In his article, Concepts of Leadership, Bernard M. Bass examines the history of leadership through various cultures and time periods. I found it especially interesting how he discussed how the greater the socioeconomic divide/stress on a country or peoples, the greater the distorted “realities” of leadership are. In my own personal studies of history I have found this statement to hold true. When people are impoverished and have little educational background (due to socioeconomic divides and class structure) they are less likely to understand what “good” leadership looks like. Therefore they are unable to notice unfair tyrannical behavior from their leaders. This creates a distorted sense of leadership for the people and for the leaders themselves. This leads to an even more unjust society with cruel/bad leaders. Another point Bass made jumping off of that is that to keep the leadership in check you must educate the leaders and the people in the ideals of good leadership. I believe that is why studying not only history but specifically leadership is crucial. If people can truly understand what good leadership is and looks like then they can evaluate their own leaders, or their own leadership.
Concepts of Leadership-Sofia
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I really liked your comment about educating both the leaders and the people in order to create a stronger relationship between the two. In addition to that tactic, Hegel believed that the leader should serve their followers, so that they can truly understand them. This would also be beneficial to both the leader and the people.
I agree with your emphasis of the connection between socioeconomic divides and distortion of good leadership. I think this is something that can be seen all around the world today as various countries are experiencing nationalist movements and promoting leaders that to outsiders seem radical and unjust but to their followers seem like a model leader. I absolutely agree that a very important way to avoid this trend continuing into the future is to try to bridge socioeconomic and class divides so that all people can be educated on the virtues and characteristics of a good leader.
Great work, Sofia. After reading Bass’ work I agree. There is no perfect leader, only perspective. What makes a “good” leader varies by opinion, and no leader can please all of his/her followers. It’s impossible. We will always have some in power, some powerless, some wealthy and some poor, and a leader can not help them all. It was very interesting to see that the greater the socioeconomic divide, the less leaders were liked by the people. Makes me wonder if perhaps communist governments have more support of the people than I thought.
When I was reading the statement about the relationship between socioeconomic status and distorted realities also stood out to me. To add onto what you what you said I believe that in edition to being unable to identify unfair leadership, the social status prevents them from having the ability to do anything, even if the behavior is recognized. Often, in these societies their wealth correlates to their power in society, and often means that the people are trapped in unfair systems.