Nick 🐾👣

What does leadership actually mean? Whether you are seeking public office, leading a movement or bringing your community together, surely it means more than attracting attention, gathering followers or getting a room full of supporters to clap. Can you listen to people who disagree with you? Answer a reasonable question without treating it as an attack? Admit when you got something wrong? Can you bring people together to build something, even when they have different ideas about how to get there? Think of Lech Wałęsa helping bring workers, intellectuals and the Church together through Poland’s Solidarity movement. Different people united around freedom and the right to organize. Or the Famous Five from Alberta, who pursued a legal challenge that opened the Senate to women. What made those efforts successful? Courage mattered. So did persistence, cooperation and a clear idea of what they wanted to accomplish. Sometimes leadership requires standing firmly against something. But what are you asking people to stand FOR? What will you build, and how? No one person has all the answers. That is why making room for discussion matters. Why seek to lead capable people if you are going to insist they stop thinking for themselves? Give people something to work toward. Explain the choices. Be honest about the difficulties. Show how people can contribute. Then have the balls to stand by your decisions and take responsibility for the results, especially when they don’t go your way! Constantly finding someone to blame might keep people angry and engaged, but where are you taking them? I want leaders who inspire people to participate, can handle a few tough questions and earn trust through their actions. And for goodness’ sake, follow the same standards you expect everyone else to live by. Surely this should not be so controversial! Where are these qualities in Canadian leadership? Who do you see demonstrating them, and what have they done to earn your confidence?