The social group, in its descent from the herd, has become an intensely competitive, highly cooperative organization. There are two sets of qualities essential to those phases of society that concern us as students of character.
Out of the mass there come the leaders, those who direct and organize the thought and action of the group. The leader, in no matter what sphere he operates, excels in some quality: strength, courage, audacity, wisdom, organizing ability, eloquence,--or in pretension to that quality. The leader is a high variable and somehow is endowed with more of a desired or desirable character than others. As fighter, thinker or preacher he has made the history of man. A dozen million common men did not invent the wheel; it was one aboriginal genius who played with power and saw that the rolling log might transport his goods. The shadow may have interested in a mild way every contemporary and ancestor of the one who discovered that it moved regularly with the sun. And when a group is confronted by an unknown danger, it is not the half-courage of the crowd that adds up to bravery and fearless fighting spirit; it is the one man who responds to the challenge with courage and sagacity who inspires the rest with a similar feeling. The leaders of the world stand on each other's shoulders, and not on the shoulders of the common man. Democracy does not lie in an equal estimate of men's abilities and worth; it is in the recognition that the true aristocrat or leader may arise anywhere; that he must be allowed to develop, no matter who his ancestors and what his *** or color may be; and that he has no privileges but those of service and leadership.
The leadership qualities will always be determined by the character of the group that is to be led and the task to be performed. Obviously he who is to lead a warrior group of small numbers in a fray needs be agile, quick of mind, strong and fearless, whereas a general who sits in a chair at a desk ten miles from the fighting front and controls a million men fighting with airships, guns and bayonets must be a technical engineer of executive ability and experience. The leader whose task is to exhort a group into some plan of action--the politician, the popular speaker--needs mainly to appeal to the sympathies and stir the emotions of his group; his desire to please must be efficiently yoked with qualities that please his group, and those qualities will not be the same for a group of East Side immigrants as for a select Fifth Avenue assemblage. In the one instance an uncouth, unrestrained passion, fiercely emphasized, and a bold declaration of ideals of an altruistic type will be necessary; in the second all that will be ridiculous, but passion hinted at with suave polished speech and a careful outline of practical plans are essential. The labor leader, the leader of a capitalist group, will be different in many qualities, but they will be alike in their vigor and energy of purpose, in their aggressive fighting spirit, their proneness to anger at opposition but controlled when necessary by tact and diplomacy.
They will impress the group they lead as being sincere, honest, able, knowing how to plan, choose and fight. These last three qualities are those which the members of the group demand; the leader must know how to plan, choose and fight for them. Nor, if he is to succeed easily, must he be too idealistic; he must not seek too distant purposes; the group must understand him, and though he must keep them in some awe and fear of him, yet must they feel that he represents an understandable ideal. The leader who preaches things out of comprehension arouses the kind of opposition which finally crucifies him.
The leader must feel superiority to his group, and whether he proclaims it or not, he usually does. Now and then he is a cold, careful planner, an actor of emotions he does not feel, a cynic playing on passions and ideals he does not share. Usually he is deeply emotional, sometimes deeply intellectual, but not often; generally he has his ears to the ground and listens for the stir that tells the way men wish to be led. Then he mounts his horse, literally or figuratively, brandishes his sword and shouts his commands.
A leader springs up in every group, under almost all kinds of circumstances. Let ten men start out for a walk, and in ten minutes one of them, for some reason or another, is giving the orders, is choosing and commanding. Often enough the leadership falls to social rank and standing rather than to leadership qualities. In fact, that is the chief defect in a society which builds up rank and social station; leadership falls then to men by virtue of birth, financial status or some non-relevant distinction. All one has to do is to read of the misfit leaders England's "best" turned out to be in the early part of the late war to realize how inefficient and untrustworthy such leadership may be. One meaning of democracy is that no man is a leader by virtue of anything but his virtues, and that opportunity must be given to the real leader to come into his own.
