Leadership in an Ever Changing World

            A democracy is any social collective in which the regime capacity of elite is both determined and tempered by legitimacy, the notion that the formation and allocation of values and the decision-making process, which is determined by these values are in the best interests of the collective.

            Leadership of any such collective entails a social contract between and among the elite of the group as well as the rank-and-file.  Essentially, the fundamental group must itself be sufficiently cohesive for a common purpose and sense of values to coalesce and for meaningful, effective leadership to bubble up.

            However, the processes of value construction and implementation must first be infused and characterized by sufficient coherence and clarity such that it is quite well-understood and agreed-upon by all members of the collective as to what attitudes and actions constitute diligent and appropriate participation within the group.  It must be readily apparent which types of values and interactions lies within the penumbra of acceptability and convergence to the common purpose of the group.  The three preceding factors, common purpose, collaborating, and congruence, occur mostly at the collective level; the next two depend heavily upon the individual.

            Each member of the group must have a separate and distinct conscience and independent metacognitive process.  As an example of the importance of collective congruence to the successful propagation of group values, traditions, and goals, one has only to consider the prospects of an effort by Governor Winthrop and the Puritans to successfully assimilate into a population of prisoners.  However, collective congruence is dependent upon the diligence of individual members of a group in fine-tuning their value systems to fit harmoniously with those of the group, in order to further group goals and reinforce group agendas.  It is incumbent upon each individual to ensure that his/her personal decisions, however, are informed and determined by his/her conscience.  While it is possible to smooth over minor incongruities, major differences in worldview between the individual and his/her group can undermine the common and articulated purpose of the collective.  Without a place and genuine appreciation for individual dissent motivated by personal conscience, however, leadership quickly degenerates into tyranny.  Individuals must rely heavily upon their own metacognitive processing abilities (thinking about thinking) in order to avoid this slippery slope.  Once coherence, in terms of group and articulation, and cohesiveness, in terms of individual acceptance of and support for group objectives, have been established, the overall success of the collective in implementing these objectives will depend mostly upon the levels of individual commitment brought to bear by each member of the group.  Commitment is not a passive process; it is a proactive, engaging interaction between the individual, his/her group, and his/her groups environment.  Commitment is meaningful only if it is focused, positive, and lasting.  It is this process which fuels the collaboration the cooperation and coordinated action both between the individual and his fellows as well as between the individual and the collective which is indispensable to group cohesiveness and effectiveness.

            Ultimately, life is with stress.  Just as is the case with individuals, positive stressors increase the focus, resilience, and also the cohesiveness of a collective.  The quality of individual and group responses to such stressors is critical to group success.  Stress breeds friction, thus fueling controversy as individuals or factions within a group struggle to determine and implement best courses of action with which to cope with the stress.  In order for a positive, productive group dynamic to avert serious and lasting disruption, such controversy must be handled with civility, the capacity of each member to accord to his fellows the same measure of respect, which he would normally expect to be given to him, and to reasonably suppress personal ego in favor of the group dynamic.  Just as collaboration and civility bestow upon an arbitrary collection of individuals the emergent properties necessary for accurate designation as a cohesive and coherent group, it is citizenship which allows a group to transcend its membership boundaries and to extend its field of positive influence to the larger community(ies) in which it exists and operates.  Commitment, conscience, collaboration, and civility are again hallmarks of worthwhile participation. 

            All of these coherent, cooperative, interactions, at the individual, factional, as well as the full collective levels, give both individuals and groups the power to effect positive social change.  It is of paramount importance that the would-be effective leader recognizes and accepts that change is a necessary  and virtually inescapable element of life.  It is the responsibility of the leader to identify positive change or the need thereof in their nascent stages and to steer the various interactive processes involved in group objective implementation in such a way that this change is effectively managed, and indeed itself incorporated into the hierarchy of group operations.

            The prominent social historian Kastner has very ably argued that the building of nations begins with initial congruence and resulting collaborations between distinct collections of individuals.  The role of the leader is to understand the various stages comprising this process and to ensure that the process is conducted positively, productively, and at least non-confrontationally even if adversarially.

Social Congruities

Very illustrative and appropriate concrete examples of social congruities and the lack thereof can be found within the following sociological disciplines:

1. Entertainment
2. Education
3. Economics
4. Culture
5. Labor
6. Law
7. Politics
8. Religion
9. Sex
10. Science/Technology

A particular concrete example of the societal incongruities represented within the societal incongruities represented within the sociological disciplines given above is the existence of in the words of Isaac Asimov, quote loints of paw: logical and experiential inconsistencies within an increasing contorted and convoluted body of social contract called law, which must strive mightily to continually adjust to an ever-increasingly complex world (e.g. corporate wrongdoing, global/domestic terrorism, etc.).  Incongruities within the law can be especially thorny.  As before stated, any successful cooperative collective must first establish clarity and coherence of its positions and objectives.  Oftentimes, the campus rules, protocol, and procedures governing effective and appropriate participation within the group must be periodically updated, if not superseded, in order to cope with scenarios not in existence before.

From the time thousands of years ago when most human cultures transformed from hunter-gatherer societies into large-scale, chiefly agrarian and cooperative ones, even simple and basic acts such as burglary, as well as virtually all other facets of individual and collective existence, have had quite intractable political elements attached within.  Entertainment, education, and the other disciplines enrich and empower the lives of individuals as they operate independently or coalesce into group in order to better compete within these more complicated environments.

 References

Higher Education Institute, University of California, Los Angeles. (1996). A Social Change Model of Leadership Development. Berkeley: The Regents of the University of California.

Komives, Susan R.; Lucas, Nance; Mc Mahon, Timothy R. (1998). Exploring Leadership for College Students Who Want to Make a Difference. San Francisco; Jossey-Boss Publishers.