Leaders Who Follow and Leaders Worth Following

...Even with its more Pollyannaish elements excised, there is a Whitmanlike optimism in Burns’ theory that the eastern critics have found annoying...

...Brown’s newness has worn off (Gallup’s list of America’s most admired men last year included Kennedy, Carter, and Gerald Ford...

...The activities included aid for the poor, the black, the elderly, and the unemployed...

...in anything Leadership says about Ted Kennedy o r J e r r y Brown in particular-in fact, neither are mentioned, and even Jimmy Carter only gets a passing reference...

...b6 ‘Well, that’s a loaded question,’ replies Brown with a smile...

...That is what h r n s doesn’t seem to reali7e...

...The bottom three rungs are the real basics--food, clothlng, and shelter...

...What does all this mean...

...The tragedy of the Carter presidency thus far is that Carter didn’t keep running against Washington when he got there...

...Since then, Brown and the Republicans have been outdoing each other in trying to parlay “Prop 13 er” into a lease on the White use...

...And so, the challenge: How does one square Burns’ faith in the p e o p l e w i t h t h e a p p a r e n t outpouring of meanness that underlay Proposition 13 and its step-children...

...Carter realized that if half the food that’s given selflessly is eaten at the charity headquarters, and the other half spoils, people aren’t going to want to give again next year...

...You don’t want to pay any more taxes?’ ” Schell wrote his book when Howard Jarvis was still a gleam in the realde lobby’s eye...

...Ladd reports on a national survey that asked people whether “the amount of our tax money now spent” for various governmental activities should be increased, maintained, reduced a bit, or itduced entirely...

...And Carter lacks the temperament of the “transact i o nal ” lead e r who might achieve even such minimal advances...

...only through the give and take of conflicting ideas do leaders and followers learn about each other and themselves...

...Very simply, it means that in revolting against higher taxes, Americans are not selfishly repudiating the welfare state...

...But give a person a full stomach, a roof over his head, and a cocoon of family or friends (describe the average American, that is), and he will be ripe to go further up the ladder...

...Blessed with “empathy-the vital leadership quality of entering into a n o t h e r person’s f e e l i n g s and perspectives,” the transforming leader nBt only recognizes and exploits existing needs, but “looks for potential motives in followers, seeks to satisfy higher needs, and engages the full person...

...The hero of Burns’book, then, is the FDR, the Mao, the Luther-the leader who appeals to people not as they were or are but as they might be...

...In no case aid less than 63 per cent favor increased or continued spending, and for all but that one (welfare), support ranged from 72 per cent to 97 per cent...

...Michael Nelson is a contributing editor of The Washington Monthly anda professor qf political science at Vanderbilt...

...A good example of what Burns is talking about is found in Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.’s recent biography of Robert Kennedy...

...Yet Jimmy Carter is still the politician most attuned to the peoplemore than Brown, the Republicans, and even Kennedy...

...Machiavelli’s practical advice was not at all practical,” Burns writes...

...Most remarkable, the leader himself is transformed, moved by and with his people “to higher levels of motivation and morality...

...the needs and expectations ‘in here’-in the legislative, administrative, or judicial policy-making entity-are familiar, intimate, palpable...

...similarly voters are thought to judge candidates on the basis of laws enacted, not laws efficiently implemented...

...rebuilding rundown cities...

...Burns’ first lesson is that those who seek power for its own sake, and thus change with the public’s every flicker of mood, ultimately fail even their own ambitions...

...It is also what Jimmy Carter at one time did Seem to realize-and why he may still have the opportunity to become the greatest transforming leader of our time...

...since when is familiarity a lia b i 1 it y?) . But if our journalistic elders don’t have the answer, there is a political scientist who does...

...You would think that a man who has observed the ability of sermons to end sin would know better, but apparently not...

...a sense of security and safety from harm...

...In this view, the true leader doesn’t fool with old programs, he Fstarts new ones...

...But the Republicans, with their something-for-everyone-fornothing Kemp-Roth bill (that’s the one that would raise government revenues while lowering taxes drastically) have failed as miserably as Brown...

...How do YOU know I don’t?’ “‘Pretty soon no one is going to be able to afford a house except the rich,’ a woman chimes in...

...The wisdom in Maslow’s theory is not its lose-colored assumption that every day in every way we are getting better and better...

...urns supports this argument with the theories of psychologist Abraham Maslow...

...As a result, he has achieved next to nothing...

...People still are arguing about who elected Carter, but there is little doubt about what elected him: his promise to make the government work better, Thus, if 1 may use the oversimple example of a charity food drive, for Burns the transforming mission would be to get people to give selflessly...

...Whatever the reasons, rather than rally the anti-bureaucratic popular feelings he had tapped during the campaign (as Andrew Jackson did in an era of much more primitive communications), Carter has dealt with Washington on Washington’s terms, seeking the kind of incremental reform t h a t Washingtonians are always willing to support because it doesn’t really threaten them...

...Before answering, people were admonished to “bear in mind that sooner or later all government spending has to be taken care of out of the taxes you and other Americans pay...

...as Burns points out, when you are in Washington, “Needs and aspirations ‘out there’seem inchoate, remote, fugitive, opaque...

...And who are held in greater contempt by citizens than would-be leaders who, like the French revolutionary hearing the crowd rush by, jump up every time a new poll comes out and shout: “There goes the mob...

...Inevitably, there will be occasions when people slide back down t h e ladder of needs into surliness-when their security is threatened by unemployment or lowered property values, for examplebut they probably are not going to stay at that level for long, or remember fondly the Browns who played to their darker side while they were there...

