... leadership is the dynamic and catalytic ability of an individual or a
group to liberate, engage and direct the constructive endeavours of a
people for the betterment of individuals and/or whole communities, for
their material prosperity and for their socio-cultural uplift, spiritual peace
and mental productivity.^2He however warns that leadership can either be bought or sold,
and emphasises that ‘Responsive leadership must evolve from the
people, by the people and for the people.’^3 Weber also warns rightly
that leadership could be attained violently. For this reason we directly
plunge to our subject and suggest that responsible leadership must
live for the concern and the welfare of those being led. Leadership
which is not mindful of the welfare of others is fake and mercenary.
We will come back to this point later. At this juncture I wish to add a
less complicated definition as we use it in civic education.
Leadership refers to being in a position of responsibility. Leadership
plays roles in terms of advice and decision making. It is about torch-bear-
ing. Leadership involves being at the forefront and taking charge of events
and issues arising from and touching on the leaders’ area of jurisdiction.
Most fundamentally, leadership is about service to the people. Leaders
worth their salt consider themselves to be servants of the people they lead.
Many leaders fail to realize this crucial fact. This failure has resulted in
dictatorial leadership, with all its attendant misrule. The need for leader-
ship arises from the fact that we need to be organised both as groups or
societies for smooth interaction. Viewed within this context, leadership
presupposes the existence of formal and informal rules which govern our
interactions. In this case, leadership acts as the custodian of these rules as
well as of common property. Leadership becomes the custodian of public
good.^4- What Do We Mean by ‘Responsible’?
The Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionarydefines ‘responsible’
as :
... having the job or duty of doing something or taking care of some-
body or something so that you may be blamed if something goes wrong...
being able to be blamed for something... being the cause of something ...
have to report to somebody/something with authority in a higher posi-
tion and explain to them what you have done... (usually before noun)
needing somebody who can be trusted and relied on involving important
duties.
We shall therefore discuss along these lines as far as political lead-
ership is concerned. However I have found another philosophical
266 Responsible Leadership : Global Perspectives