone would have listened, the children would have been saved. But life is messier than this, especially in an emergency.

It was the non-leaders who had the right idea. Ms Gomez simply acted. Other parents regret not ignoring authority to do what needed doing.

No doubt many officers also have their regrets. They had been trained on how to respond to an active shooter. But they had been more thoroughly trained to obey a chain of command. While they waited on a leader, they failed to do what they knew needed to be done.

Derek Chauvin's fellow officers are sorry that they didn't intervene while he was kneeling on the neck of George Floyd. But if they had and Floyd hadn't died, the incident might never have made it into the news. In that case Chauvin, as a senior officer, might very well have made life difficult for the officers for demonstrating insubordination. His fellow officers and trainees probably knew this. Better, they thought, to let Chauvin be his usual self.

I hope that one of the lessons the officers at Uvalde, and we all, learned was not to depend on leaders, even when independence leads to retaliation from a big man. Especially if the big man has a history of arrogance or cruelty. But that's a lot to ask if you're likely to get flak from someone who desperately wants to be in charge.

The Great Leader

In the aftermath of the election, lying awake at night, I entertain myself by going through the alphabet listing adjectives and nouns to describe Trump. L is rich with accurate options: lecher, leech, liar, lewd. But I also added leader.

In an earlier post, I suggest that there is no such thing as leadership. I think I am ready to concede that there is, but it is defined only as an ability to attract followers. Only followers decide who is a leader and therefore the followers have the ultimate power. Position and fame contribute to the ability, but are not part of the definition. Management and coercion are not the same as leadership.

Leadership does not have any moral qualities. Good leaders inspire their followers to do good. Bad leaders may head a parade down the road to perdition. But leadership itself is simply the attraction of followers. By this definition, both Gandhi and Hitler were great leaders. Gandhi may have been better at leadership, since his did not include coercion. Hitler's did, so you cannot compare simply by the numbers.

Trump is a leader; he has attracted followers. He is responsible for a mass movement. And it is a mistake to believe that the worst element of his followers, the deplorables, represent the majority. Good and honest people have followed him and voted for him. His election says more about us than about him.

His tools are not those of a good leader, but he does lead. As Eric Hoffer says, you can have a mass movement without a God, but not without a devil. You need something to fear. And fear is Trump's primary tool of choice. Good and honest people are as motivated by fear as anyone else. As a result, they become less good and less honest and as a collective are capable of great harm.

Many assume and more hope that Trump will drop the tools he used to achieve the office once seated. I am among those who hope. I make no assumptions.

Followership

A friend said, "I've decided I have the gift of follwership." 

He gets along with nearly everyone and is quick to take someone else's lead. Then he makes more of it than the one he follows. He's a good man to follow.

I'm testing a theory: there is no such thing as leaders, only followers. We shouldn't teach how to lead; we should teach what, and whom, to follow.

Followers give credibility to those they follow. Only on the strength of the followers' vote does one become a leader. So it is followers who determine history. Let us hope they follow those who have followed well.