I/we will be so happy to see the end, next Tuesday, to the elections. The attack ads have attacked us as well. The sad fact is, they say the ads work. Doesn’t that reflect shame on the electorate? The so-called “citizens” who can be driven by something other than a brain that has been prepared for making intelligent decisions? Yes. The “other” thing is probably an ideology impervious to reason, critical thinking, knowledge, and susceptible to demagoguery, prejudice, custom and habit.Two candidates for governor in Colorado debated the other day. I discerned a critical difference between them, and I hope others could see it as well.
The Republican candidate laid out his case. He was a good man, with a large family, tied to the state–he’d just bought his burial plots here. He was a dairy farmer and held many management positions in his business life, a horseman who believed he sat tall in the saddle and kept a tight grip on the reins. I saw the gist being he was a strong manager who would take that approach to the chief state executive’s office.
On the Democratic side, the candidate was also a good man with a large family of generations here. He is the chief attorney for the state and has prosecuted in thousands of cases. He said he would do what politicians must do, look to the future with the policies he would set and he would do that by consulting with the top brains in the state on each issue, and convene as many as he could find to discuss the problems confronting the people and government of this state and solve them.
The main function of leadership is seen in each portrayal from two different perspectives. Substantive differences of style, operational differences in procedures.
In my view, the contrast is the difference between progressive and conservative approaches. The one says I am a strong central manager, the chief decider, as I worked in business to be successful with my hands holding a tight rein. The other says we must all participate and deliberate and solve our problems working together toward a consensus (generally accepted agreement) on what policies will lead to a bright future for the people of this state.
That’s what I heard. I heard the basic autocratic approach up against the basic democratic approach.
The former will appeal to those who want to elect a person to do his job making decisions he thinks best for the people of this state and let me pursue my own ends. “That’s what we elect him for. Don’t bother me with all the details; just get it done. I have my own affairs that concern me.”
The latter will appeal to those who need to feel that we have a participatory democracy, who need to know the details of proposals, the problem analysis, the possible alternative solutions, the pros and cons of each, the best of all possible solutions, and how that conclusion will be implemented. And the whole process was originated and overseen by the best and brightest thinkers from all walks of life, as well as being reported to the mass media which will keep all citizens informed.
We have a president of the U.S.A. who behaved more as an autocrat, a (self-styled) decider-in-chief. The manager who calls all the “shots”.
In one parallel demonstration, the difference between Adolf Hitler and General Eisenhower (WWII) was detailed in one study I read concluding that where Hitler dictated to his generals and armed forces what they were to do, overriding much of their input, Gen. Eisenhower carried out top-level discussions among all his generals and their subordinates to settle the battle plans. The discussion method contributed to the defeat of the dictatorial method.
CONCLUSION
We must be certain to elect people who give evidence of having a deliberative mind, for that, to me, is the chief qualification for leadership.
