Good Leadership
A Commentary by William C. Shelton

(The views and opinions expressed in the Commentary section of The Somerville News do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of The Somerville News, its publishers or its board of directors.)

This week‚Äôs remembrances of Martin Luther King Jr. got me thinking about the nature of good leadership.  Its content is taking responsibility for things going well, wherever we are‚Äîhome, work, the neighborhood, the nation.

Our need for good leadership abounds.  Any place where things can be made better by human agency is a leadership opportunity.  Taking it generates followers. 

I believe that what defined ‚Äúmaking things better‚Äù for Dr. King, was any change that enabled people to realize more of their God-given potential. He refused ‚Äúto accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him.‚Äù  Good leaders challenge what is, with what realistically could be.

The idea that this challenge should be realistic is critical, because good leaders don‚Äôt encourage their followers to take serious risks if there is scant chance of prevailing. They realize that a movement is built by accomplishing a series of successful actions.  Each victory brings in previously uninvolved allies whose sense of justice was strong, but who could not believe that the action would succeed.  They did not want to, yet again, feel like fools when they sacrificed and lost.

Dr. King said that ‚ÄúWe must use time creatively in the knowledge that time is always ripe to do the right thing,‚Äù But doing the right thing requires clearly understanding each moment and taking the action that will yield the best results in that moment.  It does not mean standing up to every minor injustice, if doing so will inflict greater losses to the effort than gains.  People can get killed without producing any short- or long-term improvement.

What is ‚Äúrealistic‚Äù or ‚Äúunrealistic,‚Äù however, is not defined by commonly accepted opinion.  It is not, for example, the self-serving, unsupported generalizations of real estate developers, no matter how authoritatively they are stated.  It is not a matter of the ‚Äúcommon sense‚Äù of the day. 

Only a small minority of Americans participated in the civil rights movement.  Many, many people of good will believed that direct action could not succeed.  It would only lead to greater repression and make matters worse.

So how does a leader see through ‚Äúcommon sense,‚Äù to ‚Äúgood sense?‚Äù In his ‚ÄúLetter from a Birmingham Jail,‚Äù Dr. King said that the first step in any campaign is to collect and examine the facts.  In 1948, he had written that we must ‚Äúsift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.‚Äù

This involves not just analyzing the evidence of material conditions, but comprehending the experience of followers, having empathy for opponents, and seeking an understanding of all stakeholders.  By doing so, Dr. King understood that the risks that he proposed taking were realistic, because they would touch the hearts of his follow Americans.

Good leaders listen.  They have the capacity to speak the experiences of followers who have difficulty in articulating those experiences themselves.  In doing so, they inspire followers to take action, but they only advocate actions based on evidence, rather than on opinion or malice.

Presenting solid evidence is much more effective than calling opponents names or sending out hateful campaign literature with fraudulent and misleading statements calculated to arouse voters.  Good leaders respect the truth.

They know that they cannot create the ‚Äúbeloved community‚Äù that Dr. King advocated through hurtful attacks on some portion of that community‚Äôs members.  Dr. King felt that ‚ÄúWe are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.‚Äù  Good leaders attack hurtful conditions and behaviors, not opponents.

Dr. King knew that, ‚ÄúHuman progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability.‚Äù  He knew that good leaders don‚Äôt motivate their followers by claiming that victory is inevitable.  This obscures the reality that the change we make will be proportional to the effort we make.

Good leaders understand that real power comes from the group, not from themselves.  Accordingly, Dr. King accepted the Nobel Prize for, and gave the cash award to, the civil rights movement.  He said that we should ‚Äúrecognize that he who is greatest shall be your servant‚Ķ.Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.‚Äù

Our situation today, as much or more than in Dr. King‚Äôs time, cries out for good leadership.  Yet, we all have the capacity to respond, even those in city government.