Strong leaders, weak leaders

Something that happened in my life this week cemented something in my mind that I'd been thinking about, but not really explicitly stated to myself.

The difference between strong and weak leaders is, in part, how they deal with criticism.

Strong leaders have their goals in mind. The goals are firm, they know the goals are good, they can articulate the justification for those goals. When someone criticizes them, they follow one of three roads:

1. They ignore the criticism, if it's really unfounded, and especially if the critic is one of those sorts of people who finds fault with everything.

2. They sit down with the critic and either try to clarify (if they think they've been misunderstood) or try to come to some kind of compromise. Or convince the critic that he or she is wrong, based on facts.

3. If there really is a problem, they own up to it.

It's one of the hardest things I know, when someone is criticizing you - especially if it's the snipey kind of criticism - to stand up and say, "Yes. There are problems with this program, and I need to work to fix them." or to say "I screwed up here, I'm sorry, it will be fixed and won't happen again." But it's the right thing to do.

Weak leaders, on the other hand, immediately fire back at their critics: they're wrong. Or they don't understand. Or they're stupid. Or they have ulterior motives. Or they're greedy. Whatever. The weak leader goes on the defensive against critics, instead of stopping and asking themselves, "Is this criticism based on something I really do need to look at and change? Am I not presenting my ideas well? Or is this critic being a crank?"

Seeing it close-up (happening with a person I know) seems to bring home much more how petty the weak leader looks when he or she does the knee-jerk reaction. But now I also see it in politics: the politics of reaction is bad politics.

We need more strong leaders. People who have a clear vision and believe that vision is good and right and will help people. And who are brave enough and wise enough, when something's not working, to say, "We need a new plan here."

And we need fewer weak leaders, who seem to be more concerned about their own self-esteem than they are about the welfare of the people they are leading.

The few times I've had power- been a leader of something - I actually kind of came to hate it, because I find that power brings a lot of responsibility and a lot of people to answer to, and not a whole lot of perks. And it is really hard and painful when you didn't do something as well as it could have been done, to get up and say, "Yeah, I screwed up. It won't happen again."

I suspect one of the reasons we wind up with weak leaders is that the people who actually take the responsibility of power seriously tend to get worn out by it.

(Which is maybe why, just maybe, term limits are a good idea...)