...But even their brand of leadership cannot succeed permanently...

...I must follow them...

...And why is Jerry Brown, the quintessential panderer to the politics of selfishness, doing so poorly-barely ten per cent against Kennedy and Jimmy Carter in the latest Gallup Op-ed page readers have been amply exposed to the kinds of shallow solutions the columnists and commentators are offering to this riddle...

...polls...

...Remarkably, this support was uniform across class lines...

...Why don’t you support a good property-tax relief bill?’ one of the men with a mixture of nervousness and atger...

...Instead it comes from an attentive reading of what Burns tells us about leadership in general, drawing on classical philosophy, humanistic psychology, and a wealth of historical examples that range from Moses to Mao...

...What’s all this about?’Brown asks...

...According to Maslow, human nature consists of a ladder of needs...

...A child of the New Deal, Burns seems to share the prejudice, best expressed by DeGaulle, that trying to lead the bureaucracy is mere “quarter-master business...

...he had no way of nlJ$,ving that the kind of protesters Brown bantered away would later put Proposition 13 on the ballot and pass it by two-to-one...

...it is the understanding that we have the potential to get better...

...and a feeling of belonging...

...1 am their leader...

...Jerry Brown clearly shares something of the latter attitude, which explains, I think, why his national constituency is eroding...

...That’s not the line the pollsters and consultants are putting out now, but it makes good sense...

...They deal with people at their present level of need, giving them what they consciously want in return for their support...

...providing adequate housing where needed...

...We can only hope that he will realize, as Burns does, that leadership is more than knowing the people, it’s also inspiring them by the sweep of your vision and by the daring of your advocacy...

...For all we hear about Brown’s uniqueness, he is really a stock character in politics: the fellow who can’t stand persons but sucks up Pto ‘‘the people...

...Unfortunately, Burns overstates his case...

...Leaders Who Follow and Leaders Worth Following by Michael Nelson There is a great riddle in American His answer to the riddle does not Iie po,litics today, one that the fraternity of pundits is doing its best to avoid thinking through...

...Vital to all this is politics...

...you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours...

...From the arguments of Leadership alone, then, we would be forced to render a judgment for its critics-what choice does Burns’ model allow us but to conclude that Proposition 13 was a rL-jection of the welfare state and the supposed transforming leadership that underlay its establishment...

...Orville Schell, in the most deferential of last year’s Jerry books, tells what happened when Brown was caught outside his office a couple of years ago by a small group of property-tax protesters...

...Clearly, it is the sharing of this quality of his brother’s that most explains the continuing appeal of Edward Kennedy, not the mere sharing of his name...

...Actually, you can square It very well indeed, though in ways that Burns himself may not fully understand...

...after all, he was their leader...

...After all, he is the one politician extant who is promising to take our money away and spend it on the poor...

...Fortunately, Burns’ theory finds support outside his book-particularly in a little volume called Where Have All the Voters Gone?, published last year by political scientist Everett Ladd...

...There is nothing there, writes Burns, to “bind leaders and followers together in a mutual and continuing pursuit of a higher purpose...

...Almost all of voguish neo-conservatism, for example, rests on the assumption that the present politics of selfishness is a disease not of leaders but of the led...

...Kennedy’s popularity, they say, is an artifact of John and Robert’s popularity (then why does it grow as their memory fades...

...The riddle goes like this: If, as all seem to agree, middleclass Americans have become irreversibly greedy, selfish, and bloated by “inflated expectations” (this year’s political catchword), why is Edward Kennedy the most popular political leader around...

...He may well have anticipated, though, that once that happened, Brown would race to the head of the mob...

...His name is James MacGregor Burns and his book, the latest in a 30-year series of masterworks, is called Leadership (Harper & Row...

...In part, I suppose, he was overwhelmed by the city’s powerful and insular culture...

...Even amid the murderous rivalries of the Italian boot, princes behaving so wickedly and selfishly would win only s h o r t - r u n victories . ” Cr um bli ng monuments, not glowing histories, commemorate the lives of the Ozymandiases...

...Burns nevertheless succeeds in showing why the appeals of political panderers to people’s base, selfish needs-the ones they have moved beyond-ordinarily will be resented, as has happened with the Kemp-Roth Republicans...

...In swallowing Maslow whole, Burns almost loses the strongest argument in his a r s e n a l : t h a t leadership is essential-and will be successful-precisely to the extent that it helps us fulfill that potential...

...indeed, as they want to be if only they knew how...

...Whatever flaws of excess that book may have, the chapters that deal with Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign in the poor and blue-collar neighborhoods-his ability to rally blacks and whites together and learn from them as well-are a compelling demonstration of how a mutual transformation of leaders and led can take place...

...The results: bad news for the politics of pandering...

...A national survey administered Iaqt fall by The Washington Post conclflded that “Their real concern is that ii IS the bureaucracy, not the public, that benefits from taxes...

...he “makes conscious what lies unconscious among followers...

...Why do these appeals to selfishness fail...

...Political brokers, or transactional leaders as Burns calls them-those like Lyndon Johnson in his Senate yearswill do a little better...

...As lower needs are satisfied,” Burns concludes, “higher ones come into play...

...Because, Burns says, they have so little to do with people’s actual needsneeds that, at least in prosperous societies like ours, cause them to save their deepest commitments for leaders who speak to their better nature...

...and other favorite targets of the right...